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THE 


CORNHILL  MAGAZINE 

NEW  SBBIBS,  VOL.  XXVIII. 


THE 


CORNHILL 


MAGAZINE 


NEW  SEEIES 
VOL.  XXVIII. 


JANUARY  TO  JUNE  1910 


LONDON 
SMITH,  ELDEE,  &  CO.,  15  WATEELOO  PLACE 

1910 


*¥ 

V 


A* 


v./OO 


(The  rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved.) 


CONTENTS. 


PAGR 


Abbey  Meadows,  The.     By  Sir  James  Yoxall,  M.P 679 

Allen,  H.  Warner  :  The  Seine  in  Flood 364 

The  Real  Cyrano,  '  Chantecler,'  and  '  The  Birds  '       .       .       .       .832 

Atthusen,  Beatrice  t  Good  Friday,  1865 564 

Arcadians  All.     By  J.  C.  Snaith 638 

Arrow  that  Flieth,  The.     By  Claude  E.  Benson 372 

Barnett,  John  s  Sir  Richard  Hawkins  :  the  Complete  Seaman  .       .       .  535 

Prince  Rupert  on  the  Sea 687 

Batchelder,  W.  J.  s  Fresh  and  Overday 407 

'  Becky.'     By  Colonel  Charles  E.  Callwell,  C.B 502 

Benson,  Arthur  C.,  C.  V.O.  i  On  Essays  at  Large 35 

Humanistic  Education  without  Latin 229 

King  Edward  VII 753 

Benson,  Claude  E.  i  The  Arrow  that  Flieth 372 

Benson,  E.  F.  t  The  Osbornes        .       .       .        .157, 303, 448, 589, 733,  876 

Bernays,  Rev.  8.  F.  L.  t  More  Humours  of  Clerical  Life    ....  296 

Birmingham,  George  A.  t  The  Major's  Niece  I.-III 757 

Black  Cockade,  The.     By  D.  K.  Broster 716 

Bosanquet,  Helen  /  Old  Age  Pensions  under  the  Act  of  1908    .       .       .658 
Bronte  Family  at  Manchester,  The.     By  Bishop  Welldon.       .       .       .494 

Broster,  D.  K.  i  The  Black  Cockade      .       . 716 

Callwell,  Colonel  Charles  E.,  C.B.  i  '  Becky  ' 502 

The  Intelligence  Merchant 854 

Canadian  Born.     By  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  ...       71, 177,  321,  465,  609 

Circe  and  the  Pig.     By  His  Honour  Judge  Parry 788 

Clifford,  Sir  Hugh,  K.C.M.O.  i  How  Bondage  Came  to  the  Jungle.       .  621 

Collingwood  Centenary,  The.     By  Q.  Scott-Hopper 399 

Cook,  E.  T.  t  The  Jubilee  of  the  '  Cornhill ' 8 

'  Cornhill,'  How  I  Came  to  Know  the.     By  Dr.  W.  H.  Fitchett       .       .  58 

'  Cornhill,'  The  Jubilee  of  the.     By  E.  T.  Cook 8 

Cyrano,   'Chantecler,'   and   'The   Birds,'   The  Real.     By  H,  Warner 

Allen 832 

Darling,  The  Hon.  Mr.  Justice  t  A  Reliquary 123 

Ditchfield,  Rev.  P.  H.  t  The  Earthquake  at  Lisbon 705 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Earthquake  at  Lisbon,  The.     By  the  Rev.  P.  H.  Ditihfield       ...  705 

Edward  Lear,  Later  Letters  of.     By  Canon  Selwyn,  D.D.        .       .       .  389 
English  Prisoner  of  War  in  France,  1794-5,  An.     By  the  Hon.  N.  L. 

Kay-Shuttleworth 212 

Envoi.     By  Mrs.  George  Smith 70 

Essays  at  Large,  On.     By  Arthur  C.  Benson 35 

Findlater,  Jane  H.  t  Ower  Young  to  Marry  Yet .  236 

First  Editor  :  and  the  Founder,  The.     By  Lady  Ritchie    ....  1 

Fitchett,  Dr.  W.  H.  I  How  I  came  to  Know  the  '  Cornhill '       ...  58 

Fletcher,  C.  It.  L.  I  The  Lord  Mayor's  Visit  to  Oxford  in  1826        .       .  259 

Fresh  and  Overday.     By  W.  J.  Batchelder 407 

Friends  and  Acquaintances.     By  William  H.  Rideing       ....  433 

Ghost  in  the  House,  The.     "By  Austin  Philips 286 

Gibbon,  Perceval  i  In  the  Dark  Hour 110 

Godley,  A.  D.  t  Middle  Age  to— Youth 68 

Gomme,  Laurence  t  The  Tradition  of  London 566 

Good  Friday,  1865.     By  Beatrice  Allhusen 564 

Ooodrick,  Rev.  A.  T.  8.  /  The  Life  and  Destinies  of  Magister  Laukhard   .  270 

Harcourt,  A.  Vernon,  F.R.S.  i  The  Oxford  Museum  and  its  Founders     .  350 

Hardy,  Thomas  t  An  Impromptu  to  the  Editor 6 

High  Tide  on  the  Victoria  Embankment.     By  Margaret  L.  Woods.        .  104 

Homes  for  Old  Age  Pensioners,  In  Search  of .     By  Edith  Sellers      .       .  511 

How  Bondage  Came  to  the  Jungle.     By  Sir  Hugh  Clifford,  K.C.M.G.     .  621 

How  I  Came  to  Know  the  '  Cornhill.'     By  Dr.  W.  H.  Fitchett.        .       .  58 

Howe  o'  the  Mearns,  The.     By  Violet  Jacob 210 

Hudson,  W.  H.  i  The  Immortal  Nightingale 552 

Humanistic  Education  without  Latin.     By  Arthur  C.  Benson         .        .  229 

Immortal  Nightingale,  The.     By  W .  H.  Hudson 552 

Impromptu  to  the  Editor,  An.     By  Thomas  Hardy 6 

In  Search  of  Homes  for  Old  Age  Pensioners.     By  Edith  Sellers      .        .  511 

In  the  Dark  Hour.     By  Perceval  Gibbon 110 

Intelligence  Merchant,  The.     By  Colonel  Charles  E.  Callwell,  C.B.         .  854 

Irish  Lough,  On  an.     By  Eric  Parker 862 

Jacob,  Violet  i  The  Howe  o'  the  Mearns 210 

—  •  The  Lights  of  Jerusalem  ' 846 

James  Payn,  Editor.     By  Stanley  J.  Weyman 51 

Jan  Kompani  Kee  Jai.     By  Major  G.  F.  MacMunn,  D.S.O.    .       .       .671 

Jubilee  of  the  *  Cornhill,'  The.     By  E.  T.  Cook 8 

Karakter  :  a  Symptom  of  Young  Egypt.     By  Marmaduke  Pickthall      .  525 
Kay-Shuttleworth,  Hon.  N.  L.I  An  English  Prisoner  of  War  in  France, 

1794-5 212 

King  Edward  VII.     By  Arthur  C.  Benson 753 

Late  Provost  of  Eton,  The.     By  Bishop  Welldon 202 

Later  Letters  of  Edward  Lear.     By  Canon  Selwyn,  D.D 389 


CONTENTS.  vii 


Leslie  Stephen,  Editor.     By  W .  E.  Norris 46 

Liberia  and  the  Powers.     By  E.  D.  Morel 809 

'  Lights  of  Jerusalem,  The.'     By  Violet  Jacob 846 

London,  The  Tradition  of.     By  Laurence  Gomme 566 

Lord  Mayor's  Visit  to  Oxford  in  1826,  The.     By  C.  R.  L.  Fletcher  .        .  259 

Mcllwraith,  Jean  N.  ;  Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua 820 

MacMunn,  Major  0.  F.,  D.S.O.  ;  Jan  Kompani  Kee  Jai  .       .       .       .671 

Made  Absolute.     By  His  Honour  Judge  Parry 137 

Magister  Laukhard,  The  Life  and  Destinies  of.     By  the  Rev.  A.  T.  8. 

Goodrick 270 

Making  Good.     By  A.  E.  W.  Mason '  ...  94 

Major,  A.  /  The  Thoughts  of  a  Territorial 573 

Major's  Niece,  The.     By  George  A.  Birminglmm 757 

Mason,  A.  E.  W.  t  Making  Good 94 

Middle  Age  to— Youth.     By  A.  D.  Godley 68 

More  Humours  of  Clerical  Life.     By  the  Rev.  8.  F.  L.  Bernays        .        .  296 

Morel,  E.  D.  3  Liberia  and  the  Powers 809 

Nightingale,  The  Immortal.     By  W .  H.  Hudson        .       .       .       .       .  552 

N  orris,  W.  E.  ;  Leslie  Stephen,  Editor 46 

Old  Age  Pensions  under  the  Act  of  1908.     By  Helen  Bosanquet      .       .  658 

Old  Age  Pensioners,  In  Search  of  Homes  for.     By  Edith  Sellers      .       .  511 

On  an  Irish  Lough.     By  Eric  Parker 862 

Osbornes,  The.     By  E.  F.  Benson         .       .       .     157,303,448,589,733,876 

Ower  Young  to  Marry  Yet.     By  Jane  H.  Findlater 236 

Oxford  Museum   and   its   Founders,   The.     By  A.   Vernon  Harcourt, 

F.R.S 350 

Parker,  Eric  s  On  an  Irish  Lough 862 

Parry,  His  Honour  Judge  ;  Made  Absolute 137 

Circe  and  the  Pig 788 

Pastels  under  the  Southern  Cross.     By  Margaret  L.  Woods     .       .     632, 776 
Paupers'  Restaurant  and  Home,  A.     By  Edith  Sellers      .       .       .       .125 

Payn,  James  :  Editor.     By  Stanley  J.  Weyman 51 

Philips,  Austin  t  The  Ghost  in  the  House 286 

Pickthall,  Marmaduke  i  Karakter  :  a  Symptom  of  Young  Egypt     .       .  525 

Prince  Rupert  on  the  Sea.     By  John  Barnett 687 

Provost  of  Eton,  The  Late.     By  Bishop  Welldon 202 

Real  Cyrano,    *  Chantecler,'   and   '  The   Birds,'   The.     By  H.  Warner 

Allen 832 

Reliquary,  A.     By  the  Hon.  Mr.  Justice  Darling 123 

Rideing,  William  H.  t  Friends  and  Acquaintances 433 

Ritchie,  Lady  i  The  First  Editor  :  and  the  Founder 1 

St.  Patrick's  Day  with  the  Pathans.     By  '  The  Subaltern  '       .       .       .416 

Scott-Hopper,  Q.  s  The  Collingwood  Centenary 399 

Seine  in  Flood,  The.     By  H.  Warner  Allen 364 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PACK 

Sellers,  Edith  t  A  Paupers'  Restaurant  and  Home 125 

In  Search  of  Homes  for  Old  Age  Pensioners 511 

Selwyn,  Canon,  D.D.  i  Later  Letters  of  Edward  Lear       .        .        .       .389 
Sir  Richard  Hawkins  :  the  Complete  Seaman.     By  John  Barnett    .       .     535 

Smith,  Mrs.  George  t  Envoi 70 

Snaith,  J.  C.  i  Arcadians  All 638 

Stephen,  Leslie  :  Editor.     By  W.  E.  Norris 46 

*  Subaltern,  The  '  /  St.  Patrick's  Day  with  the  Pathans     .       .       .       .416 

Thoughts  of  a  Territorial,  The.     By  A  Major 573 

Tradition  of  London,  The.     By  Laurence  Gomme 566 

Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua.     By  Jean  N.  Mcllwraith 820 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry  i  Canadian  Born        ...       71, 177,  321, 465, 609 

W eUdon,  Bishop  j  The  Late  Provost  of  Eton 202 

The  Bronte  Family  at  Manchester 494 

Weyman,  Stanley  J.  i  James  Payn,  Editor 51 

Woods,  Margaret  L.  i  High  Tide  on  the  Victoria  Embankment       .       .     104 
Pastels  under  the  Southern  Cross 632,  776 

Yoxatt,  Sir  James,  M.P.  /  The  Abbey  Meadows 679 


THE 

CORNHILL    MAGAZINE 


JANUARY   1910. 

THE    FIRST   EDITOR:    AND    THE    FOUNDER. 
BY    LADY    RITCHIE. 

What  we  call,  and  what  our  children  in  turn  will  call  old  days, 
are  the  days  of  our  early  youth,  and  to  the  writer  the  old  days  of  the 
'  Cornhill  Magazine  '  convey  an  impression  of  early  youth,  of  constant 
sunshine  mysteriously  associated  with  the  dawn  of  the  golden  covers, 
even  though  it  was  in  winter  that  they  first  appeared. 

Recalling  those  vivid  times,  she  cannot  but  think  instinctively  of 
the  friend  who  also  lived  them,  whose  voice,  never  unheeded,  whose 
influence,  always  counting  for  so  much,  was  that  of  the  tender  wife  and 
helpmate,  the  thoughtful  companion  of  George  Smith's  far-reaching 
life  of  generous  achievement ;  to  whom  he  ever  turned  and  his  children 
with  him,  and  of  whom  we  all  think  with  affection  and  grateful  trust 
as  we  celebrate  the  jubilee  of  the  old  '  Cornhill' 

Not  many  words  are  needed  to  speak  of  this  jubilee  which  we  now 
record.  There  is  nothing  new  to  say,  except  that  which  happily  is 
not  new,  and  continues  still  to  belong  to  its  traditions ;  no  less  than 
in  the  days  when  the  Founder  of  the  '  Cornhill?  the  Builder  of  so 
many  great  enterprises,  first  spoke  to  the  first  Editor.  Through  the 
long  years  which  have  followed,  and  when  Leslie  Stephen  was  Editor 
in  turn,  that  good  tradition  has  not  changed. 

'  Our  magazine  is  written  not  only  for  men  and  women,  but  for 
boys,  girls,  infants,'  my  Father  says.  And  to  add  to  this  there  is  what 
each  of  us  may  remember  for  ourselves.  What  philosophies,  what 
noble  utterances  have  rung  from  the  familiar  shrine,  and  what  honoured 
voices  have  uttered  thence  ! 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  163,  N.S.  1 


2  THE   FIRST   EDITOR:   AND   THE    FOUNDER. 

I  am  told  that  my  Father  demurred  at  first  to  the  suggestion  of 
editing  the  '  CornhilV  Such  work  did  not  lie  within  his  scope, 
but  then  Mr.  George  Smith  arranged  that  he  himself  was  to  undertake 
all  business  transactions,  and  my  Father  was  only  to  go  on  writing 
and  criticising  and  suggesting  ;  and  so  the  first  start  of  the  '  Cornhill ' 
was  all  gaily  settled  and  planned.  The  early  records  of  the  start  are 
of  a  cheerful  character — no  time  is  lost — business  questions  are 
adjourned  to  Greenwich,  to  dinners,  to  gardens — meetings  abound.  .  .  . 

I  have  an  impression  also,  besides  the  play,  of  very  hard  and 
continuous  work  at  that  time  ;  of  a  stream  of  notes  and  messengers 
from  Messrs.  Smith  &  Elder  ;  of  consultations,  calculations.  I  find 
an  old  record  which  states  that  '  in  sixteen  days  '  the  '  Cornhill '  was 
planned  and  equipped  for  its  long  journey. 

My  Father  would  go  to  Wimbledon,  where  the  young  couple 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Smith  were  then  living.  Later  on  it  was  Mr. 
Smith  who  used  to  come  to  see  my  Father,  driving  in  early,  morning 
after  morning,  on  his  way  to  business,  carrying  a  certain  black  bag 
futt  of  papers  and  correspondence,  and  generally  arriving  about 
breakfast-time. 

On  September  1,  1859,  the  following  entry  occurs  in  Mr.  George 
Smith's  diary  : 

'  Went  to  dine  at  Greenwich  with  Thackeray  to  talk  about 
magazine? 

On  January  1,  1860  (only  four  months  later),  the  first  number  of 
the  '  Cornhill '  was  published. 

On  January  3,  1860 :  '  Called  on  Thackeray  on  my  way  to  the 
City ;  signed  agreement  respecting  "  Roundabout  Papers."  Mr. 
Thackeray  in  very  good  spirits  at  the  success  of  the"  Cornhill." ' 

'  January  27,  I860.— No.  2  published— ordered  80,000  to  be 
printed.  Called  in  Bride  Lane  to  see  how  they  were  setting  the  second 
number  of  the  "  magazine"  The  demand  very  rapid.' 

<  January  30,  I860.— Ordered  100,000  to  be  printed  of  "  Cornhill 
Magazine."  '' 

1  May  31,  I860.— To  Thackeray  with  first  volume  of  "  magazine."  ' 

Anthony  Trollope,  a  stately  Herald,  opened  the  first  number  of  the 
'  Cornhill '  with  his  delightful  history  of  '  Framley  Parsonage  ' ;  my 
Father  wound  up  unth  the  '  Roundabout  Paper '  called  '  On  a  Lazy 
Idle  Boy,9  and  he  describes  the  magazine  while  addressing  tfw  young 
reader : 

'  Our  "  Cornhill  Magazine  "  owners  strive  to  provide  thee  with 


From  an  unpublished  Portrait  by  Samuel  Laurence  in  the  possession 
of  Mrs.  Wilson  Creivdson 


THE    FIRST    EDITOR:    AND   THE   FOUNDER.  3 

facts  as  well  as  fiction,'  he  says,  '  and  though  it  does  not  become  them 
to  brag  of  their  Ordinary,  at  least  they  invite  thee  to  a  table  where  thou 
shalt  sit  in  good  company.' 

Further  on  he  unites  concerning  his  own  story, '  Lovel  the  Widower,' 
and  '  Framley  Parsonage,'  of  '  Two  novels  under  two  flags  ;  the  one 
that  ancient  ensign  which  has  hung  before  the  well-known  booth  of 
"  Vanity  Fair,"  the  other  that  fresh  and  handsome  standard  which 
has  lately  been  hoisted  on  "  Barchester  Towers."  '' 

Father  Front's  beautiful  inaugurative  ode  also  appeared  in  this 
first  number.  It  is  addressed  to  the  author  of 'Vanity  Fair  ' : 

There's  corn  in  Egypt  still 
(Pilgrim  from  Cairo  to  Cornhill !) 
Give  each  his  fill ; 
But  all  comers  among 
Treat  best  the  young  ; 

Fill  the  big  brothers'  knapsacks  from  thy  bins, 
But  slip  the  Cup  of  Love  in  BENJAMIN'S.  .  .  . 

And  the  poem  concludes  with  a  grace  almost  sung  to  music  : 

Courage,  old  Friend  !  long  found 
Firm  at  thy  task,  nor  in  fixt  purpose  fickle  : 
Up  !  choose  thy  ground, 
Put  forth  thy  shining  sickle  : 
Shun  the  dense  underwood 
Of  Dunce  or  Dunderhood  : 
But  reap  North,  South,  East,  Far  West, 
The  world- wide  Harvest ! 

The  Poet  of  the  past  sang  of  the  may  be ;  the  Poet  of  to-day  sings, 
in  lines  well  worthy  of  their  place,  of  the  might  have  been  ;  but  the 
two  songs  do  not  clash.  The  harvests  have  ripened  in  turn.  '  The 
High  Crusades  to  lessen  tears  '  are  following  on  the  harvests.  The 
world  has  gained  in  justice  and  in  knowledge  ;  and  true  teachers,  wise, 
hopeful,  and  sincere,  still  hold  their  own  among  the  brawling  empirics 
of  the  hour. 

Mr.  George  Smith  has  himself  told  us  of  how  the  first  idea  of  the 
magazine  came  to  him.  He  says  : 

'  The  plan  flashed  upon  me  suddenly,  as  did  most  of  the  ideas 
which  have  in  the  course  of  my  life  led  to  successful  operations.  The 
existing  magazines  were  few,  and  when  not  high-priced  were  narrow 
in  literary  range,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  shilling  magazine  which 
contained,  in  addition  to  other  first-class  literary  matter,  a  serial  novel 

1—2 


J 


4  THE   FIRST   EDITOR:    AND   THE    FOUNDER. 

by  Thackeray  must  command  a  large  sale.  Thackeray's  name  was 
one  to  conjure  with,  and  according  to  the  plan,  as  it  shaped  itself  in 
my  mind,  the  public  would  have  a  serial  novel  by  Thackeray,  and  a 
good  deal  else  worth  reading,  for  the  price  they  had  been  accustomed  to 
pay  for  the  monthly  number  of  his  novels  alone.'' 

We  know  how  successfully  '  the  plan  '  worked,  what  a  remarkable 
and  willing  army  of  helpers  joined  the  enterprise. 

Many  of  the  growing  convictions  of  to-day  were  first  pre-echoed 
in  those  bygone  pages.  I  remember,  long  a  ter  my  Father's  death, 
hearing  Leslie  Stephen,  who  was  then  Editor,  speaking  with  admiring 
warmth  of  some  of  Ruskin's  later  writings — '  Unto  this  Last,'  or, 
perhaps,  some  subsequent  publication.  When  the  series  first  appeared 
in  the  '  Cornhill '  so  great  an  outcry  was  raised  that  the  papers  had 
to  be  stopped. 

Names  are  recorded  of  those  who  used  to  meet  at  the  '  Cornhill ' 
dinners  month  after  month — honoured  familiar  names  of  those  who 
worked  then,  writing  pages  still  read,  designing  pictures  which  are 
not  forgotten.  When  the  time  came  for  my  Father  to  leave  the  Editorial 
Chair  these  meetings  went  on,  and  he,  too,  still  belonged  to  the  good 
company,  only  he  jelt  the  great  relief  from  the  straining  and  recurrent 
cares  of  editorship.  In  March  1862  Tie  wrote  to  Mr.  Smith  resigning 
his  post  : 

36  Onslow  Sq.,  S.W.,  March  4,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  SMITH, — I  have  been  thinking  over  our  conversation 
of  yesterday,  and  it  has  not  improved  the  gaiety  of  the  work  on 
which  I  am  presently  busy. 

To-day  I  have  taken  my  friend,  Sir  Charles  Taylor,  into  my 
confidence,  and  his  opinion  coincides  with  mine  that  I  should 
withdraw  from  the  magazine.  To  go  into  bygones  now  is  needless. 
Before  ever  the  magazine  appeared  I  was,  as  I  have  told  you,  on 
the  point  of  writing  such  a  letter  as  this.  And  whether  connected 
with  the  '  Cornhill  Magazine  '  or  not,  I  hope  I  shall  always  be 

Sincerely  your  friend, 

W.  M.  THACKERAY. 

This  letter  was  followed  by  another. 

36  Onslow  Sqr.,  March  6,  1862. 

MY  DEAR  S., — I  daresay  your  night,  like  mine,  has  been  a  little 
disturbed  :  but  Philip  presses,  and  until  this  matter  is  over  I  can't 
make  that  story  so  amusing  as  I  would  wish. 

I  had  this  pocket-pistol  in  my  breast  yesterday,  but  hesitated 
to  pull  the  trigger  at  an  old  friend.  My  daughters  are  for  a  com- 
promise. They  say  :  '  It  is  all  very  fine  Sir  Charles  Taylor  teUing 
you  to  do  so  and  so.  Mr.  Smith  has  proved  himself  your  friend 


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THE   FIRST   EDITOR  :    AND   THE   FOUNDER.  5 

always.'  Bien.  It  is  because  I  wish  him  to  remain  so  that  I  and 
the  magazine  had  better  part  company.  Good-bye  and  God  bless 
you  and  all  yours. 

W.  M.  T. 

Now  that  the  '  Cornhill '  has  fulfilled  its  vigorous  fiftieth  year,  it  is 
impossible  for  those  nearly  connected  with  it  not  to  look  back  with 
pride  at  its  faithful  career.  The  words  of  the  Psalmist  come  to  one's 
mind — '  Using  no  deceit  in  his  tongue,  nor  doing  evil  to  his  neigh- 
bour, swearing  to  his  neighbour  and  disappointing  him  not,  though 
it  were  to  his  own  hindrance.'  Such  words  most  fitly  speak  of  a 
history  which  is,  happily,  not  ended. 


AN  IMPROMPTU   TO    THE   EDITOR. 
BY  THOMAS  HARDY. 

YES  ;  your  up-dated  modern  page — 
All  fancy-fresh  as  it  appears — 
Can  claim  a  time-tried  lineage 

That  reaches  backward  fifty  years, 
(Which,  if  but  short  for  sleepy  squires, 
Is  long  in  magazines'  careers.) 

— Here,  on  your  cover,  never  tires 
The  sower,  reaper,  thresher,  while, 
As  in  the  seasons  of  our  sires, 

Each  wills  to  work  in  ancient  style 

With  seedlip,  sickle,  share,  and  flail, 

Though  modes  have  since  moved  many  a  mile  ! 

The  steel-roped  plough  now  rips  the  vale)ui 
With  cog  and  tooth  the  sheaves  are  won, 
And  wire-work  hurls  the  wheat  like  hail ; 

But  if  we  ask,  what  has  been  done 

To  unify  the  mortal  lot 

Since  your  bright  leaves  first  saw  the  sun — 

Beyond  mechanic  furtherance — what 
Advance  can  Tightness,  candour,  claim  ? 
Truth  bends  abashed,  and  answers  not. 

Despite  your  volumes'  gentle  aim 
To  lift  the  mists,  let  truth  be  seen, 
Pragmatic  wiles  go  on  the  same, 


AN   IMPROMPTU   TO   THE   EDITOR. 

Though  I  admit  that  there  have  been 
Large  conquests  of  the  wry  and  wrong 
Effected  by  your  magazine. 

— Had  custom  tended  to  prolong, 
As  on  your  golden  page  engrained, 
Old  processes  of  blade  and  prong, 

And  men's  invention  been  retained 
For  high  crusades  to  lessen  tears 
Throughout  the  race,  the  world  had  gained  ! 
But — too  much,  this,  for  fifty  years. 


THE  JUBILEE   OF   THE  '  CORNHILL: 

1001.  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE,  from  its  commencement  to  the  present 
time,  illustrated  with  several  hundred  engravings,  dean,  in  the  original 
wrappers,  in  all  599  parts,  forming  100  volumes.  A  Bargain,  being  a 
remarkably  cheap  series  of  this  important  and  interesting  periodical,  from 
the  library  of  a  gentleman  in  the  country,  containing  most  valuable  informa- 
tion not  to  be  found  elsewhere,  contributed  by  writers  of  eminence,  on 
subjects  biographical,  historical,  literary,  &c.,  and  stories  by  the  most 
celebrated  writers  of  fiction.  Invaluable  to  the  general  reader. 

I  NEVER  come  upon  an  entry  of  this  sort  in  a  catalogue  without 
a  certain  pleasure,  which  the  bookseller's  zeal  cannot  utterly 
destroy,  nor  yet  without  a  certain  pang,  which  his  wiles  cannot 
wholly  assuage.  Habent  sua  fata  libelli!  So,  then,  popular 
magazines  which  in  these  days  one  sees  casually  bought,  roughly 
opened,  lightly  discarded — the  moment's  plaything  of  a  listless 
reader  in  the  railway — were  once  carefully  stored,  each  number  set 
scrupulously  in  its  appointed  place,  preserved  'in  the  original 
wrappers,'  too,  and  '  clean ' ;  yes,  and  by  readers  not  a  few  are  so 
kept  even  unto  No.  599— not  the  least  valued  possession,  it  may  be, 
in  some  '  King's  treasury '  of  the  rectory,  the  manse,  or  the  house 
in  the  wold.  In  looking  up  an  old  volume  of  the  CORNHILL  the 
other  day,  I  came  upon  '  A  Scribbler's  Apology.'  It  is  unsigned, 
but  was  written,  if  I  mistake  not,  by  a  valued  contributor  whose 
articles  on  popular  science  were  for  many  years  one  of  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  Magazine.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  premonition  that 
before  long  he  would  lay  aside  his  pen  for  ever.  He  makes  his 
retrospect  and  concludes,  in  the  scribbler's  favour,  that  he  has 
been  '  earning  his  livelihood,  not  indeed  like  the  shoemaker  with  a 
clear  consciousness  of  social  worth,  but  in  a  relatively  harmless 
and  unblameworthy  fashion.'  It  is  a  too  modest  claim.  The 
thoughts,  the  information,  the  reflections  contributed  by  him  and 
hundreds  of  'scribblers'  besides,  on  other  subjects,  have  fired 
many  a  spark,  aroused  many  an  interest,  thrown  light  on  many  a 
dark  place,  we  cannot  doubt,  among  thousands  of  readers.  The 
CORNHILL,  or  other  favourite  magazine,  has  been  the  monthly 
visitor,  eagerly  expected,  gladly  welcomed,  and  sometimes,  as  we 
have  seen,  never  allowed  to  leave.  And  in  this  continuity  of  life 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    <  CORNHILL.'  9 

even  the  occasional  article  by  some  unknown  pen — the  happy 
thought  which  perhaps  once  only  moved  an  else  silent  mind  to 
effective  expression,  or  the  one  successful  essay,  it  may  be,  of  an 
often-rejected  contributor — shares  equal  place,  by  right  of  inclu- 
sion between  the  yellow  covers,  with  the  papers  of  some  great 
master  of  style,  or  the  stories  k  by  the  most  celebrated  writers  of 
fiction.'  Such  are  the  pleasant  thoughts  which  my  bookseller's 
catalogue  suggests,  not  inappropriately,  I  think,  in  connexion 
with  the  Jubilee  of  the  CORNHILL. 

But  then  comes  the  pang,  '  A  complete  set  of  the  CORNHILL.' 
It  is  to  be  found  in  many  libraries,  public  and  private.    But  of  the 
many  copies  printed  of  each  number,  how  few,  in  the  case  of  any 
magazine,  can  ever  hope  to  survive !    And  then,  even  when  each 
copy  has  been  preserved,  there  arrives  the  time  of  dispersal  or 
dissolution.      What   will   be   the   fate   of   my   bookseller's   set  ? 
Honoured  place  and  worthy  binding,  let  us  hope   (with  a  good 
impression  of  the  cover  duly  pasted  in),  in  some  other  library. 
But  sets  are  often  broken  up,  and  the  disjointed  members  enjoy 
but  a  precarious  spell  of  life.    A  large  mass  of  the  literature  contri- 
buted to  magazines  is  doomed  by  inevitable  laws  to  oblivion. 
One  reads  a  striking  article,  and  says  '  I  must  keep  this  '  or  '  make 
a  note  of  that.'     But  few  of  us  do  it.    The  CORNHILL,  however, 
by  resolute  adherence  to  one  good  practice,  encourages  us.    It  is 
lightly  stitched  with  honest  thread,  and  the  favourite  article  can  be 
readily  taken  out  for  preservation,  if  we  will.    The  inventor  of 
wire-stapling,  which  prevents  ready  opening  of  the  pages,  which 
rusts  and  which  requires  a  carpenter's  operation  for  its  removal, 
will  have  to  endure,  I  warn  him,  long  years  of  penance  in  the  book- 
man's purgatory.    Thackeray's  latest  books,   the   last  pages  of 
Charlotte  Bronte,  the  first  appearances  of  many  a  poem  by  Tennyson, 
Robert  Browning,  Mrs.  Browning,  Meredith  and  Swinburne,  and  of 
many  a  collected  volume  by  Matthew  Arnold,  by  John  Addington 
Symonds,  by  Leslie  Stephen,  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  a  host 
of  other  '  writers  of  eminence,'  are  all  to  be  found  in  the  back 
numbers  of  the  CORNHILL.    If  a  book-lover  has  not  the  requisite 
space  to  keep  the  whole  set  of  the  CORNHILL,  what  a  collection  of 
'  first  editions  '  he  might  make  by  cutting  its  threads  !     But  this  is 
a  counsel  of  perfection  which  few  follow.     *  A  back  number  ! '     It 
has  become  a  proverbial  phrase  for  what  is  dead  and  done  with. 
Many  of  the  contributions  made  by  the  great  men  survive,  indeed, 
in  collected  books  ;  but  they  are  often  prodigals,  and  discard  much 


10  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

of  their  original  writings.  A  considerable  amount  of  their  work, 
and  a  great  mass  of  admirable  work  by  lesser  known  authors, 
survive  only  in  the  back  numbers,  and  it  is  a  shadowy  survival. 
Well,  the  handiwork  of  the  happy  shoemaker  of  the  '  Scribbler's 
Apology '  does  not  last  for  ever  ;  it  is  something,  in  literature  also, 
even  to  serve  the  passing  hour.  To  those  whose  occasional  writings 
are  buried  in  a  magazine  I  would  commend  a  vision  of  the  book- 
man's paradise  as  seen  by  William  Blake ;  and  in  such  comfort  as 
it  may  bring,  let  me  include  the  sorrows  of  rejected  contributors. 
'  Ah,  well,  my  dear,'  said  he  to  his  wife  when  publishers  proved 
unkind,  '  they  are  printed  Elsewhere— and  beautifully  bound.1 

I  have  referred  to  the  novels  in  the  CORNHILL.  It  was  out  of 
the  serial  publication  of  fiction  that  the  idea  of  the  CORNHILL  and  of 
other  popular  magazines  at  low  prices  arose  ;  and  this  chapter  in  the 
history  of  the  British  publishing  trade  is  curious  in  that  the  offspring, 
as  it  were,  absorbed  its  parent.  Fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  common 
practice  to  issue  novels  in  monthly  instalments.  A  happy  thought 
occurred  thereon  to  Mr.  George  Smith,  the  only  begetter  of  the 
CORNHILL.  There  had  been  the  monthly  reviews  for  a  century 
and  more,  and  there  was  the  serial  publication  of  novels.  Smith's 
idea  was  to  combine  the  two,  giving  to  the  public,  at  the  price  of 
the  then  cheapest  magazine,  both  the  contents  of  a  general  review 
and  the  monthly  instalment  of  fiction.  In  the  popular  price  he  was 
not  absolutely  first  in  the  field,  for  '  Macmillan's  Magazine,'  also  at 
a  shilling,  had  started  two  months  ahead  of  him,  but  it  made  at  that 
time  no  great  speciality  of  fiction.  The  best  fiction  by  the  best 
writers  was  Smith's  plan  ;  and  it  has  been  maintained,  as  every 
reader  of  the  CORNHILL  knows,  throughout  its  fifty  years.  On  this 
side  of  it,  the  history  of  the  CORNHILL  with  its  successive  contri- 
butions from  Thackeray,  Anthony  Trollope,  Charles  Lever,  George 
Eliot,  Mrs.  GaskeU,  Wilkie  Collins,  Charles  Reade,  William  Black, 
James  Payn,  Henry  Seton  Merriman — to  speak  only  of  those  who 
have  passed  away — is  the  history  of  British  fiction.  The  magazines 
with  their  serials  have  continued  from  that  day  to  this  ;  the  serial 
publication  of  novels,  apart  from  them,  has  ceased  to  be. 

The  mainstay  of  the  new  Magazine,  as  conceived  by  Mr.  George 
Smith,  was  to  be  a  monthly  instalment  of  a  novel  by  Thackeray, 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  made  terms  to  that  effect  he  went  ahead 
with  his  scheme.  It  was  a  happy  after-thought  which  led  him 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.'  11 

to  persuade  Thackeray  to  become  editor  as  well  as  chief  contributor. 
Anthony  Trollope  has  left  it  on  record  that  in  his  opinion  Thackeray 
was  an  indifferent  editor.  Trollope  was  a  large  contributor  and  a 
warm  friend,  and  he  ought  to  have  known  ;  but  the  reasons  he 
gives  do  not  carry  conviction.  Thackeray  had  too  thin  a  skin, 
it  seems  ;  had  not  the  necessary  hardness  of  heart ;  found  it  painful 
to  reject  contributions  from  widows  and  orphans  with  nothing 
but  the  res  angusta  domi  to  recommend  them.  Thackeray  hated 
doing  it,  we  know ;  he  has  told  us  so  in  his  '  Thorns  in  the  Cushion ' ; 
but  the  question  is, '  Did  he  do  it  all  the  same  ? '  If  he  did,  the  pang 
of  the  kind  heart  interfered  nothing  with  the  efficiency  of  the  editor. 
I  have  looked  for  the  articles  of  which  Trollope  may  have  been 
thinking  as  palpably  below  the  CORNHILL  standard,  and  protest 
that  I  cannot  find  them.  FitzGerald,  it  is  true,  speedily  scented  a 
taint  of  decline,  but  he  was  an  epicure.  '  Thackeray's  First  Number,' 
he  wrote,  '  was  famous,  I  thought :  his  own  little  Roundabout  Paper 
so  pleasant :  but  the  Second  Number,  I  say ;  lets  the  Cockney 
in  already  :  about  Hogarth  :  Lewes  is  vulgar  :  and  I  don't  think 
one  can  care  much  for  Thackeray's  novel.'  What  a  standard  does 
FitzGerald  set  in  ruling  out  G.  A.  Sala's  illustrated  paper  on 
Hogarth,  and  George  Henry  Lewes's  '  Studies  in  Animal  Life,'  and 
'  Lovel  the  Widower '  as  not  good  enough  for  the  CORNHILL  ! 
But  Trollope  cannot  have  been  thinking  of  these.  A  second  count 
in  the  indictment  is  that  Thackeray  was  unmethodical ;  never 
took  to  his  desk,  I  suppose,  at  the  same  hour  each  day,  to  turn  out 
a  regulation  number  of  words  by  the  clock ;  did  not,  it  is  more 
specifically  alleged,  answer  letters  promptly  and  decide  the  fate  of 
contributions  instanter ;  dilly-dallied  with  troublesome  affairs ; 
even  lost  a  manuscript  now  and  then.  All  this  one  can  well 
believe.  A  letter  has  been  printed  from  Thackeray  to  Sir  Henry 
Thompson  which  bears  upon  the  point.  '  Hurrah,'  he  wrote, 
'  have  found  your  leg !  ' — a  sentence  cryptic  enough  until  it  is  ex- 
plained that  the  great  surgeon  had  at  Thackeray's  request  written 
a  paper  for  the  first  number  of  the  Magazine  describing  an  operation 
'  Under  Chloroform,'  that  the  editor  mislaid  the  manuscript,  but 
that '  the  leg  '  turned  up  in  time  for  a  later  number.  No  harm  was 
done.  It  was  a  capital  article,  equally  good  at  any  time.  Thack- 
eray, however,  had  a  good  sense  of  the  topical.  More  than  this, 
Thackeray  as  editor  took  an  infinity  of  pains.  Witness  at  the 
end  of  this  paper  in  facsimile  the  CORNHILL  proof  of  a  story  which 
never  appeared  in  the  Magazine,  '  The  Fox  and  the  Cat :  An  Irish 


12  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

Fable.'  This  proof  came  to  light  as  it  stands  to-day  in  a  sale  at 
Sotheby's  some  thirteen  years  ago.  Thackeray  has  corrected  it 
most  carefully  and  indeed  rewritten  the  close  of  the  story,  which  for 
some  reason  now  unknown  evidently  had  his  affectionate  interest. 
Reproduced  here  to-day,  the  little  mystery  may  perhaps  be  solved 
through  the  publicity  at  last  given  to  the  story. 

Again,  Thackeray  was  not  afraid  of  what,  if  it  appeared  in  the 
newspaper  Press  of  to-day,  might  be  called  sensational  journalism. 
In  one  of  his  earlier  numbers  he  published  under  the  title '  Stranger 
than  Fiction '  a  sufficiently  startling  account  of  some  spiritualistic 
seances,  which  excited  much  attention  and  controversy  at  the  time. 
The  editor's  note  was  as  follows  :  '  As  Editor  of  the  Magazine  I  can 
vouch  for  the  good  faith  and  honourable  character  of  our  correspon- 
dent, a  friend  of  twenty-five  years'  standing  ;  but  as  the  writer  of  the 
above  astounding  narrative  owns  that  he  would  refuse  to  believe 
such  things  on  the  evidence  of  other  people's  eyes,  his  readers  are 
therefore  free  to  give  or  withhold  their  belief.'  An  ingenious  exercise 
in  the  art,  not  unknown  to  some  other  editors,  of  making  the  best  of 
both  worlds  !  Thackeray  had,  too,  what  the  journalists  call  '  a  keen 
eye  for  copy.'  There  is  a  letter  from  him  to  Anthony  Trollope  which 
well  expresses  a  craving  common  to  all '  enterprising  editors  '  : 

I  hope  you  will  help  us  in  many  ways  besides  tale-telling.  Whatever  a  man 
knows  about  life  and  its  doings,  that  let  us  hear  about.  You  must  have  tossed  a 
good  deal  about  the  world,  and  have  countless  sketches  in  your  memory  and  your 
portfolio.  Please  to  think  if  you  can  furbish  up  any  of  these  besides  a  novel. 
When  events  occur,  and  you  have  a  good  lively  tale,  bear  us  in  mind. 

'  A  good  lively  tale!  '  The  '  new  '  journalist  calls  it,  I  believe, 
'  a  good  news  story.' 

What  were  the  worst  thorns  in  the  editorial  cushion  ?  The 
necessity,  I  imagine,  for  one  thing,  of  hurting  the  susceptibilities 
of  contributors  by  considering  those  of  Mrs.  Grundy. 

The  lady's  decrees  vary  from  generation  to  generation,  and  the 
fortunes  of  a  magazine  are  from  this  point  of  view  a  chapter  in 
the  history  of  conventions  and  taste.  In  these  days  stronger 
meat  is  often  presented  in  pullic  than  was  permissible  in  mid- 
Victorian  times.  '  Thackeray  has  turned  me  out  of  the  CORNHILL,' 
wrote  Mrs.  Browning  in  May  1861,  '  but  did  it  so  prettily  and 
kindly  that  I,  who  am  forgiving,  sent  him  another  poem.  He 
says  that  plain  words  permitted  on  Sundays  must  not  be  spoken 
on  Mondays  in  England,  and  also  that  his  "  Magazine  is  for  babes 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.'  13 

and  sucklings."  '  Lord  Walter's  Wife,'  though  it  contained  '  pure 
doctrine,  and  real  modesty,  and  pure  ethics,'  was  thus  ruled  out 
on  account  of  Mrs.  Grundy.  Thackeray's  letter  was  printed  by 
Lady  Kitchie  in  the  CORNHILL  for  July  1896,  and  appears  also  in 
the  '  Letters  of  Mrs.  Browning.'  Everyone  who  remembers  the 
letter,  or  cares  to  turn  it  up,  will  know  how  greatly  Thackeray 
hated  doing  the  thing,  and  with  what  admirable  and  gracious  taste 
he  did  it.  He  had  his  reward.  He  lost  a  good  poem,  it  is  true,  but 
he  got  another,  and  he  kept  a  deeply  valued  friendship.  The 
biography  of  a  later  editor  of  the  CORNHILL  admits  us  behind  the 
scenes  of  another  tragi- comedy  of  a  like  kind.  It  was  one  of  the 
CORNHILL'S  privileges  to  print  Mr.  Thomas  Hardy's  '  Far  from  the 
Madding  Crowd.'  Leslie  Stephen  admired  the  tale  greatly ;  but 
there  was  a  point  at  which,  he  averred,  '  three  respectable  ladies 
had  protested,'  and  they  were  representatives,  he  doubted  not,  of 
other  Mrs.  Grundys.  '  I  am  a  slave,'  he  wrote,  in  pleading  for 
'  gingerly  treatment,'  and  afterwards  in  declining  '  The  Return  of 
the  Native.'  '  Such  were  noses,'  comments  Stephen's  biographer 
characteristically,  '  in  the  mid- Victorian  age.'  Happily  Stephen's 
sacrifice  to  Mrs.  Grundy  left  no  more  sting  behind  it  than 
Thackeray's,  and  Mr.  Hardy,  I  learn  with  pleasurable  anticipation, 
is  a  contributor  to  this  Jubilee  number. 

The  nose  of  orthodox  convention  was  equally  acute  in  spheres 
other  than  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  To  the  early  numbers  of 
the  CORNHILL  Ruskin  contributed  some  papers  on  political  economy 
(et  de  quibusdam  aliis),  entitled  '  Unto  this  Last.'  At  the  present 
day,  when  economic  thought  and  political  practice  have  come 
largely  into  line  with  Ruskin's  ideas,  it  requires  some  effort  of  the 
historical  imagination  to  realise  the  storm  of  indignant  protest 
which  the  essays  raised.  It  was  as  fast  and  furious  as  any  theo- 
logical heresy-hunt.  Ruskin's  papers  were  denounced  in  the 
Press  as  '  eruptions  of  windy  hysterics,'  '  utter  imbecility,'  '  in- 
tolerable twaddle ' ;  he  himself  was  held  up  to  scorn  as  a  '  whiner 
and  sniveller,'  screaming  like  '  a  mad  governess,' '  a  perfect  paragon 
of  blubbering.'  Even  a  cool  and  detached  observer  like  Philip 
Gilbert  Hamerton  was  shocked  at  '  those  lamentable  sermons 
appearing  in  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE.  When  a  great  writer  is 
once  resolutely  determined  to  destroy  his  own  reputation,'  he 
wrote  in '  A  Painter's  Camp,' '  it  is  no  doubt  well  to  do  it  as  speedily, 
as  publicly,  and  as  effectively  as  possible ;  but  Mr.  Ruskin's  real 
friends  cannot  help  regretting  that  he  should  have  given  his  crudest 


14  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.' 

thoughts  to  a  million  readers  through  the  medium  of  the  most 
popular  Magazine  of  the  day.'  By  other  critics  the  attack  was 
pressed  against  the  editor  and  the  proprietor  of  the  Magazine. 
'  For  some  inscrutable  reason,'  wrote  one,  '  which  must  be  inscrut- 
ably satisfactory  to  his  publishers,  Mr.  Thackeray  has  allowed, 
&c.,  &c.'  Such  blows  went  home,  and  after  four  of  the  essays 
had  been  published,  the  conductors  of  the  Magazine  bowed 
before  the  storm.  Thackeray  had  to  convey  to  his  friend  a 
sentence  of  excommunication.  Ruskin  did  not  quarrel  either 
with  Thackeray  or  with  Mr.  Smith,  but  he  was  deeply  hurt.  He 
believed  that '  Unto  this  Last '  was  his  best  book— most  pregnant 
in  ideas,  and  most  successful  in  style.1  His  repute  at  the  time  was 
as  an  art  critic,  but  great  men  seldom  accept  the  popular  judgment 
of  their  several  achievements.  Heine  dismissed  his  lyrics  as  '  not 
worth  a  shot,'  but  accounted  himself  great  as  a  tragedian.  Goethe 
took  no  pride  in  his  poems,  but  much  in  his  scientific  researches. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  prouder,  I  suspect,  of  his  studies  in  Olympian 
theology  than  of  any  political  exploit ;  and  Paganini,  when  com- 
plimented after  a  concert  on  his  violin  playing,  asked  impatiently 
'  But  how  were  you  pleased  with  my  bows  ?  '  The  more  Ruskin 
was  acclaimed  as  a  critic  and  a  word-painter,  the  more  he  resented 
not  being  appreciated  as  an  economic  thinker.  He  has  had  his 
will,  for  at  the  present  day  it  is  a  fashion  to  discard  his  art  theories 
and  accept  his  economics.  '  Unto  this  Last '  has  become  the  most 
widely  dispersed,  and  perhaps  the  most  influential,  of  all  his 
writings.  But  this  is  not  to  cast  any  reflections  upon  Thackeray's 
judgment  at  the  time.  An  economic  heretic,  like  the  poet  of 
Wordsworth's  Prefaces,  '  has  to  create  the  taste  by  which  he  is 
to  be  admired.'  The  conductor  of  any  popular  magazine  or  other 
'  organ  of  public  opinion '  may  well  be  a  little  ahead  of  his  public, 
but  he  cannot  afford  to  be  too  much  ahead.  Ruskin  fared  no 
better  under  Froude  in  '  Fraser's  Magazine  '  than  under  Thackeray 
in  the  CORNHILL.  The  economic  essays  were  resumed  in  '  Fraser's  ' 
shortly  afterwards,  and  met  there  with  a  like  suspensory  order. 

1  Many  Oxford  men  of  the  'seventies  will  remember  an  unprinted  lecture  in 
which  Ruskin  incidentally  analysed  'a  purple  patch'  in  the  first  volume  of 
'  Modern  Painters,'  and  compared  it,  greatly  to  its  disadvantage,  with  the  closing 
sentences  of  '  Unto  this  Last.'  It  was  an  admirable  lesson  in  some  of  the  principles 
of  style.  The  curious  in  matters  bibliographical  may  note  in  the  CORNHILL  a 
misprint  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Ruskin  from  Hesiod.  It  reappeared  in  every 
edition,  in  every  language,  until  the  recent  Library  Edition— a  compliment  to 
the  general  impeccability  of  the  Magazine  in  such  matters  ! 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.'  15 

'  Thou  shalt  not  shock  a  young  lady  ' :  this  Leslie  Stephen  used 
to  say  was  the  first  editorial  commandment ;  nor  shock  accepted 
creeds  either.  Yet  it  is  difficult  to  draw  the  line,  and  Stephen 
printed  W.  E.  Henley's  '  Hospital  Outlines  '  and  several  chapters 
of  Matthew  Arnold's  '  Literature  and  Dogma.'  The  difficulty  of 
steering  a  course  between  the  '  three  respectable  ladies  '  on  the 
one  side  and  the  critical  judgment,  unfettered  by  conventions,  on 
the  other,  must  always  be  among  an  editor's  most  annoying  worries. 
Thackeray  was  neither  a  pachyderm  nor  a  man  of  business  habits  ; 
and  after  two  years  and  a  half  of  '  thorns  in  the  cushion '  he  resigned 
the  editorial  chair.  His  editorship  (Anthony  Trollope  notwith- 
standing) was  a  brilliant  success.  The  success  of  the  Magazine  had 
indeed  been  ensured  from  the  day  when  Thackeray's  editorship 
was  known. 

The  CORNHILL,  as  Dickens  said,  was  '  beforehand  accepted  by 
the  public  through  the  strength  of  his  great  name.'  He  made 
notable  contributions  himself,  and  was  able  to  ensure  them  from 
others.  Not  that  he  was  alone  in  the  field,  but  his  friendships  and 
his  literary  standing  enabled  him  to  come  off  never  second  best. 
One  would  like  to  have  been  an  unseen  spectator  at  Farringford 
when  Mr.  Alexander  Macmillan  and  Thackeray  successively  jour- 
neyed thither  to  cozen  contributions  out  of  Tennyson.  '  Mac- 
millan's  '  had  '  Sea  Dreams  ' ;  the  CORNHILL,  '  Tithonus.'  I  do 
not  know  which  of  the  friendly  rivals  had  first  choice,  or  that  any 
choice  was  given  to  either ;  but  who  will  dispute  that  '  Tithonus ' 
is  the  better  poem  ?  Tennyson  himself  did  not.  Thackeray's 
first  six  numbers  included  contributions,  besides  his  own  and  Tenny- 
son's, from  Matthew  Arnold,  Charlotte  Bronte,  Emily  Bronte,  Mrs. 
Browning,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Tom  Hood,  Washington  Irving,  Charles 
Lever,  G.  H.  Lewes,  Lytton,  George  Macdonald,  Monckton  Milnes, 
Laurence  Oliphant,  Adelaide  Procter,  Father  Prout,  Ruskin, 
Fitzjames  Stephen,  Anthony  Trollope,  and  (among  artists)  Leigh  ton 
and  Millais.  Did  ever  a  first  volume  make  a  braver  show  ? 
Thackeray,  however,  did  not  rely  merely  on  names,  and  indeed, 
in  1860,  not  all  of  these  names  had  yet  the  full  authority  which 
they  afterwards  acquired.  The  signed  stories,  poems,  illustrations 
were  all  of  their  authors'  best,  and  there  were  added  unto  them 
many  articles  in  which  the  subject-matter  was  certain  to  attract 
popular  attention.  The  success  of  the  Magazine  was  instan- 
taneous and  well  sustained.  The  circulation  reached  what  was 
then  the  unprecedented  figure  of  100,000.  An  American  friend  of 


16  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.' 

Thackeray  has  recorded  a  pleasant  scene  showing  the  editor's 
delight.  Thackeray  had  gone  for  a  holiday  jaunt  to  Paris,  where 
he  met  J.  T.  Fields.  They  walked  about  together,  and  whenever 
they  passed  a  group  of  excited  talkers  on  the  boulevards,  Thackeray 
would  stop  and  say  '  There,  there,  you  see  !  The  news  has  reached 
Paris.  The  circulation  has  gone  up  since  my  last  accounts  from 
London.'  The  proprietor  was  equally  pleased,  and  in  his  generous 
way  doubled  Thackeray's  already  not  inconsiderable  salary,  as 
editor,  forthwith.  Thackeray's  resignation  had  little  effect,  I 
think,  on  the  success  of  the  Magazine.  For  two  good  reasons. 
He  continued  to  contribute,  and  the  Thackeray  tradition  long 
survived.  Also,  he  had  founded  something  of  a  school  in  magazine 
literature :  there  was  always  somewhat  of  the  Thackeray  touch  in 
the  CORNHILL. 

'  Have  newspapers  souls  ?  '  The  question,  which  I  have  seen 
debated  in  ingenious  articles,  has  a  morbid  interest  for  some  of  us. 
'  The  soul,  doubtless,  is  immortal— where  a  soul  can  be  discerned.5 
It  is  not  easily  to  be  discerned  even  in  long-lived  newspapers ; 
though  as  these  have  sometimes  a  policy  which  does  not  always 
change  with  every  passing  gust,  the  rudiments  of  a  soul  may  now 
and  then  be  traced.  But  can  a  magazine,  which  is  professedly  a 
miscellany,  which  brings  together  articles  on  all  subjects,  often 
with  no  link  except  that  they  are  contained  within  the  same  cover — 
can  a  magazine  have  a  soul  ?  In  turning  over  the  pages  of  the 
hundred  volumes  of  the  CORNHILL,  I  have  been  on  the  search,  and 
I  believe  that  I  have  found  it.  The  range  of  subjects  is  very  wide, 
the  methods  of  treatment  are  infinitely  various.  Politics  and 
public  affairs  have  for  the  most  part  been  avoided,  though  the 
fringe  of  them  is  often  touched.  They  are  not  always  touched 
to  the  same  effect.  So,  again,  in  the  innumerable  articles  on 
literature  and  morals,  of  travel,  of  anecdote,  and  of  criticism,  the 
writers  have  different  opinions,  different  manners,  different  points 
of  view.  Sometimes  in  turning  from  Leslie  Stephen  to  J.  A. 
Symonds,  from  Fitzjames  Stephen  to  Matthew  Arnold,  or  in 
passing  from  '  The  Great  God  Pan '  to  *  Parrots  I  have  Known,' 
I  have  given  up  my  search  for  the  common  soul  of  the  CORNHILL. 
Yet  on  a  general  retrospect  I  seem  to  have  a  clear  impression  of 
certain  unity.  The  '  note  '  of  the  CORNHILL  is  the  literary  note, 
in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term  ;  its  soul  is  the  spirit  of  that  humane 
culture,  as  Matthew  Arnold  describes  it  in  the  pages,  reprinted 


THE   JUBILEE    OF   THE    'CORNHILL.'  17 

from  the  CORNHILL,  of  '  Culture  and  Anarchy.'  Any  collector  of 
the  CORNHILL  who  treasured  his  or  her  599  numbers  in  the  original 
parts  was  well  qualified,  I  dare  aver,  to  graduate  in  literis 
humanioribus. 

The  form  in  which  this  spirit  has  most  particularly  expressed 
itself  in  the  pages  of  the  CORNHILL  is  the  essay— not  necessarily 
the  essay  on  literary  subjects,  but  the  essay  which,  whatever  its 
subject,  treats  it  in  the  temper  of  humane  letters.  Thackeray  set 
the  model  in  his  '  Roundabout  Papers  ' — masterpieces  of  style, 
and  '  models,'  as  Leslie  Stephen  has  said,  '  of  the  essay  which 
without  aiming  at  profundity  gives  the  charm  of  the  playful  and 
tender  conversation  of  a  great  writer.'  This  was  what  I  meant  by 
'  the  Thackeray  touch '  which  had  never  forsaken  the  CORNHILL. 
It  reappears,  with  equal  grace  if  with  somewhat  slighter  texture, 
in  the  essays  which  during  many  years  past  have  appeared  in  its 
pages  from  the  pen  of  his  daughter,  and  perhaps  most  notably  in 
those  '  Blackstick  Papers,'  even  the  first  of  which,  in  December 
1900,  many  of  its  present  readers  remember.  Leslie  Stephen  was 
a  prince  of  essayists,  and  the  number  of  his  contributions  in  that 
sort  to  the  Magazine  is  very  large.  Many  were  reprinted  in  '  Hours 
in  a  Library  '  ;  the  identity  of  several  others,  not  reprinted,  was 
disclosed  in  Professor  Maitland's  Memoir,  but  these  are  only  a  tithe 
of  the  whole  number.  Stephen  sometimes  sought  to  put  readers 
off  the  scent  by  appending  to  his  essays  initials  other  than  his  own. 
I  know  not  why  ;  perhaps  because  he  modestly  but  unnecessarily 
feared  that  readers  might  have  'too  much  Stephen.'  Stephen's 
CORNHILL  essays  were  in  many  respects  unlike  Thackeray's  ;  they 
were  more  strenuous,  connected  and  direct ;  perhaps  the  sap  was 
a  little  drier,  for  Stephen  was  no  sentimentalist ;  but  they  have 
a  very  pleasant  flavour  of  their  own,  and  a  refreshing  common 
sense  which  is  not  so  common  as  it  might  be  in  the  modern  essay. 
'  The  only  sting  in  it,'  said  George  Meredith,  of  Stephen's  '  CORNHILL 
style,'  '  was  an  inoffensive  humorous  irony  that  now  and  then 
stole  out  for  a  roll  over,  like  a  furry  cub,  or  the  occasional  ripple  on 
a  lake  in  grey  weather.'  After  many  years  of  '  L.  S.,'  readers  of 
the  CORNHILL  found  a  new  series  of  essays  signed  '  R.  L.  S.' — '  not 
the  Real  Leslie  Stephen,'  as  was  explained  to  Mr.  Gosse,  '  but  a 
young  Scot  whom  Colvin  has  discovered.'  Nine  of  the  essays 
which  Stevenson  collected  in  '  Virginibus  Puerisque,'  and 
several  of  those  in  '  Familiar  Studies  of  Men  and  Books,'  made 
their  first  appearance  in  the  CORNHILL.  The  first  so  to  appear, 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  163,  N.S.  2 


18  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

on  '  Victor  Hugo's  Romances  '  (August  1874)  was  also  the  first 
piece,  Stevenson  used  to  say,  in  which  he  had  found  himself  able 
to  say  things  in  the  way  in  which  he  felt  they  should  be  said. 
*  L.  S.'  did  a  good  turn  to  '  R.  L.  S.'  in  taking  so  much  of  his  early 
work,  and  not  less  a  good  turn  to  readers  of  the  CORNHILL,  who 
for  some  years  had  the  pleasant  chance  of  finding  an  essay  by 
Stevenson  in  its  pages.  And  here  let  the  great  army  of  the  rejected 
take  comfort.  Even  the  most  discerning  of  editors  sometimes 
make  mistakes,  and  even  '  R.  L.  S.'  did  not  always  find  the  door 
open.  The  essay  on  Raeburn,  included  in  '  Virginibus  Puerisque,' 
was  rejected  by  Leslie  Stephen  and  by  at  least  two  other  editors. 
The  series  of  '  CORNHILL  essays  '  has  been  continued  in  later  days 
in  the  '  Pages  from  a  Private  Diary  '  and  the  '  Provincial  Letters  ' 
of  Canon  Beeching,  and  in  many  a  page  signed  '  E.  V.  L.,'  or 
'  A.  C.  B.'  But  it  were  invidious  to  particularise  further.  I  have 
said  enough  to  establish  my  point  that  the  CORNHILL  has  been  an 
Alma  Mater  of  the  essay. 

Magazines,  like  newspapers,  often  have  a  tradition  which 
survives  many  changes  of  editors.  I  do  not  think  that  all  the 
changes  in  the  editorship  of  the  CORNHILL  could  be  detected  by 
internal  evidence,  but  there  are  certain  landmarks.  Thackeray 
resigned  in  March  1862,  and  then  the  editorial  labours  were  for  a 
time  in  commission,  so  to  speak,  shared  by  Button  Cook,  Frederick 
Greenwood,  and  George  Smith  himself.  In  1871  Leslie  Stephen 
was  appointed  to  the  chair.  I  can  detect  little  difference  in  the 
character  or  quality  of  the  Magazine  during  the  first  twelve  years 
(1860-71).  There  is  a  reason  for  this,  I  suspect,  other  than  the  one 
already  indicated.  In  the  land  of  CORNHILL  there  was  a  succession 
of  Prime  Ministers,  but  the  Sovereign  remained  the  same,  and  his 
influence,  though  exercised  with  unostentatious  tact,  was,  I  suspect, 
great  and  constant.  Mr.  George  Smith  was  strong  where  Thackeray 
was  weak.  If  the  editor  was  unmethodical,  the  proprietor  was 
the  soul  of  punctuality  and  orderliness,  sparing  no  trouble,  entering 
into  every  detail.  The  method  and  the  handwriting  sometimes 
proclaim  the  man.  I  have  been  permitted  to  unlock  and  peep  at 
the  most  sacred  arcana  of  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE.  They  consist 
of  a  series  of  leather  cases,  each  containing  half  a  dozen  little 
ledgers.  In  these  Mr.  Smith  entered,  month  by  month,  in  his  own 
ninute  and  pleasant  hand,  the  subjects  of  aU  the  articles  and 
illustrations,  the  prices  paid  to  every  author  and  artist,  the  number 


THE    JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.'  19 

of  copies  sold  of  each  number  and  of  each  volume.  For  many  years 
there  is  no  trace  of  any  assistance  from  clerk  or  deputy.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  the  CORNHILL  was  among  the  dearest  to  him  of  his  many 
and  multifarious  enterprises.  Thackeray  called  him  '  the  Carnot 
of  our  Recent  Great  Victories.'  Thackeray's  immediate  successors 
would  not,  I  imagine,  have  said  otherwise. 

With  the  accession  of  Leslie  Stephen  in  1871,  Mr.  Smith  may 
have  somewhat  relaxed  his  direct  control  upon  the  Magazine.  The 
Master  of  Peterhouse  is  quoted  by  Stephen's  biographer  as  saying 
'  It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  from  Thackeray's  day  to  our  own 
no  English  Magazine  has  been  so  liberally  interfused  with  literary 
criticism  of  a  high  class,  and  at  the  same  time  remained  such  pleasant 
reading,  as  the  CORNHILL  under  Stephen's  management.'  I  believe 
that  Dr.  Ward's  verdict  will  be  endorsed  by  all  who  remember  or 
refer.  The  fiction  was  as  strong  as  ever,  and  the  general  contents 
were  varied  and  readable.  Stephen's  editorship  was  the  time  not 
only  of  very  many  pieces  from  his  own  pen,  but  of  Stevenson's 
essays,  as  aforesaid,  of  Symonds's '  Greek  Poets '  and  '  Sketches  and 
Studies  in  Italy,'  of  many  articles  on  art  or  literature  by  Mr.  Gosse 
and  Mr.  Colvin,  of  Tennysonian  and  other  studies  by  Churton 
Collins,  of  Johnsonian  studies  by  Dr.  Birkbeck  Hill.  Comparing  the 
CORNHILL  of  Stephen's  reign  (1871-82)  with  that  of  his  predecessors, 
I  find  that  the  purely  literary  element  had  become  more  emphasised, 
and  we  know  from  Stephen's  biography  that  this  increase  in  pure 
literature  was  accompanied  by  no  corresponding  accession  of  popular 
vogue.  Did  Leslie  Stephen  provide  a  Magazine  of  which  the  times 
were  unworthy  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  We  hear  much  about  a 
supposed  decadence  in  the  popular  taste.  I  do  not  believe  in  it. 
The  market  for  good  literature  is  larger  to-day  than  it  has  ever  been, 
but  the  supply  is  provided  by  many  more  competitors.  *  Beware 
of  the  English  periodicals,'  wrote  Mrs.  Browning  to  a  friend  in  1864 ; 
'  there's  a  rage  for  new  periodicals,  and  because  the  CORNHILL 
answers,  other  speculations  crowd  the  market,  overcrowd  it :  there 
will  be  failures  presently.'  A  shrewd  forecast.  In  old  days  the 
literary  demand  was  concentrated  upon  a  few  periodicals  ;  com- 
petition caused  it  to  be  scattered,  and  any  one  periodical  which 
desired  to  attract  the  larger  public  had  to  consult  many  tastes. 

In  1882  Stephen  resigned,  and  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the 
CORNHILL  was  inaugurated.  He  had  recommended  his  friend, 

2—2 


20  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

James  Payn,  as  his  successor,  and  Payn's  editorship  lasted  for 
fourteen  years.  The  price  of  the  magazine  was  reduced  from 
a  shilling  to  sixpence,  and  the  illustrations  were  gradually  dropped. 
The  CORNHILL  note  remained  in  many  a  pleasant  essay,  Payn's  own 
'  Literary  Recollections  '  among  the  number,  and  the  articles  on 
popular  science — always  a  feature  of  the  CORNHILL  from  the  earlier 
times  of  R.  A.  Proctor  to  the  later  of  W.  A.  Shenstone — were 
regularly  contributed  by  Grant  Allen.  Never  did  philosopher 
insinuate  his  doctrine  so  persistently  as  Allen  when  he  used  to 
describe  the  evolution  of  the  colour  of  flowers,  or  trace  back  the 
genius  of  Michael  Angelo  to  the  savage's  scrawls  upon  a  cocoanut, 
or  assure  us  blandly  that  we  can  draw  no  true  line  between  a  baby's 
admiration  for  a  bunch  of  red  rags  and  the  critic's  admiration  of 
a  Sistine  Madonna.  But  the  predominant  feature  during  Payn's 
editorship  was  an  abundance  of  short  stories.  They  were  excellent, 
for  Payn  had  a  shrewd  judgment  in  such  things,  and  no  popular 
magazine  is  complete  without  some  of  them.  But  there  were  many 
other  caterers  in  this  service,  and  some  Cornhillers  were  not  ill- 
pleased  when  the  price  was  restored  under  his  successor  to  the 
familiar  shilling,  and  there  was  room  again  for  a  larger  supply  of 
the  miscellaneous  articles  in  the  old  style. 

Payn's  health  broke  down  in  1896,  and  from  the  middle  of  that 
year,  for  several  months  onward,  I  seem  to  detect  a  new  hand  at 
the  helm.  We  become  more  military,  more  consciously  patriotic. 
We  have  an  Englishman's  Calendar  provided  for  us  each  month, 
to  remind  us  of  great  deeds.  We  seem  invited  to  a  new  way  of  life. 
But  here,  again,  the  true  CORNHILL  note  was  well  maintained,  and 
at  this  period  we  make  first  acquaintance  in  the  Magazine  with 
the  '  Private  Diarist '  and  '  E.  V.  L.'  Of  the  editorial  conduct  of 
the  Magazine  in  these  and  in  later  years  it  would  be  unseemly  to 
speak  at  large.  Nevertheless,  it  would  be  ungrateful  for  the 
CORNHILL  and  its  readers  to  forget  the  debt  they  owe  to  the  short 
reign  in  the  editorial  chair  of  Mr.  St.  Loe  Strachey.  One  of  the 
pleasantest  features  of  the  early  history  of  the  CORNHILL  was, 
we  have  been  told  on  authority,  the  monthly  dinner  which 
Smith  gave  to  Thackeray  and  his  contributors,  and  it  is  likely 
enough  that  in  a  different  form  the  same  friendly  relations 
among  those  chiefly  concerned  in  the  Magazine  have  from  time  to 
time  been  revived.  But  the  Thackeray  touch  counsels  silence. 
Was  it  not  in  connection  with  such  a  gathering  that  he  wrote  his 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE   ' CORNHILL.'  21 

scathing  piece  '  On  Screens  in  Dining-rooms  '  ?  If  there  have  been 
friendly  tables,  oval  or  round,  for  consultation  or  conviviality,  of 
such  gatherings,  as  of  other  august  councils  in  the  realm,  no  records 
are  taken.  One  remark  alone  I  will  permit  myself.  '  That  such 
letters  as  passed  between  George  Smith  and  Leslie  Stephen  are 
often  passing,  we  may  hope — if  we  are  optimists.'  So  Professor 
Maitland,  in  his  characteristic  way.  That  optimism  is  here  no  vain 
creed  is  known  to  many  Cornhillers  of  these  latter  days. 

What  the  contents  of  the  CORNHILL  are  to-day  every  reader  of 
these  pages  knows,  and  he  would  not  care  for  some  one  else's 
opinion.  I  revert,  in  my  rambling  remarks  on  its  Jubilee,  to  the 
past.  As  I  open  the  little  ledgers  once  more,  turning,  as  any  par- 
ticular entry  chances  to  attract  me,  to  the  volumes  of  the  Magazine 
itself,  I  am  struck  by  the  vast  quantity  of  '  good  copy  '  which  lies 
buried  in  its  pages — '  copy  '  good  now  for  the  sake  of  its  authorship, 
now  for  its  intrinsic  merit,  now  for  its  anecdotic  interest,  and  often 
for  all  three.  What  a  mine  for  the  meticulous  bibliographer  are 
these  volumes  and  these  little  ledgers  !  Here,  to  take  an  instance 
or  two — in  No.  7  of  the  CORNHILL  was  the  first  version  of  a  piece 
familiar  to  readers  of  Matthew  Arnold's  poems  under  the  title 
'  The  Lord's  Messengers.'  '  Men  of  Genius  '  he  called  it  in  the 
CORNHILL,  where  also  there  is  this  additional  stanza  at  the  beginning 

of  the  poem  : — 

Silent,  the  Lord  of  the  world 
Eyes  from  the  heavenly  height, 
Girt  by  his  far- shining  train, 
Us,  who  with  banners  unfurl'd 
Fight  Life's  many-chanc'd  fight 
Madly  below,  in  the  plain. 

I  suppose  it  was  the  '  Us  '  that  caused  the  poet  to  withdraw  the 
stanza.  The  rest  of  the  poem  was  much  revised,  sometimes  for 
the  better.  The  repentirs  of  poets  are  not  always  so  ;  but  in 
Tennyson's  '  Tithonus '  an  improvement  was  certainly  made. 
Everyone  knows  the  first  line — 

The  woods  decay,  the  woods  decay  and  fall, 

and  some  of  us  have  listened  to  lectures  in  which  the  repetition  has 
been  dwelt  upon  as  a  peculiar  beauty.  And  so  no  doubt  it  is  ;  but 
it  was  adopted  by  the  poet  only  as  a  way  out  of  a  weak  beginning, 
for  in  the  original  CORNHILL  version  (February  1860)  the  first  line 
is  this  : — 

Ay  me  !  ay  me  !  the  woods  decay  and  fall. 


THE    JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

In  another  of  the  poet's  contributions  to  the  CORNHILL  (No.  48), 
the  '  Attempts  at  Classic  Metre  in  Quantity,'  the  student  of  Tenny- 
son will  find  many  revisions  and  some  added  notes,  with  here 
and  there  an  alternative  rendering.  The  '  barbarous  experiment, 
barbarous  hexameters  ' — suggested,  I  suppose,  by  Matthew  Arnold's 
then  recent  lectures  on  Homer — show  no  alteration  in  the  final 
text,  but  the  '  Specimen  of  a  Translation  of  the  Iliad  in  Blank 
Verse '  is  very  different.  But  enough  of  this.  I  leave  further 
researches  in  the  CORNHILL,  in  this  sort,  to  the  compilers  of  Variorum 
Editions  of  modern  classics. 

A  bibliographer,  unless  he  have  access  to  the  little  ledgers,  will 
find  it  less  easy  to  trace  the  articles  unsigned  and  never  collected 
which  were  contributed  by  men  or  women  who  were  famous  already, 
but  for  one  reason  or  another  withheld  their  identity,  or  whose 
names  were  not  then  given  because  they  were  as  yet  unknown. 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  once  said  to  Dr.  Johnson,  what  Boswell  had 
'  often  thought,  that  he  wondered  to  find  so  much  good  writing 
employed  in  the  Reviews  when  the  authors  were  to  remain  unknown 
and  so  could  not  have  the  motive  of  fame.'  '  Nay,  sir/  replied 
Johnson,  '  those  who  write  in  them  write  well  in  order  to  be  paid 
well.'  Mr.  George  Smith  has  told  us  himself  that  he  did  not  stint 
his  prices.  A  single  number  of  the  Magazine,  he  said,  once  cost 
him  1183?.,  and  I  find  that  during  four  years  he  paid  no  less  than 
32,280Z.  to  literary  contributors,  in  addition  to  4376?.  to  artists  for 
illustrations.  But  those  were  the  days  of  Thackeray  and  George 
Eliot,  when  twelve  guineas  a  page  were  paid  for  the  '  Roundabout 
Papers  '  arid  a  single  month's  instalment  of  '  Romola  '  cost  583?. 

' 1  have  had  two  applications  for  the  lecture  ['  Heine  ']  from 
magazines,'  wrote  Matthew  Arnold  to  his  mother,  '  but  I  shall 
print  it,  if  I  can,  in  the  CORNHILL,  because  it  both  pays  best  and  has 
much  the  largest  circle  of  readers.'  Johnson's  answer  to  Reynolds 
only  gave  half  the  truth  :  Arnold's  remark  gives  the  other  half. 
Good  writers  wrote  well  for  the  CORNHILL,  whether  they  signed 
their  articles  or  not,  both  '  in  order  to  be  well  paid  '  and  to  be  well 
read. 

The  biographer  no  more  than  the  bibliographer  can  afford  to 
neglect  searching  the  files  of  the  CORNHILL.  The  invaluable 
Poole  will  help  him,  but  that  index  to  the  periodicals  does  not 
include  incidental  references.  Take  Leigh  Hunt,  for  instance. 
Lord  Hough  ton  said  that  the  best  thing  in  Thackeray's  first  number 


THE   JUBILEE    OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.'  23 

was  an  essay  on  Hunt,  entitled  '  A  Man  of  Letters  of  the  Last 
Century.'  It  was  written  by  Hunt's  son,  and  is  a  very  good  account. 
But  a  personal  reminiscence  by  George  Smith,  thrown  in  casually 
many  years  later,  is  better.  Smith  had  given  Hunt  a  cheque. 
'  And  what  am  I  to  do,'  asked  Skimpole-Hunt,  '  with  this  little 
bit  of  paper  ?  '  Smith  exchanged  it  for  bank  notes.  When 
Hunt  reached  home  they  were  accidentally  burnt.  Next  day  he 
returned  to  Smith  in  great  agitation,  which  however  had  not 
prevented  him  from  purchasing  on  the  road  a  little  statuette  of 
Psyche,  which  he  carried,  without  any  paper  round  it,  in  his  hand. 
Smith  volunteered  to  go  with  Hunt  to  the  Bank,  and  they  were 
shown  into  a  room  where  three  elderly  gentlemen  were  transacting 
business  : 

They  kept  us  waiting  some  time,  and  Leigh  Hunt,  who  had  meantime  been 
staring  all  round  the  room,  at  last  got  up,  walked  up  to  one  of  the  staid  officials, 
and  addressing  him  said  in  wondering  tones,  '  And  this  is  the  Bank  of  England  ! 
And  do  you  sit  here  all  day  and  never  see  the  green  woods  and  the  trees  and  the 
flowers  and  the  charming  country  ?  '  Then  in  tone  of  remonstrance  he  demanded, 
'  Are  you  contented  with  such  a  life  ?  '  All  the  time  he  was  holding  the  little  naked 
Psyche  in  one  hand,  and  with  his  long  hair  and  flashing  eyes  made  a  surprising 
figure. 

A  surprising  figure,  indeed,  and  a  delicious  picture  !  It  is 
worth  many  pages  of  less  vivid,  though  more  formal,  portraiture. 
Many  such  biographical  glimpses  will  reward  a  diligent  searcher 
in  the  CORNHILL  files — of  Cardinal  Wiseman,  for  instance,  and 
Cardinal  Newman,  of  Jowett,  of  Landseer,  of  Leighton,  and  above 
all  of  Thackeray.  It  is  pleasant  to  light  upon  an  appreciation  of 
him,  in  which  Charles  Dickens  recalls  times  '  when  he  unexpectedly 
presented  himself  in  my  room,  announcing  how  that  some  passage 
in  a  certain  book  had  made  him  cry  yesterday,  and  how  that  he  had 
come  to  dinner  because  he  couldn't  help  it  and  must  talk  such  a 
passage  over.' 

Another  feature  which  strikes  me  as  I  turn  over  the  files  is  the 
large  number  of  what  may  be  called  footnotes  to  history.  The 
earlier  numbers  of  the  CORNHILL  were  rich  for  instance — let 
Mr.  George  Trevelyan  note — in  fragments  of  the  Garibaldian  epic 
recorded  by  actors  in  the  scenes  or  by  friends  who  had  the  accounts 
at  first  hand.  It  was  fitting  that  Mr.  Trevelyan,  who  is  making 
that  epic  live  again  in  this  more  material  age,  should  have  been  the 
medium  in  the  CORNHILL  only  a  few  months  ago  of  printing  some 
further  instalments  in  this  sort.  The  history  of  the  Risorgimento 


•24  THE    JUBILEE   OF   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

involves  the  ambiguous  character  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French. 
Some  aid  towards  the  solution  of  that  problem  may  be  found  in 
the  CORNHILL  picture  of  '  Louis  Napoleon  painted  by  a  Contem- 
porary.' '  He  likes  to  be  absolute  himself,  but  he  wishes  all  who 
are  not  his  subjects  to  be  free.'  So  wrote  Senior  in  his  journal ; 
a  shrewd  reflection.  The  politicians  of  to-day  say  that  this  is  a 
trait  of  human  character  which  explains  the  attitude  of  a  good 
many  people  towards  the  rival  claims  of  Protection  and  Free  Trade. 
Is  there  anything  new  beneath  the  sun  ?  The  world  of  to-day  is 
all  agog  about  flying.  So  it  was  thirty-six  years  ago  :  turn  up 
the  CORNHILL,  No.  159,  and  you  will  see.  It  was  unkind  of  Grenville 
Murray,  though,  to  recall  an  old  saying  that  the  taste  of  the  French 
for  aerostatics — from  the  days  of  Froissart's  apprentice  of  Valen- 
ciennes and  Cyrano  de  Bergerac's  voyage  to  the  moon  onwards — 
was  '  due  to  their  natural  and  national  levity  '  ;  but  he  made  a  good 
shot  at  the  end  of  his  article.  '  Men  of  the  present  day  say  that  the 
dirigible  airship  is  impossible ;  our  grandchildren  or  our  great 
grandchildren  may  prove  the  contrary.'  He  was  only  out  by  a 
generation  or  two.  R.  A.  Proctor  was  not  so  happy  in  his  patriotic 
confidence  (December  1876)  that  '  Arctic  voyages  by  seamen  of 
other  nations  than  our  own  will  not  succeed.'  Again,  turn  to 
the  CORNHILL,  No.  13,  and  you  will  find  an  article  of  protest 
written  round  a  description  in  the  Times — not  the  Telegraph — 
of  rain  as  a  '  pluvial  visitation.'  I  turn  a  few  more  pages,  and 
come  upon  one  of  Richard  Doyle's  '  Bird's- Eye  Views  of  Society.' 
It  is  entitled  '  Small  and  Early,'  and  the  letterpress  preaches  a 
little  sermon  against  '  asking  more  than  your  rooms  will  hold.' 
The  mid- Victorian  crinolines  have  gone,  but  only  to  make  room 
for  a  yet  more  populous  crush.  The  more  the  world  changes, 
the  more  it  remains  the  same.  Illustrations  of  the  saying  are  one 
of  the  things  that  always  reward  a  search  among  old  records  or 
old  files. 

And  then,  again,  there  is  what  I  have  called  the  anecdotic 
interest,  to  which  the  bookman  may  add  the  bibliographic  interest. 
The  early  files  of  the  CORNHILL  are  rich  in  such  associations.  The 
first  number  was  issued  in  December  1859.  On  the  28th  of  the 
month  Macaulay  died  in  his  library ;  the  CORNHILL  was  on  the  table 
beside  him,  open  at  the  first  page  of  Thackeray's  '  Lovel  the 
Widower.'  The  collector  of  the  Magazine  '  in  the  original  parts  ' 
has  that  interest,  dear  to  collectors  of  first  editions,  of  handling 


THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE    '  CORNHILL.'  25 

the  number  or  the  volume  in  the  self-same  form  in  which  it 
issued  from  the  press.  With  heightened  interest  one  may  turn  to 
the  beautiful  Roundabout  in  No.  2 — '  the  outpouring  of  a  tender, 
generous  nature,'  said  Macaulay's  brother — in  which  Thackeray 
applied  to  Macaulay,  Scott's  dying  words  to  Lockhart :  '  My  dear, 
be  a  good  man.  Nothing  else  will  give  you  any  comfort  when  you 
come  to  lie  here.'  I  like,  too,  to  handle  the  very  page,  as  it  first 
appeared,  on  which  Thackeray  introduced  the  opening  chapter  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  unfinished  novel — '  those  few  and  fine  words  of 
introduction '  which  Swinburne  characterised  as  '  among  the  truest 
and  noblest,  the  manliest  and  the  kindliest,  that  ever  came  from 
his  pen.' 

For  the  amateur  of  English  engraved  illustrations  the  back 
numbers  of  the  CORNHILL  are  an  equally  rich  mine.  Here  is  to 
be  found  much  of  the  work  of  Leighton  and  Millais,  of  Frederick 
Walker  and  George  Pinwell  and  Frederick  Sandys,  of  du  Maurier 
and  Helen  Allingham,  of  G.  D.Leslie  and  F. Dicksee,  translated  for 
the  most  part  by  the  sound  school  of  wood-cutting  of  the  brothers 
Dalziel.  Leighton's  illustrations  to  '  Romola '  showed,  said 
Ruskin,  his  '  advancing  power,'  and  Leighton's  biographer  truly 
accounts  it  a  fortunate  coincidence  that  George  Eliot  should  have 
written  a  Florentine  story  at  a  time  when  the  painter  was  available 
to  illustrate  it.  I  gather,  however,  from  George  Eliot's  letters 
that  she  must  have  been  a  little  exacting.  Leighton's  pictures, 
though  '  deliciously  beautiful,'  were  sometimes  '  not  just  the 
thing '  she  wanted.  Two  gifted  workers,  each  steeped  in  Florence, 
were  moving  on  parallel  lines  which  would  not  meet.  Trollope, 
whose  novels  were  illustrated  for  the  CORNHILL  by  Millais,  was  less 
particular,  or  the  artist  was  more  complaisant ;  for  Trollope  in 
his  Autobiography  is  warmly  enthusiastic  over  the  skill  with  which 
Millais  interpreted  his  characters  and  situations.  But  none  of  the 
CORNHILL  illustrations  are,  I  think,  more  pleasing  than  those  of 
Frederick  Walker.  '  Who  of  our  readers,'  asked  Mr.  Colvin  in 
a  memoir  of  the  artist  in  the  Magazine,  '  has  not  known  and  taken 
delight  in  that  sympathetic  touch  ?  Have  we  read  about  Philip 
in  church  beside  the  children  ?  We  may  follow  and  see  him  there, 
the  great  rough  head  bent  beside  those  smooth  cheeks  and  ringlets. 
Have  we  delighted  in  the  manly  spirit  of  the  young  Huguenot  of 
Winchelsea  ?  We  turn  the  page  and  see  how  Denis  Duval  and  Tom 
Parrott,  for  their  good  luck,  went  upstairs  to  look  at  Denis  Duval's 


26  THE   JUBILEE   OF   THE   'CORNHILL.' 

box  with  the  pistol  in  it ! '  These  and  many  a  score  of  other  dainty 
images  meet  the  eye  as  one  turns  over  the  old  volumes.  The 
reproduction,  made  necessarily  from  electrotypes,  is  sometimes  a 
little  rough  ;  to  see  the  illustrations  at  their  artistic  best  one  should 
go  to  the  impressions  from  the  wood-blocks  themselves  in  the 
'  CORNHILL  Gallery,'  which  was  issued  separately,  reviving  pleasant 
memories  of  Lucy  Robarts  and  Lord  Lufton,  of  Baker  and  Lovel, 
of  Philip  on  his  way  through  the  world,  of  Cousin  Phillis,  of  Lily 
Dale  and  Adolphus  Crosbie,  of  Romola  and  Tito.  The  '  illustra- 
tions of  the  'sixties '  are  now  coming  into  favour  with  collectors, 
who  do  not  find  any  abiding  satisfaction  in  the  mechanical  output 
of  the  photograph  and  the  process-block.  The  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE 
played  a  great  part  in  sustaining  during  the  'sixties  and  the  'seventies 
a  now  expiring  art. 

A  word  or  two  on  the  CORNHILL  cover,  and  I  have  done.  Why 
CORNHILL  ?  Mr.  George  Smith  named  the  Magazine  from  the 
then  seat  of  his  publishing  house.  '  It  has  a  sound  of  jollity  and 
abundance  about  it,'  wrote  Thackeray.  The  same  kind  of  note 
was  struck  in  the  colour  and  design  of  the  cover.  The  design 
takes  us  back  to  mid- Victorian  days  and  the  artistic  schemes  which 
the  Queen  and  the  Prince  Consort  centred  '  in  her  halls  of  glass  ' 
(as  the  original  version  of  Tennyson's  Dedication  has  it).  The 
cover  was  designed  at  Sir  Henry  Cole's  suggestion  by  Godfrey 
Sykes,  a  student  at  the  newly  founded  schools  at  South 
Kensington,  and  the  original  design  is  still  to  be  seen  at  the 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  in  the  Department  of  Engraving. 
George  Smith  used  to  say  that  he  was  chaffed  about  the  sower 
scattering  with  his  left  hand.  Well,  the  artist  might  reply,  '  I  am 
not  an  agricultural  labourer,'  and  a  left-handed  sower  is  at  any 
rate  less  of  a  solecism  than  a  mower  swinging  his  scythe  from  left 
to  right — a  spectacle  which  may  be  witnessed  on  the  walls  of 
a  certain  public  gallery  in  this  city.  But  I  protest  that  the 
artist  had  a  deep  meaning  in  his  apparent  deviation  from  realism  ; 
he  intended  to  signify  that  the  editor  of  the  CORNHILL  would 
distribute  good  seed  and  overflowing  measure  even  with  his  left 
hand.  I  like,  too,  the  absence  of  any  advertisement  of  contents 
from  the  cover.  Good  wine  needs  no  bush.  A  '  Contents  slip  ' 
is  indeed  now  lightly  attached,  but  that,  I  take  it,  is  only  a 
concession  to  chance  customers.  The  regular  Cornhiller  was  advised 
by  the  cover  from  the  first  that  he  would  always  find  good  cheer 
within.  Whether  an  article  by  'L.  S .,'  let  us  say,  or  <R.  L.  S.,' 


THE   JUBILEE    OF   THE    'CORNHILL.'  27 

whether  a  story  by  Thackeray  or  Trollope  or  George  Eliot,  he  would 
duly  find  on  turning  the  pages  ;  there  was  no  need  to  anticipate 
his  pleasureable  excitement.  So  I  read  the  cover. 

With  Fudge,  or  Blarney,  or  the  Thames  on  fire 

Treat  not  thy  buyer ; 
But  proffer  good  material — 

A  genuine  Cereal, 

Value  for  twelve  pence,  and  not  dear  at  twenty, 
Such  wit  replenishes  thy  Horn  of  Plenty. 

So  wrote  '  Father  Prout '  in  introducing  No.  1  of  the  CORNHILL 
MAGAZINE.  The  promise  of  cover  and  of  inaugural  ode  has  been 
kept  through  all  the  changes  and  chances  of  fifty  years.  I  close 
the  old  volumes,  and  turn  to  No.  599.  The  names  are  different, 
and  the  subjects  ;  the  quality  of  the  contents  and  the  nature  of 
the  treatment  are  the  same.  There  is  still  the  Thackeray  touch  ; 
still  the  CORNHILL  note.  That  the  tradition  may  be  handed  on 
from  pen  to  pen  for  another  fifty  years  is  the  pious  wish  of  every 
good  Cornhiller. 

E.  T.  COOK. 


®hi(   ^o*  and  the 

AN   IRISH    FABLE 


ONCE  upon  a  time,  there  was  an  old  fox  living  on  Tory  Hill,  in  the 
county  Kilkenny.  He  was  well  known,  for  many  yeare,  to  be  the  greatest 
rogue  in  the  country ;  and,  as  each  hunting  season  came  round,  horse- 
men and  hounds  were  to  be  seen  on  the  hill  seeking  to  lay  hold  of  him. 
Their  efforts  were  vain;  for  though  they  were  able  to  unearth  many 
other  foxes,  to  pursue  and  kill  them,  still  him  they  could  never  drive 
from  cover.  He  continued,  with  impunity,  to  steal  into  farmyards  and 
to  run  away  with  the  poultry  At  last  he  became  so  old  that  his  muzzle, 
as  well  as  his  tail,  was  sprinkled  with  grey  hairs,  and  the  nickname  of 
"  the  white  fox  "  was  bestowed  upon  him 

At  the  foot  of  the  hill  where  the  u  white  fox  "  burrowed  there  was 
the  dwelling  of  a  farmer  named  Jim  McDonnell;  and  this  poor  man  had 
suffered  so  much  from  the  fox's  depredations,  he  found  it  necessary  to 
keep  three  fierce  dogs  to  be  always  on  the  watch  The  task  these  dogs 
had  undertaken  to  discharge  was  carelessly  performed ;  for  very  frequently 
the  fox  came  close  up  to  the  wall  enclosing  McDonnell's  land,  although 
he  never  ventured  to  cross  it,  because,  informed  by  a  mouse  living  on 
the  farm,  he  would  be  immnrlint^lj  caught  and  murdered,  if  he 
C  did  so. 

One  day,  as  the  white  fox  was  wandering  over  the  hill  he  met  with 
/  a  cat  named  "  Tom,"  that  hp.  knew  »•»  ^ij-mpfrfn  jjm  McDonnell's 
farm. 

"  Morrow,  Tom  1 "  said  the  fox  to  the  cat,  and  wagging  his  tail,  as 
if  he  was  delighted  to  see  it  "Morrow,  Tom4."  ooyo.Lo;  "You  look 
horrid  grumpy  this  morning  Nothing  wrong  with  you,  I  trust?  None 
of  your  kittens  drowned,  or  worried  to  death  by  those  rascally  hounds, 
I  hope?" 

Tom,  the  cat,  looked  at  the  fox,  and  never  uttered  a  word,  but  shook 
his  great  big  head  in  a  sorrowful  manner 

"  Phew  ! "  said  the  fox ;  "  don't  go  on  in  that  doleful  way,  as  if  you 
were  just  after  burying  all  belonging  to  you  What  is  the  matter  ?  Have 
you  and  your  spitfire  wife,  Tabby,  been  at  your  old  tncks  again — fighting 
and  squabbling,  and  tearing  one  another's  eyes  out  ?  " 

The  cat  again  shook  his  head,  and  gazed  ™i^*ijr  ?>V3  piteousjy  at  the 
<-  fox: 

"  What  do  you  mean  ? "  asked  the  fox ,  "  is  anything  the  matter 
worse  than  a  fight  with  the  wife,  or  the  drowning  of  sightless  kittens  ? 
Whatever  it  is,  out  with  it.  Don't  keep  the  grief  all  to  yourself 
[256] 


2  THE  FOX   AND  THE  CAT. 

Nothing  lightens  sorrow  half  so  much  as  telling  it  to  a  friend. 

Turn,  imbmdcn  j-nnr  mind      T  it  in  "li  I  '•     *'j"       T 

mij"  hn  nhlr  fn 


Ah  '"  cried  Tom,  giving  a  deep  sigh,  "  I  am  in  love  !" 
"  In   love  I  "  said  the  fox,  with  a  broad  grin  on  his  grey  muzzle. 
14  What,  my  old  friend  Tom,  that  I  know  to  be  a  great-great-great-great- 
grandfather,  in  love  I     Wliy,  T  am  nq  mnrh  wupriapd  t^-heaa?  you  pay  oo, 
u^Lw**^^^  P^fe*    Ah  ! 

then,  Tom,  with  whflse  young  cat  are  you  in  love?" 
"  With  nobody^  cat,"  replied  Tom. 
"  With  nobody's  cat  1  "  repeated  the  fox,  in  astonishment.     "  Bxcust 


How  can  you  be  in  love,  and  not 


am  m  ioml     cicop 
4«pcl     dying  for  love  of  the  sweetest,  plumpfest,  tidiinVniMrt  young 
mouse  I  ever  beheld  in  all  my  life  !  "  answered  the  cat. 

"  In  love  with  a  mouse  I  Oh  !  now  I  understand  you,  Tom  Now, 
indeed,  you  begin  to  talk  sense,"  answered  the  fox. 

"  Ah  1  *  exclaimed  the  cat,  "  I  am  lost,  leat,  lout  4  —  I  am  all  o»  onct  ao 
1  rut  ^QoAj  destroyed,  and  gone  for  ever,  without  that  dear,  delicious 
mouse  !  Ever  since  I  set  my  heart  on  that  mouse  —  oh,  the  exquisite 
mnrH  Jimmy  life  ;i  iii1-—'*™»J  ""J  mj  ^y^j-  i^o»}>^ma  to  me.  I  abominate 
catsmeat,  though  supplied  in  abundance  ;  and  milk  —  aye,  even  cream  — 
sours  on  my  stomach,  though  the  whole  dairy  were  left  open  to  me.  I 
am  dying,  my  friend  White-fox  —  I  am  dying  of  love  !  " 

"  Then  why  don't  you  try  and  catch  the  mouse  ?  "  asked  the  fox 
"  Why  don't  /  try  and  catch  the  mouse  ?  "  indignantly  responded  the 
cat.  "  What  a  question  to  ask  one  !  For  the  last  three  weeks  —  from  the 
very  first  moment  I  first  saw  it  playing  around  the  corner  of  the  hen- 
house —  I  have  done  nothing  but  try  and  lay  my  claws  upon  the  mouse. 
AJaay-aa4  triaoliaday!  I  have  failed  —  miserably  failed  ;  for  the  exquisite 
creature  is  as  sly,  wary,  watchful,  and  prudent,  as  it  is  fat,  young,  tender, 
attractive,  and  delicious.  Woe's  me,  friend  fox,  if  that  mouse  escapes 
me  three  days  longer,  I  must  inevitably  die  of  fruitless  desire  and 
inanition." 

"  It  is  a  bad  case,"  said  the  fox 

"  Bad  !  "  replied  the  cat  —  "  bad,  sir  !  it  is  «•  desperate  «as^  !  It  is  a 
case  of  unavoidable  self-murder  ;  for  nothing  will  stay  oil  my  stomach, 
until  my  appetite  is  whetted  by  the  first  bite  of  that  dear  little  mouse's 
tender  heart." 

"  It  -ie  a  b?t^  ^"p/'ysaid  the  fox:)"  but  it  ii  not,  ^  yrp  «ay,  a 
desperate  case.'^  -----  ,  * 

"Not  a  desperate  case!"  exclaimed  Tom,  opening  his  eyes,  and 
frowning  with  his  whiskers  at  the  fox.  "  Pray,  Mr.  White-fox,  what 


THE  FOX  AND  THE  CAT. 


case  can  be  more  desperate  than  that  of  one  who  is  dying  of  starvation, 
when  the  only  means  of  procuring  a  remedy  is  «&e  unattainable; 


You  forget  you  have  a  friend,"  remarked  the  fox. 
"  ft  fnV-VI"  tr^y  said  the  cat.     "  A  friaad,  JnrlpprU  —  WL 
A  friend  is  not  the  mouse  I  am  longing  for." 


"  A  friend  should  bear  a  friend's  infirmities,"  sententiously  observed 
the  fox.  "  We  have  all  our  little  peccadilloes  to  acco.unt  for  —  foxes,  cats, 
dogs,  donkeys,  and  mankind.  Lucky  is  he  who  has  the  fewest  fancies 
to  fret  him  by  day  and  to  make  him  sleepless  by  night.  T.hft  happiest,  as 
he  is  certainly  the  wisest  of  all  animals,  is  the  one  wm>  has  the  most 
complete  command  over  his  appetite  —  who,  when  oppressed  with  heat, 
will  not  loll  out  his  tongue,  when  suffering  from  thirst  is  silent,  and  when 

.famine  r.lJTjfi  f.n  hia  atopfflfth  P^T|  rrfhlin  frffm  T-™^>p  ** 


"  It  is  easy  to  talk  like  a  philosopher  when  one  is  not  dying  of  love," 
remarked  the  cat,  in  a  very  moody  and  discontented  tone. 

"It  is  easy  to  talk  —  difficult  to  act,"  sagaciously  observed  the  fox. 
"  You,  Tom,  have  not  concealed  from  me  your  infirmity  ;  and  I^-as^ 
M*"~i,  shall  not  hide  from  you  my  weakness.-  "the  fHflrlnguro  ,nf  QJH- 
^ffi^go  v  ^o  QT^+I^-  w\]i  j  tirnnt,  hn  mntmllj  hnnnfim'nl  For  three 
weeks  you  are  dying  of  love  for  a  mouse.  For  three  aimooomw  harvests 
I  have  been  pining  for  the  possession  of  Jim  McDonnell's  fat,  white- 
necked  Muscovy  duck.  Twenty  times  I  have  risked  my  own  neck  to  get 
at  it  ;  and  each  time  its  own  caution,  combined  with  the  fierce  barking  of 
the  farmer's  furious  dogs,  has  baffled  me." 

"  I  cannot  say,  White-fox,  I  am  sorry  you  have  failed,"  replied  the 
cat,  "  for  the  white-necked  Muscovy  duck  is  a  particular  friend  of  mine, 
and  an  innocent,  good-natured,  good-tempered  creature  she  is." 

"  Which  is  the  stronger  of  the  two,"  cunningly  inquired  the  fox  — 
"  your  friendship  for  the  duck,  or  your  love  for  the  mouse  ?  " 

"I  can  live  without  the  one  ;  I  gflnnot  live  without  the  other,"  replied 
the  cat. 

"  Oh  !  I  see  there  is  a  chance  of  our  coming  to  a  good  understanding 
with  one  another,"  remarked  the  fox.  "  The  mouse  that  you  are  in  love 
with  is  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  and  is  well  aware  of  your  attachment, 
and  has  told  me  some  of  your  tricks,  which  it  laughs  at  as  very  stupid, 
clumsy  tricks  indeed." 

"  The  little  mouse  laughs  at  me  !  "  exclaimed  the  cat,  bristling  his 
hairs,  and  stiffening  up  his  tail,  and  glaring  with  his  eyes.  "  The  delicious 
pretty  creature  !  I  can  scarcely  think  of  her  without  purring." 

«  JUu  Aa  iiimjluit,  piuud,  mk»  «iWj  teg^ad  littte-Jhiiig," 
remarked  the  fox.  / 

"  Oh  I  do  not  sair  a  word,  if  you  love  me,  in  dispraise  of  that  exqui- 

"  Well,  well,"  said  the  grey-bearded  and  grey-tailed  fox,  "  what  a 
atrange  thing  it  is  to.be  over  head  and  ears  in  love  !  Now,  listen  to  me> 


4  THE  FOX  AND  THE  CAT. 

friend  Tom,  and  see  if  we  cannot  help  one  another.  You  want  to  get 
hold  of  the  mouse,  I  want  to  eat  up  the  duck.  I  am  acquainted  with  the 
one,  you  are  the  friend  of  the  other.  There  is  no  chance  of  the  desire  of 
either  of  us  being  gratified,  so  long  as  those  two  remain  where  they  are. 
Let  us  try  -and  make  use  of  them  both  to  help  ourselves.  I  shall  see  the 
mouse,  and  persuade  it  I  have  a  large  store  of  corn  in  one  of  my  burrows, 
which  I  shall  give  it,  on  condition  it  brings  the  duck  along  with  it,  under 
pretence  there  is  a  pond  crowded  with  young  frogs  on  the  top  of  Tory  Hill. 
Do  you,  on  the  other  hand,  promise  to  point  out  to  the  duck  where  there 
is  such  a  pond,  on  condition  that  it  entices  the  mouse  to  accompany  it. 
If  we  succeed  with  our  respective  dupes,  you  shall  have  the  mouse  to 
play  with,  whilst  I  am  making  a  picnic  of  the  duck." 

"  I  want  'words  to  express  my  feelings  *f  p 
wfolight,  at  the  cleverness  of  your  contrivance, 
and  the  readiness  of  your  invention,"  said  the  cat,  as  he  rubbed  himself 
up  against  the  hind  legs  and  bushy  tail  of  the  fox 

"  Then  be  off  with  yourself  at  once,  and  try  and  carry  my  plan  into 
effect,"  said  the  fox. 

"  In  less  than  half  an  hour  I  shall  be^/earnest    conversation  with  the 
Muscovy  duck,"  remarked  the  cat. 

"  Au  revoir!"  cried  the  fox,  as  he  scampered  down  the  hill  with  as 
much  speed  as  if  the  hounds  were  at  his  heels 


a*"OCg  *f       11* 


tr 

HA£  T$R  ii 


AT  a  very  early  hour  in  the  morning  of  the  day  following  the  interview 
between  the  white  fox  and  the  cat  Tom,  there  was  a  loud  quacking  to  be 
heard  at  one  corner  of  the  henhouse. 

"  Quack  I  quack  I  quack  '  "  which  words  being  translated  literally 
into  English,  mean  "  awake  !  awake  !  awake  !  "  These  words  were 
repeated  over  and  over  again  at  the  crevice  by  which  the  mouse  usually 
crept  into  the  habitation  of  the  fowl. 

"  Halloa  !  Any  x>ne  wanting  me  in  particular  ?"  said  the  mouse,  from 
the  bottom  of  the  hole  in  which  it  lay  hidden. 

I  do  ;  your  friend,  the  Muscovy,"  replied  the  duck. 

"  Very  well,  my  friend,"  replied  the  mouse.  "  I  have  just  done  wash- 
ing my  face  ;  I  am  giving  the  last  lick  to  my  right  paw/' 

"  Hurry  !  hurry  !  kttesjul"  cried  the  duck.     "  I  have  such  good  news! 

tft   toll  TQTl  '' 

'  And  I  have  great  news  for  you,  too,"  answered  the  mouse. 

"  Did  you  ever  hear,"  said  the  duck,  as  the  mouse  appeared  before  her, 
'-'  that  there  is  eaid.te4*  on  the  top  of  Tory  Hill  a  pond  swarming  with  nice 
young  frogs?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  the  mouse,  thinking  of  a  brief,  conversation  it  had 


THE  FC       AND  THE  CAT. 

with  the  fox  on  the  preceding  night.     "  Yes,  I  certainly  did  hear  that 
very  near  to  the  top  of  the  hill  there  is  such  a  pond." 

"  Bless  my  heart,  mouse  !"  exclaimed  the  duck,  "  why  did  you  never 
mention  it  to  me  ?  I  have  been  dying  for  a  gorge  of  frogs.  I  am  tired 
of  corn  and  potatoes  ;  they  heat  the  stomach  woefully  :  whereas,  a  meal 
of  frogs  is  the  most  deliciously  cooling  of  all  food  during  this  warm 

Weather.       Tt  11  infr^Y  r—  r—^   h'^"  -"^r  l^rl    nf  T.nti.»n   ifrnlf  »> 

"  I  dare  say,  for  those  who  like  it,"  replied  the  mouse  ;  "  but,  for  iny 
part,  the  very  notion  of  feeding  on  such  garbage  gives  a  sickening  sensa- 
tion to  my  inside  !  I  cannot  understand  how  any  one,  such  as  you,  who 
like  a  pick  of  corn,  can  befoul  your  gizzards  with  such  an  abomination." 

"  It  is  well  for  us  Irish  ducks,"  replied  the  Muscovy,  "  our  masters  do 
not  know  what  nice  things  frogs  are,  or  they  would  keep  their*  r  ai  tlic- 
f  o11  ^"*       for  their  own  table. 


le.  Tfooyi  would 
are  free  td  eat  a 
luyAokLy.  Bu 


much  as  let  us  look  at  a  frog  ;  whereas,  now  we  are  free  t  eat  as  many 
of  thont  exquisite  jumping  ice  hnllr  11  iro  Mn  luyAokLy.  But  why, 
I  again  ask  you,  Miss  Mouse,  have  you  never  told  me  anything  of  the 
frog-pond  on  Tory  Hill  ?  " 

41  Why,  to  say  the  truth,"  answered  the  mouse,  "  I  do  not  think  I 
would  even  now  speak  to  you  about  such  nastiness,  but  that  I  heard 
lately  there  was  a  store  of  corn  hidden  close  to  the  pond." 

"  So  /  have  been  told,"  observed  the  duck. 

"  Oh  !  You  have  also  heard  that  news,"  remarked  the  mouse. 
"-XLen.it  must  be  true." 

"  I  have  not  a  doubt  of  it,"  said  the  duck,  seeking  to  inveigle  the 
mouse. 

"  And  I  have  not  the  smallest  doubt  as  to  the  frog-pond,"  said  the 
mouse,  seeking  to  deceive  and  betray  the  duck. 

"i^e^ou  know  the  shortest  way  to  the  top  of  Tory  Hill?  "  asked  «La 
Muscovy. 

"No  one  can  know  it  better,"  answered  the  mouse. 

"  And  the  way  to  the  frog-pond  ?  "  asked  the  duck. 

"  Of  course,"  answered  the  mouse. 

"And  where  the  corn  is  hidden  also?  "  asked  the  duck. 

"Ah,  no!"  replied  the  mouse.  "I  wish  I  did;  but  when  I  get 
there,  it  is  probable  either  I  may  find  it,  or  that  you  or  some  other 
friend  may  point  it  out  to  me." 

"Well,  fretiE-tfet  dunuijjliuu  I  feub  of  tho  pood,  perhaps  I  might  be  of 
use  to  you,"  replied  the  duck.  "  All  I  am  afraid  of  is  meeting  with  the 
white  fox." 

"  The  white  fox  !  indeed  !  "  said  the  mouse.  "  Poor  old  fellow  !  he 
is  hardly  able  to  put  one  foot  before  another  ;  and,  even  if  he  did  meet 
you,  he  could  do  you  no  harm  :  he  has  lost  all  his  teeth." 

"  It  may  be  so,"  answered  the  duck  ;  "  but,  for  all  that,  I  should  not 
like  to  be  within  reach  of  his  mouth.  Come,  then,  as  you  say  there  is 
no  danger  in  encountering  the  white  fox,  let  us  be  off  at  once." 


b. 


6  THE  FOX  AND  THE  CAT, 

"As  you  please,"  said  the  mouse,  "  if  I  was  only  sure  of  one  thing, 
that  the  tom-cat  is  not  about  the  farmyard,  trying  to  catch  me." 

*'  I  know  he  is  not,"  answered  the  duck.  "  I  am  quite  certain  there 
is  not  the  slightest  chance  of  your  receiving  any  damage  from  Tom,  so  long 
as  you  remain  in  the  farmyard  this  morning." 

"  In  that  case,  then,  let  us  start  for  Tory  Hill  and  the  frog-pond,"  said 
the  mouse. 

"  And  not  forgetting  the  store  of  corn,"  giggled  the  stupid  Muscovy, 
fancying  she  was  enticing  the  little  mouse  to  certain  death,  and  ready  to 
sacrifice  her  companion,  because  she  hoped  her  treachery  would  be  rewarded 
with  a  luxurious  banquet  of  live  young  frogs. 

The  duck  and  the  mouse  stole  unperceived  out  of  the  farmyard  of 
Jim  McDonnell.  They  crossed  in  haste  the  few  fields  that  lay  between 
it  and  the  base  of  the  mountain.  The  mouse  ran  quickly,  and  the  duck 
waddled  slowly,  nnd  m'th  grrnir  rliffinnltiji  up  the  rough  and  rock-covered 
hillsides,  until  they  at  length  reached  the  thick  and  low  lying  furze 
bushes. 

"  Stop  ! "  cried  the  duck,  when  she  had  penetrated  a  few  yards  through 
the  furze,  and  at  last  came  to  a  moss-covered  flat  mass  of  granite.  "  Stop  1 
stop  !  liftm  Aoad  ti>od ;  I  am  so  wearied  out,  that,  if  I  knew  there  was  a 
pond  full  "of  four- week  old  frogs  within  two1,  yards  of.  me,  I  could  not  walk 
to  them." 

"  Permit  me,  then,  my  dear  Muscovy,  to  have  the  honour  of  carrying 
you."  said  the  white  fox  starting  up  before  her.  "  The  trouble  will  be  a 
pleasure,  I  assure  you." 

"  Quack !  quack ! "  shrieked  the  duck,  in  a  terrible  fright.  "  Get 
out  of  that,  you  dirty,  old,  lame-legged,  toothless  fox !  -j  hato  the  ¥crj 


»:~t,4.  ^f  ^^,,  " 


"  Least  said  is  soonest  mended,"  answered  the  fox,  snapping  the  head 
off  the  Muscovy  duck,  and  flinging  the  dead  body  across  his  back. 

"Where  is  the  corn-store  you  promised  to  show  me?"  asked  the 
mouse,  trembling  as  it  saw  the  blood  of  the  duck  flowing  over  the  granite 
rock. 

"  This  gentleman  will  preserve  you  from  the  inconvenience  of  searching 
for  it,"  said  the  fox,  as  he  pointed  to  ,the  cat,  which  now  stood  at  the 
back  of  the  mouse,  with  -ln\°  m^'it^  open,,  and  'ito  oltwo  opening  tu 


"  Ah  !  "  squeeled  the  mouse,  ^a.^  •, 

<~  The  claws  or  the  cat  had  fastened  m  tw  "iOii5p  ;  the  teeth  had  crushed 
its  ribs;  and  it  rolled  upon  the  rock,  shivering  in  torture,  as  its  once 
sleek  fur  dabbled  in  the  gore  of  the  murdered  duck. 

"  Ah  1  "  exclaimed  the  mouse,  "  I  am  dying  !  and  a  fitting  fate  has 
befallen  me  !  He  who  is  so  base  as  to  betray  his  friend,  in  the  hope 
of  profiting  by  his  downfall,  is  justly  punished  when  the  act  of  treachery 
-leads  to  his  own  destruction." 

nt  your  °"pf  °r,"  paid  the  f^v  •  «  T  T,^P  <nrrQomoing7  md/ 


T1IE  FOX  AND  THE  CAT. 


therefore,  did  not  give  any  time  tb  the  Muscovy  to  compose  a  homily 
upon  her  folly  and  perfidy.  It  is  \njonderrul  what  a  tendency  there  is  to 
virtue  when  an  adherence  to  its  nUles  becomes  impracticable ;  and  how 
very  much  disposed  to  repentance  is  rascality,  when  vice  is  attended  with 
affliction,  and  deprived  of  the  profit  which  had  been  expected  to  accom- 
pany it." 

"  I  am  sadly  disappointed  !  "  ^aid  the  cat,  as  he  sulkily  wiped  his  red- 
stained  whiskers. 

"  Disappointed  !  "  cried  the  fJx ;  "  what,  after  eating  every  morsel  of 
the  mouse !  for  the  love  of  whiclf  you  have  been  pining  for  the  last  three 
weeks ! " 

ig  !  "  said  the  cat.  "  It  was  neither  as 
nous,  as  I  expected.  I  thought  it  was 
bead  of  that,  sir,  it  must  have  been  a 
tr  of  a  mouse.  Its  bones  were  hard  as 
as  leather,  and  its  inside  as  dry  as  a 


"  Augh  !  the  dirty  little  thj 
fat,  nor  as  tender,  nor  as  dc 
young — not  a  month  old.     Ins 
great -grandmother's  grandmothj 
hard  as  iron,  its  skin  as  torn 


lawyer's  wig.      I  was  in  love 
choked  by  a  fact." 

"  I  wished  for  the  Musco 


with  a  fancy,  and  I  have  been  nearly 


',  simply  because  it  was  a  duck.  I  have 
eaten  it,  and  I  am  content,"  observed  the  fox.  "  My  honest  Tom,  when 
I  met  you,  yesterday,  you  toldl  me  you  would  die  within  three  days  if 
you  did  not  obtain  the  mouse  Jou  were  in  love  with.  Your  wishes  have 
been  gratified,  and  yet  you  ade  morose  and  discontented  !  Wherefore  ? 
Simply  because  you  have  discovered  you  were  a  fool  to  sigh  for-what 
was  not  a  reality,  but  a  sentimf  nt.  Such  indiscretions  are  excusable  in 
the  young ;  for  to  them  the  rugged  ways  of  the  world  are  unknown, 
and  experience  has  not  yet  commenced  to  give  them  any  of  her  rude, 
unpleasant,  but  still  most  truthful  lessons.  You  are  an  old  cat,  Tom. 
Your  whiskers,  like  my  own  liuzzle,  are  blanching  with  the  snows  of  age. 
Let  your  conduct  be  in  accordance  with  your  years.  Have  $one  with  the 

delusive  visions  of  the  imagination.     Have  done  with " 

"  Have  done  with  an  old  p^oser  like  you,"  said  the  enraged  Tom.     "  I 


am  not  such  a  confounded  idio 

your  balderdash." 

With  these  words,  the  cat 
The  fox  looked  after  the 

favourite  cover  on  the  top  of 


thing  Tom  ever  said. 
hought." 


After 


as  to  stop  a  moment  longer  listening  to 

irted  down  the  hill. 

|t,  grinned,  and  as  he  turned  towards  his 
)ry  Hill,  said,  "  That  is  the  most  sensible 
all,  he  is  not  such  an  arrant  fool  as  I 


35 


ON  ESS  A  YS  AT  LARGE, 
BY  ABTHUE  C.  BENSON. 

THERE  is  no  word  which  it  seems  harder  to  define  than  the  word 
Essay  ;  it  seems  as  difficult  to  describe  as  the  quality  of  justice  in 
Plato's  '  Kepublic,'  which  turned  out  to  be  the  one  indefinable  and 
essential  principle  that  was  left,  like  Argon,  when  all  the  other 
qualities  that  go  to  the  making  up  of  the  state  were  subtracted. 
Similarly,  when  all  other  forms  of  human  composition  have  been 
classified,  the  essay  is  left.  Almost  the  only  quality  that  it  seems 
possible  to  predicate  of  it  is  comparative  brevity,  and  even  that 
is  not  essential  to  it,  for  such  a  book  as  the '  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  ' 
is  little  more  than  a  gigantic  essay,  when  all  is  said.  The  difficulty 
is  that  the  word  has  travelled  so  far  from  its  original  meaning, 
which  implied  something  tentative  and  evanescent.  Yet  if  the 
word  can  be  applied  to  Macaulay 's  Essays,  the  original  conception 
falls  to  the  ground  at  once,  for  Macaulay's  Essays  are  certainly 
neither  evanescent  nor  tentative,  but  some  of  the  most  positive 
and  palpable  documents  in  the  archives  of  literature.  The  fact  is 
that  the  word  has  been  wrested  from  its  meaning  to  cover  any 
species  of  short  study,  biographical  or  historical.  We  do  not,  how- 
ever, presume  to  plead  that  the  word  should  be  restored  to  its 
original  meaning ;  words  are  our  servants  and  not  our  masters ; 
usage  is  more  important  than  derivation,  and  it  is  mere  pedantry 
to  attempt  to  maintain  the  opposite.  But  for  all  that  it  is  agree- 
able, even  if  it  be  useless,  to  discern  and  disentangle  the  proper 
qualities  of  things,  and  to  play  with  literary  values  is  as  pretty  a 
game  as  to  toy  with  vintages. 

The  true  essay,  then,  is  a  tentative  and  personal  treatment 
of  a  subject ;  it  is  a  kind  of  improvisation  on  a  delicate  theme  ; 
a  species  of  soliloquy,  as  if  a  man  were  to  speak  aloud  the  slender 
and  whimsical  thoughts  that  come  into  his  mind  when  he  is  alone 
on  a  winter  evening  before  a  warm  fire,  and,  closing  his  book, 
abandons  himself  to  the  luxury  of  genial  reverie.  I  remember 
once  being  in  the  studio  of  a  great  painter.  He  was  at  work  on  a 
portrait  which  for  personal  reasons  I  had  been  asked  to  criticise. 
After  we  had  discussed  the  picture,  he  had  taken  up  his  palette 

3—2 


36  ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE. 

and  brush,  and  was  adding  some  little  touches.  As  he  did  this, 
be  began  to  talk  first  about  the  methods,  and  then  about  the  aims 
of  art.  He  spoke  as  if  almost  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  an 
auditor,  in  very  simple,  spontaneous  language,  as  though  he  were 
thinking  aloud.  He  suddenly  broke  off,  with  a  half-blush,  and 
said  'These  are  some  of  the  thoughts  that  come  into  my  head 
as  I  stand  at  my  work ;  I  am  ashamed  to  trouble  you  with  them,' — 
and  I  could  not  induce  him  to  resume.  That  was,  I  felt,  a  real 
essay  in  the  making.  I  had  seen  the  very  telegraphy  of  the  brain 
at  work,  the  unseen  soul  at  its  business  of  thought,  and  I  felt  too, 
as  I  reflected,  that  I  had  understood  it  all  perfectly,  as  I  could  not 
have  understood  a  technical  treatise ;  for  the  real  stuff  of  thought 
is  simple  enough — it  is  the  learned  mind  that  complicates  and 
embroiders.  The  theme  itself  matters  little — the  art  of  it  lies  in 
the  treatment.  And  the  important  thing  is  that  the  essay  should 
possess  what  may  be  called  atmosphere  and  personality ;  and  thus 
it  may  be  held  to  be  of  the  essence  of  the  matter  that  the  result 
should  appear  to  be  natural,  by  whatever  expenditure  of  toil  that 
quality  may  need  to  be  achieved.  In  this  sense  it  may  be  held 
that  Bacon's  Essays  are  hardly  true  essays,  because  they  are  too 
aphoristic — the  bones  are  picked  too  clean,  the  definition  is  too 
superbly  lucid  and  concise.  Most  essayists  could  not  afford  to 
spin  their  web  as  close  as  that — a  single  page  of  Bacon  would 
furnish  out  themes  and  climaxes  and  ornaments  for  a  whole  essay 
of  the  more  leisurely  type.  For  the  mark  of  the  true  essay  is  that 
the  reader's  thinking  is  all  done  for  him.  A  thought  is  expanded 
in  a  dozen  ways,  until  the  most  nebulous  mind  takes  cognisance 
of  it.  The  path  winds  and  insinuates  itself,  like  a  little  leafy  lane 
among  fields,  with  the  hamlet-chimneys  and  the  spire,  which 
are  its  leisurely  goal,  appearing  only  by  glimpses  and  vistas,  to 
left  or  to  right,  just  sufficiently  to  reassure  the  sauntering  pilgrim 
as  to  the  ultimate  end  of  his  enterprise.  But  the  Essays  of  Bacon 
resemble  more  a  series  of  stepping-stones,  rigid,  orderly,  compact, 
the  progress  across  which  must  be  wary  and  intent,  admitting  but 
little  opportunity  for  desultory  contemplation. 

Again,  the  true  essay  must  be,  as  we  have  said,  tentative.  It 
must  never  be  authoritative.  It  must  make  no  pronouncement, 
and  draw  no  conclusion.  The  most  the  essayist  may  do  is  to 
venture  to  suggest.  As  a  cicerone,  he  must  not  discourse  pro- 
fessionally of  dates  and  mouldings,  but  trifle  gracefully  with  an 
historical  association,  or  indicate  an  effect  of  light  and  shadow  on 


ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE.  37 

a  mellow  wall.  In  fact  the  campanula  that  swings  its  lilac  bells 
upon  the  broken  ledge,  or  the  orange  rosettes  of  lichen  on  the 
weathered  ashlar  are  more  his  concern  than  the  origin  and  signifi- 
cance of  the  pile  itself.  His  duty  is  rather  to  exhibit  his  subject 
from  a  dozen  different  points  of  view,  and  he  must  take  thought  of 
foreground  and  distance  more  than  of  elevation  and  perspective. 
If  he  convinces  at  all,  it  must  be  by  persuasion  and  example,  and 
not  by  precept  or  statute — but  indeed  his  aim  is  never  intellectual 
conviction,  nor  the  unveiling  of  error ;  it  is  rather  to  show  the 
poetical  value  of  a  thought,  its  suggestiveness,  its  gossamer  con- 
nexions, its  emotional  possibilities  ;  and  thus  the  breeze  that  stirs 
the  surface  of  the  pool  is  as  important  as  the  pool  itself ;  the 
reflected  images  of  tree  and  hill,  that  blend  and  waver,  as  much  his 
pre-occupation  as  the  actual  forms  themselves — indeed  more  so; 
for,  as  I  have  said,  atmosphere  is  the  end  of  all  his  devices. 
Personality,  then,  is  the  characteristic  of  the  essay  ;  not  necessarily 
egotistic  personality,  the  mind  regarding  itself  with  absorbed 
delight,  repeating  and  viewing  and  recording  its  own  motions. 
That  indeed  is  not  forbidden  to  the  essayist,  for  the  essence  of  his  art 
is  zest  in  his  subject ;  but  greater  still  is  the  charm  of  personality  un- 
conscious of  itself,  and  merely  following  its  own  contemplations  with 
a  delighted  intentness,  like  the  talk  of  a  child.  And  here  I  think 
lies  another  characteristic  of  the  true  essayist,  a  certain  childlike 
absorption  in  his  subject.  We  all  of  us  love  trifles  at  heart :  the 
shapes  and  aspect  of  things,  the  quality  of  sounds,  the  savours  of 
food,  the  sweet  and  pungent  odours  of  earth.  We  persuade  our- 
selves, as  life  goes  on,  that  these  things  are  unimportant,  and  we  dull 
our  observation  of  them  by  disuse  ;  but  in  all  the  essayists  that 
I  can  think  of,  this  elemental  perception  of  things  as  they  are 
is  very  strong  and  acute  ;  and  half  their  charm  is  that  they  recall 
to  us  things  that  we  have  forgotten,  things  which  fell  sharply  and 
clearly  on  the  perception  of  our  young  senses,  or  bring  back  to  us 
in  a  flash  that  delicate  wonder,  that  undimmed  delight,  when  the 
dawn  lay  brightening  about  us,  and  when  our  limbs  were  restless 
and  alert. 

The  mysterious  quality  called  charm  is  thus  another  of  the 
first  requisites  of  the  essayist ;  and  here  we  are  dealing  with  one  of 
those  ultimate  and  indivisible  qualities  which  defy  analysis.  It 
brings  us  back  to  the  naked  principle  of  all  criticism,  that  we  like 
a  thing,  after  all,  because  we  do  like  it,  and  for  no  other  reason  ; 
we  may  train  and  refine  our  taste,  of  course,  but  we  only  end  by 


38  ON    ESSAYS   AT   LARGE. 

assimilating  our  taste  to  the  perceptions  of  more  richly  endowed, 
more  eager  natures.  But  no  artist  can  ever  attain  to  charm  by 
taking  thought.  What  he  can  do  is  to  improve  and  refine  his 
methods,  till  he  arrives  at  expressing  the  thought  he  conceives  as 
closely  as  possible  ;  he  can  get  rid  of  clumsiness  and  hesitancy  and 
obscurity,  as  the  sculptor  gets  nearer  at  every  stroke  to  the  form 
concealed  in  the  stone  ;  but  even  so  it  is  the  form  that  is  the  ultimate 
and  momentous  thing,  and  not  the  polish  of  the  surface — indeed 
that  polish  can  be  too  high,  too  mechanical ;  the  dint  upon  the 
stone,  the  rake-marks  on  the  gravel,  have  an  unconsidered  charm, 
for  they  give  the  sense  of  the  human  hand  at  work. 

It  would  be  an  ample  task,  but  one  that  lies  beyond  the  scope 
of  this  paper,  to  show  how  the  seed  of  the  essay  sown  by  Montaigne 
in  France  not  only  did  not  nourish  there,  but  was  transplanted 
almost  bodily  to  England,  and  became  one  of  the  chief  glories  of 
our  literature.  At  first  sight  it  would  seem  surprising.  It  would 
appear  that  the  essay  was  a  vehicle  which  would  have  exactly 
suited  the  subtle  and  suggestive  temperament  of  the  French,  and 
was  ill-adapted  for  the  less  imaginative  if  sturdier  character  of  our 
own  nation.  Yet  so  it  has  been.  In  the  hands  of  Addison  and 
Steele,  of  Goldsmith  and  Johnson,  the  essay  became  perhaps  the 
most  characteristic  product  of  English  eighteenth-century  literature, 
with  its  refined  taste,  its  gentlemanly  philosophy,  and  with  just  the 
touch  of  nature  and  sincerity  that  harmonised  the  whole.  But 
with  the  romantic  movement  came  a  fresher  impulse  still ;  and  the 
three  great  essayists  of  the  early  nineteenth  century,  Hazlitt,  Lamb, 
and  De  Quincey,  gave  the  essay  both  a  breadth  and  an  appeal  which 
it  had  never  hitherto  known.  Hazlitt  was  a  great  taster  of  the 
savours  of  life,  and  though  a  certain  harshness  and  sombreness  of 
nature  made  him  perhaps  more  of  a  guide  than  a  leader,  yet  the 
thought  which  caused  him  to  say  on  his  somewhat  desolate  death- 
bed, '  Well,  I  have  had  a  happy  life,'  makes  itself  heard  in  his 
writings.  De  Quincey  no  doubt  suffered  from  the  hideous  pro- 
fusion in  which  his  necessities  and  his  circumstances  impelled  him 
to  indulge.  Never  was  there  a  noble  and  impassioned  writer  who 
so  wallows  at  times  in  verbosity  and  ineptitude,  and  yet  who  rises 
on  the  one  hand  to  such  authentic  presentment  of  the  very  stuff 
of  humanity,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  such  impassioned  melody 
of  thought  and  word.  He  tried  perhaps  to  make  prose  do  the 
work  of  poetry,  but  for  all  that  he  has  contrived  to  baffle  all  who 
would  clearly  define  the  difference,  and  to  leave  among  his  myriad 


ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE.  39 

writings  visions  where  light  and  sound  seem  to  blend  magically  into 
an  essence  for  which  no  literary  name  can  be  found. 

But  the  writer  who,  with  no  pretensions,  no  sacerdotal  claims, 
winds  himself  subtly  and  firmly  into  the  sovereignty  of  English 
essayists  is  Charles  Lamb.  Strangely  enough  it  was  late  in  life 
that  he  found  his  place.  He  had  no  ambitious  range  of  subjects, 
nor  had  he  the  command  of  the  organ-like  melody  which  De  Quincey 
owned.  Perhaps  this  may  be  the  reason  why  De  Quincey,  alone 
of  notable  critics,  persistently  decried  Lamb's  merits,  accusing 
him  of  want  of  proportion  and  variety.  But  Charles  Lamb  brought 
to  his  work  a  largeness  of  heart  and  a  sweetness  of  temper  that 
survived  both  acute  and  wearing  sorrows  and  a  deep-seated  fragility 
of  fame — '  Saint  Charles  !  '  as  Thackeray  once  said,  putting  a 
letter  of  Lamb's  to  his  forehead.  To  this  was  added  an  extra- 
ordinary fineness  of  observation,  and  a  delicate  sensitiveness  to  the 
quality  of  experience  that  had  slowly  matured  ;  and  he  had,  too, 
a  humour  both  whimsical  and  profound,  which,  into  whatever 
extravagance  it  may  have  betrayed  him  in  convivial  moments, 
was  always  held  in  exquisite  restraint  when  he  came  to  write  ; 
and  thus  the  essays  have  that  rare  balance  of  emotion,  where  pathos 
is  kept  from  sickliness  by  a  virile  sense  of  absurdity,  and  where 
emotion  preserves  humour  from  the  least  touch  of  cynicism.  It  is 
not  as  if  the  two  moods  alternated,  they  co-existed  ;  and  a  tact 
which  was  of  the  nature  of  genius  kept  the  proportion  exact.  It  is 
idle  to  say  that  Lamb  can  never  be  surpassed  ;  but  so  perfect  an 
adjustment  of  special  faculties,  combined  with  so  limpid  a  style 
and  so  sincere  a  modesty  of  presentment,  must  of  necessity  be  a 
rarity. 

And  now,  '  as  in  private  duty  bound  '  as  the  old  bidding  prayer 
runs,  I  may  be  allowed  to  touch  upon  a  group  of  essayists  who 
have  been  particularly  connected  with  the  pages  of  the  CORNHILL 
MAGAZINE.  It  has  from  the  first  been  the  policy  of  the  CORNHILL 
to  give  prominence  to  the  note  of  personal  expression  ;  and  thus  it 
has  attracted  to  itself  writers  of  this  quality. 

The  output  of  Thackeray  was  so  prodigious  and  his  method 
so  incredibly  natural  and  spontaneous,  that  it  is  easy  to  say  he 
was  not  an  artist,  just  as  pedantic  critics  used  to  say  that  his 
drawings  were  very  amusing  but  undeniably  amateurish.  The 
truth  is  that  Thackeray  defied  all  rules.  His  wonderful  eye  saw 
everything,  and  his  large  heart  had  room  for  everything  and  every- 
body. He  lived,  and  enjoyed  life,  with  an  absolutely  unimpaired 


40  ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE. 

and  childlike  zest ;  and  his  brave,  simple,  tender  spirit  endured 
to  the  end.  Where  other  men  are  connoisseurs  of  fine  flavours 
and  delicate  nuances,  Thackeray  was  a  connoisseur  of  the  broadest 
and  biggest  things  of  life — its  pathos,  its  absurdity,  its  courage, 
its  loyalty.  As  the  French  proverb  says,  he  is  bon  comme  le  pain. 
His  handling  of  humanity  is  so  liberal  that  he  puts  one  out  of 
conceit  with  all  uneasy  devices,  all  nice  assignments  of  epithets. 
He  writes  as  the  jovial  Zeus  of  the  Iliad  might  have  written  about 
the  combats  and  the  loves  of  men,  sympathising  with  and  ex- 
periencing every  passion  and  frailty,  yet  with  a  divine  immunity 
from  their  penalties  and  shadows. 

As  Edward  FitzGerald  wrote  of  him  in  1845 — 

*  In  the  meanwhile  old  Thackeray  laughs  at  all  this  ;  and  goes 
on  in  his  own  way,  writing  hard  for  half  a  dozen  reviews  and 
newspapers  all  the  morning ;  dining,  drinking,  and  talking  of  a 
night ;  managing  to  preserve  a  fresh  colour  and  perpetual  flow  of 
spirits  under  a  wear-and-tear  of  thinking  and  feeding  that  would 
have  knocked  up  any  other  man  I  know  two  years  ago  at  least.' 

And  how  characteristic  it  was  of  Thackeray  that  in  his  later 
days  he  could  write,  he  confessed,  anywhere  better  than  in  his 
own  quiet  study — in  a  club  smoking-room  or  a  bar-parlour,  where 
he  was  in  touch  with  the  light  and  sound  and  even  the  scent  of 
life  ! 

The  '  Eoundabout  Papers '  are  perhaps  among  the  greatest 
triumphs  of  the  art  of  the  essayist.  It  is  impossible  to  say  what 
they  are  all  about— what  are  they  not  about  ?  Yet  the  book  is 
irresistible,  and  not  to  be  laid  aside  ;  and,  what  is  the  strongest 
test  of  all,  it  is  so  contagious  in  style  and  manner  that  after  reading 
it  one  has  a  fatal  tendency  to  try  to  imitate  it ;  it  produces  a  kind 
of  mental  intoxication,  in  which  one  feels  capable  de  tout — of 
observing  and  loving  and  interpreting  human  nature  in  the  same 
large  and  easy  way. 

Thackeray  must  have  had  the  special  gift  of  writing  exactly 
as  fast  as  he  thought.  If  a  man  thinks  faster  than  he  writes, 
the  result  is  abruptness  of  transition,  a  disconnected  allusiveness, 
a  sense  of  flying  leaps  and  uneven  progress.  If  he  thinks  slower 
than  he  writes,  there  is  a  sense  of  costive  reluctance — he  wades, 
as  Tennyson  said,  in  a  sea  of  glue.  But  with  Thackeray  the  word 
is  the  thought;  it  has  the  sense  of  fluent  talk  without  self-con- 
sciousness or  strain. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  complete  contrast  than 


ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE.  41 

that  presented  by  Leslie  Stephen  to  Thackeray.  The  '  Hours  in 
a  Library '  contain  an  immense  amount  of  admirable  literary 
appreciation,  stated  with  a  temperate  justice  and  a  reasonable 
candour  which  is  above  praise.  These  criticisms  read  like  legal 
judgments  passed  upon  writers  by  a  man  with  a  wide  knowledge 
of  the  subject  and  distinct  preferences  of  his  own,  before  whom 
the  cause  of  the  writer  has  been  pleaded  by  an  advocate,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  indiscriminate  admiration  and  headlong  eulogy,  and 
on  the  other  hand  by  an  advocate  of  confessed  hostility  and  whole- 
hearted contempt.  The  two  extremes  seem  to  be  always  in  the 
mind  of  the  presiding  judge,  and  he  delivers  his  decision  with 
logical  clearness  and  an  extreme  sense  of  responsibility.  Hardly 
ever  do  his  own  personal  preferences  betray  him  into  bias  or  haste. 
He  sifts  the  evidence,  he  balances  the  claims  and  counterclaims, 
and  he  is  evidently  prepared  to  sacrifice  his  own  convictions  if 
the  weight  of  the  testimony  is  against  them.  There  is  no  writer 
to  whom  I  would  more  readily  go  for  a  decision,  and  one  is  sure 
of  hearing  the  best  and  the  worst  that  can  be  said  for  and  against 
a  man.  But  if  one  is  at  the  mercy  of  impassioned  preferences  on 
the  subject  of  particular  writers,  this  method  of  treatment  is  apt 
to  strike  one  as  dry  and  unsympathetic.  One  feels  obscurely  that 
one's  instinct  is  right,  and  one  assents  in  a  dumbly  rebellious 
frame  of  mind  to  a  criticism  that  it  seems  almost  ill-mannered  to 
dissent  from,  and  feeble-minded  to  attempt  to  controvert.  The 
logic  is  so  exact,  the  emotion  so  restrained!  The  frame  of  mind 
in  which  Wordsworth  wrote  '  and  you  must  love  him  ere  to  you 
he  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love'  seems  alien  to  this  just  and 
kindly  judge.  He  would  say  that  it  would  be  foolish  to  bestow 
your  love,  if  there  were  any  chance  of  your  discovering  upon 
examination  that  it  was  unwisely  bestowed.  The  essay  on  De 
Quincey  is  an  admirable  instance  of  the  qualities  I  have  been 
describing.  Stephen  is  perfectly  just  to  De  Quincey's  achievement, 
and  writes  in  terms  of  dignified  laudation  of  his  best  work ;  but 
the  impression  at  the  end  of  the  essay  is,  on  the  whole,  that  a 
butterfly  has  been  broken  on  the  wheel,  and  there  is  a  mess  of 
fractured  limbs  and  rainbow  pinions.  '  It  sounds,  and  many  people 
will  say  that  this  is  a  harsh  and  perhaps  a  stupid  judgment.  If 
so,  they  may  find  plenty  of  admirers  who  will  supply  the  eulogistic 
side  here  too  briefly  indicated.'  The  judgment  is  neither  harsh 
nor  stupid.  It  is  scrupulously  kind  and  extremely  intelligent. 
But  you  feel  that  you  can  do  nothing  with  De  Quincey  in  the 


42  ON    ESSAYS   AT   LARGE. 

legal  method.  You  must  take  his  best  and  be  thankful,  and  the 
wonderful  beauty  of  his  finest  passages  can  no  more  be  scientifically 
analysed  than  a  sunset  cloud.  It  is  only  an  effect,  no  doubt,  of 
vapour  and  light,  but  it  is  something  more  than  that,  and  its 
beauty  must  be  felt.  '  I  take  leave  to  insist  upon  faults  which  are 
passed  over  too  easily  by  writers  of  more  geniality  than  I  claim 
to  possess,'  are  the  closing  words  of  the  judgment,  and  they  have 
a  bitter  taste.  Why  write  about  books  and  people  at  all  if  you 
are  only  to  confess  your  own  lack  of  sympathy  with  them  ?  If 
one  reads  the  noble  biography  of  Leslie  Stephen  by  Maitland 
the  secret  is  revealed.  He  was  a  man  of  very  deep  emotion  and 
intense  loyalty.  But  his  sincerity  and  his  candour  deserted  him 
in  the  presence  of  emotion.  He  was  so  afraid  of  sentiment,  so 
ashamed  of  giving  himself  away,  that  he  hung  back  at  the  very 
moment  where  his  good  sense  would  have  been  most  valuable. 
No  one  desires  a  sacrifice  of  dignity,  or  a  fatuous  display  of  senti- 
ment ;  but  to  deal  with  books  and  human  beings,  and  to  ignore 
the  emotional  framework,  is  a  chilly  business.  And  it  is  here  that 
Thackeray  strides  ahead,  because  he  was  not  ashamed  to  be  known 
and  seen  to  feel.  Yet  there  is  room  for  both  ;  and  Stephen's  whole- 
some, manly,  and  dispassionate  judgments  are  an  excellent  cor- 
rective of  literary  extravagance  and  sentimental  preferences. 

The  essays  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  many  of  which  appeared 
in  the  CORNHILL,  and  were  afterwards  collected  into  the  volume 
'  Virginibus  Puerisque,'  are  conceived  and  executed  in  a  very 
different  vein.  They  are  confessedly  and  obviously  elaborate 
writing,  and  the  author  seems  to  have  worked  in  the  spirit  of 
the  advice  given  by  Keats  to  Shelley,  '  to  load  every  rift  with 
ore.'  The  tone  and  temper  of  the  essays  are  admirable  ;  they 
are  breezy  without  being  boisterous,  and  brave  without  being 
insouciant.  Perhaps  it  may  be  said  of  them  that  they  are  rather 
too  deliberately  buoyant,  for  there  peeps  in  every  now  and  then 
a  touch  of  grim  philosophy,  not,  indeed,  foreign  to  the  writer's 
experience,  for  even  when  they  were  written  Stevenson  had  had, 
as  Browning  says,  '  trouble  enough  for  one.'  It  is  better,  I  think, 
to  read  them  in  connexion  with  their  title.  They  are  essentially 
youthful  in  spirit,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  a  certain 
maturity  of  temperament  is  not  an  almost  necessary  qualification 
in  an  essay-writer.  He  must  have  seen,  so  to  speak,  both  sides 
of  the  coin.  Stevenson  had  lived  with  zest,  and  he  had  begun  to 
suffer,  but  he  had  not  as  yet  lost  interest  in  his  sufferings  :  he 


ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE.  43 

had  not  yet  begun  to  walk  in  that  shadowy  land,  afterwards  to 
become  familiar  to  him,  in  which  weakness  takes  the  fight  out 
of  a  man.  In  the  early  days  of  illness  it  is  not  without  a  certain 
lurid  interest  to  have  looked  a  spectre  in  the  face,  and  to  have 
shut  the  door  upon  him.  Experience,  after  all,  is  always  interesting, 
and  the  more  disagreeable  it  is,  the  more  zest  it  gives  to  hours 
of  relief.  To  the  young  men  and  maidens  who  have  glowed  and 
thrilled  over  these  manly,  humorous,  full-flavoured  essays,  it  adds 
a  pleasant  savour  to  life  to  peep  into  its  afflicted  places,  its  grated 
dungeons  ;  and  all  the  more  so  when  one  who  has  sojourned  there 
comes  out  smiling,  and  assures  his  hearers  that  the  dark  corners 
were  illuminated  with  courage  and  hope.  But  one  grows  a  little 
older,  and  an  uneasy  suspicion  falls  upon  one  that  the  brisk  per- 
former on  tabret  and  pipe  is  a  little  sick  at  heart,  and  that  he  is 
practising  what  is  called  in  modern  phrase  '  auto-suggestion,' 
which  consists  in  saying,  like  Mark  Tapley,  that  everything  is 
jolly,  in  the  hope  that  one  may  seem  a  little  less  dreary  than  one 
feels.  Still,  the  courage,  the  good  temper,  the  determination  to 
be  pleased  with  life,  qualities  which  lay  at  the  very  root  of  Steven- 
son's nature,  here  stand  out  in  every  page ;  and  what  is  finer  still, 
the  conviction  that,  if  one  fails  to  be  interested  in  life,  it  is  one's 
own  fault,  and  not  the  fault  of  life ;  and  that  one  does  not  mend 
a  bad  business  by  whining  and  pleading  exceptional  justification 
for  one's  stupid  and  perverse  blunders.  The  essay  about  the  Eng- 
lish Admirals,  for  instance,  stirs  the  heart  like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet, 
with  its  splendid  patriotism,  its  unreasonable  courage.  Still  one 
may,  T  think,  justly  prefer  Stevenson's  letters  to  Stevenson's 
essays.  In  the  letters  one  gets  a  freshness  and  spontaneity  which 
one  just  misses  in  the  essays.  In  the  essays  there  is  a  construction 
of  literary  ornament ;  in  the  letters  the  construction  is  ornamented, 
and  no  more,  by  the  literary  flavour.  Yet  the  essays,  too,  for  all 
their  spicy  scent,  have  the  intimacy  of  the  true  essay.  You  hear 
the  talk  and  look  into  the  eyes  of  a  friend.  You  feel  that  nothing 
but  the  unhappy  accidents  of  time  and  space  kept  you  from 
swearing  eternal  brotherhood  with  a  brave  heart ;  and  you  end, 
as  William  Cory  said  so  tenderly  of  Walter  Scott,  by  hating  the 
death  that  parts  you  from  the  beloved. 

And  here,  too,  may  be  mentioned  the  work  of  John  Addington 
Symonds,  some  of  whose  most  finished  essays  appeared  in  the 
CORNHILL.  He  was  a  great  friend  of  Stevenson's,  and  they  were 
knit  together  by  unity  of  temperament  and  trial.  Opalstein  and 


44  ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE. 

Firefly  were  the  names  they  gave  each  other,  this  for  the  clouding 
gleams  of  fantastic  brightness,  and  that  for  the  swift  lapses  of 
lambent  flame.  Keen  as  Symonds'  delight  was  in  the  joys  and 
beauties  of  earth,  quick  and  exact  as  his  observation  was,  rich  as 
his  resources  of  language  were,  he  had  not  quite  the  personal  touch 
that  wins  the  crown.  It  was  a  thwarted  life,  for  all  its  energy  and 
courage  ;  and  thwarted  most  of  all  in  this,  that  he  could  never 
quite  make  his  art  obey  his  bidding.  The  passion  of  the  scene,  the 
memory,  the  experience  mastered  him ;  and  though  he  could 
communicate  delight,  yet  it  was  done  more  through  a  lavish  pro- 
fusion of  detail  than  by  the  restrained  economy  of  language  that 
leaves  the  picture  clean  and  firm  and  true.  And  this  is  all  the 
more  to  be  regretted,  because  Symonds  never  made  the  mistake 
of  putting  art  before  life.  It  was  life  and  experience  and  emotion 
of  which  he  was  in  search,  and  his  writings  are  an  attempt  to 
establish  relations,  to  bridge  the  gaps  of  life  with  confidences,  to 
share  his  joy  with  other  hearts.  Yet  the  rhetorical  vein  in  him 
just  swept  off  that  finest  bloom,  that  sense  of  intimacy  on  which 
all  depends. 

And  here,  too,  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  a  word  about  a 
series  of  essays — the  '  Pages  from  a  Private  Diary,'  which  claimed 
the  affectionate  regard  of  many  readers  of  the  CORNHILL.  There 
was  no  attempt  made  in  them  to  strike  an  attitude  or  wind  an 
adventurous  horn  ;  yet  out  of  the  simplest  materials  and  the 
quietest  outlook  there  came  a  delicately  tinted  picture  of  life, 
which,  by  its  modest  sincerity,  its  tranquil  humour,  wound  itself 
into  the  heart.  And  this  is,  perhaps,  the  best  claim  of  all,  to  take 
a  tract  of  life  which  is  within  the  reach  of  everyone — a  rustic  land- 
scape, a  village  street  melting  into  orchards  and  pastures, — and  so 
to  render  its  serene  charm,  its  blended  green  and  grey,  its  misty 
distance,  that  its  hidden  life  becomes  audible,  its  even  breath, 
its  beating  heart.  And,  further,  to  show  that  in  these  pastoral 
solitudes,  where  the  year  is  marked  by  the  rising  of  the  wheat, 
the  rusting  of  the  leaf,  the  building  of  the  rick,  a  life  full  of  reflec- 
tion and  sympathy  may  be  lived  as  in  a  firelit  glow — this  is  to 
broaden  the  outlook  of  the  heart,  and  to  prove  that  it  is  the  in- 
forming spirit  more  than  the  ample  incident  that  makes  the  rich- 
ness and  the  glow  of  life.  It  was  Virgil's  highest  praise  for  the 
days  of  old  that  men  were  content  with  little  ;  and  it  is  still  the 
crown  of  life,  and  its  best  hope,  when  that  temper,  as  well  as  the 
adventurous  heart,  are  found  in  due  proportions  in  a  nation's  life. 


ON   ESSAYS   AT   LARGE.  45 

And  thus  we  end  where  we  began,  with  the  perception  that 
of  all  the  displays  of  art  the  essay  is  the  most  indefinable,  the 
most  subtle,  because  it  has  no  scheme,  no  programme.  It  does 
not  set  out  to  narrate  or  to  prove  ;  it  has  no  dramatic  purpose, 
no  imaginative  theme  ;  its  essence  is  a  sympathetic  self-revelation, 
just  as  in  talk  a  man  may  speak  frankly  of  his  own  experiences 
and  feelings,  and  yet  avoid  any  suspicion  of  egotism,  if  his  con- 
fidences are  designed  to  illustrate  the  thoughts  of  others  rather 
than  to  provide  a  contrast  and  a  self-glorification.  The  essayist 
gives  rather  than  claims  ;  he  compares  rather  than  parades.  He 
is  led  by  his  interest  in  others  to  be  interested  in  himself,  and  it 
is  as  a  man  rather  than  as  an  individual  that  he  takes  the  stage. 
He  must  be  surprised  at  the  discoveries  he  makes  about  himself, 
rather  than  complacent ;  he  must  condone  his  own  discrepancies 
rather  than  exult  in  them.  *  One  knocked,'  says  the  old  fable, 
'  at  the  Beloved's  door,  and  cried  "  Open  !  "  "  Nay,"  said  the 
Beloved,  "  I  dare  not  open  save  to  Love  and  God."  But  the 
voice  said  "  Open  then  without  fear,  for  I  am  both  ;  I  am  thyself." ' 


46 


LESLIE   STEPHEN,  EDITOR. 

THE  late  Professor  Maitland,  whose  'Life  and  Letters  of  Leslie 
Stephen '  must  have  been  a  source  of  pleasure  and  interest  to 
numberless  readers  besides  those  who  find  in  them  the  admirable 
and  adequate  presentment  of  a  lost  friend,  says  that  Stephen  '  did 
not  think  himself  interesting,'  and  concludes  that  '  he  would  not 
have  been  in  all  respects  a  good  autobiographer.'  It  is  not,  in 
truth,  easy  to  imagine  him  writing  his  own  memoirs  ;  while  it  is 
easy  enough  to  believe  that  a  man  so  essentially  reserved,  sensitive, 
ironical  and  humorous  would  decline  to  make  himself  interesting 
to  the  world  after  the  only  fashion  really  open  to  autobiographers 
who  aim  at  success.  Probably,  moreover,  he  was  quite  sincere 
in  thinking  that  the  men  and  women  with  whom  he  was  brought 
into  contact  did  not  care  to  know  much  more  about  him  than  he, 
on  his  side,  cared  to  reveal  to  them.  As  a  fact,  his  very  reticence, 
his  frequent  spells  of  absent-minded  taciturnity,  his  mild  air  of 
intimating  that  trespassers  would  be  prosecuted,  were  bound  to 
stimulate,  and  did  stimulate,  the  curiosity  of  the  many  contributors 
and  others  whom  his  avocation  compelled  him  to  meet.  No  one 
could  help  feeling  that  there  must  be  a  good  deal  behind  the  pro- 
tecting screen  of  that  grave,  slightly  distant  manner.  There  was 
a  great  deal  behind  it,  and  nothing  of  it  all  that  was  not  noble, 
kindly,  and  honest.  '  I  now,'  says  he,  writing  of  his  relinquishment 
of  revealed  religion,  '  believe  in  nothing,  to  put  it  shortly ;  but 
I  do  not  the  less  believe  in  morality,  &c.  I  mean  to  live  and  die 
like  a  gentleman,  if  possible.'  One  likes  to  think  that  he  carried 
out  that  very  simple  code  of  ethics  to  the  letter. 

Even  if  Leslie  Stephen  had  been — as  he  certainly  was  not — 
an  ordinary  man,  he  could  not  have  been  deemed  so  by  one  humble 
contributor  to  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE  of  his  day.  Who  thinks  of 
his  former  head-master  as  an  ordinary  man  ?  I  have  been  assured 
that  Dr.  Goodford  and  Dr.  Balston  at  Eton  were  quite  ordinary 
men,  but  nothing  will  ever  make  me  believe  it ;  nor  would  it  be 
possible  for  me  to  lower  my  first  editor  from  the  pedestal  upon 
which,  in  that  character,  I  must  needs  contemplate  him.  A  great 
many  years  ago  it  came  into  my  head  to  write  a  short  story  which, 


LESLIE   STEPHEN,   EDITOR.  47 

when  completed,  I  despatched  to  the  CORNHILL,  confidently 
expecting  the  return  of  my  venture  within  a  short  space  of  time. 
Instead,  I  received  a  letter,  written  in  a  tiny,  cramped  hand,  which 
stated,  to  my  great  surprise  and  joy,  that  the  editor  thought  well 
of  the  thing  and  would  be  glad  to  take  it,  subject  to  certain  specified 
alterations.  The  alterations  were,  of  course,  made  ;  I  saw  myself 
(not  without  tremors  and  a  wholesome  sense  of  ineptitude)  in 
print ;  a  second  story  was  asked  for ;  then  a  third.  But  it  was 
not,  I  think,  until  more  than  a  year  later  that  there  came  a  rather 
long  letter,  suggesting  that  I  should  try  my  hand  at  more  ambitious 
work,  and  hinting  at  the  possibility  of  room  being  found  for  a  novel 
by  me  in  the  pages  of  the  magazine  for  which  I  had  already  begun 
to  conceive  a  quasi-filial  affection.  This,  being  signed  in  full 
'  L.  Stephen,'  revealed  to  me  for  the  first  time  the  identity  of  my 
editorial  patron.  That  I  was  then  very  young  must  be  my  excuse 
for  the  effect  that  the  disclosure  produced  upon  me.  Having 
been  in  my  earlier  years  an  enthusiastic,  if  wholly  undistinguished, 
mountain-climber,  the  victor  of  the  Schreckhorn  and  the  Eiger 
Joch  was  to  me,  naturally,  something  of  a  hero — more  of  a  hero, 
I  daresay,  than  the  author  of  '  Hours  in  a  Library  '  or '  An  Agnostic's 
Apology.'  So  I  felt  very  proud.  I  well  recollected  to  have  had 
one  brief  glimpse  of  him  in  my  boyhood — a  gaunt,  lanky  figure,  of 
whom,  as  he  stalked  out  of  the  low-ceiled  salle  a  manger  of  I  forget 
what  Alpine  inn,  somebody  said  '  That's  Leslie  Stephen.'  Where- 
upon somebody  else  observed  '  He's  a  parson,  you  know,  though 
he  don't  look  much  like  it.'  With  this  little  episode  in  mind,  what 
must  I  needs  do  but  sit  down  and  indite  a  grateful  acknowledgment 
to  '  The  Rev.  L.  Stephen  '  !  It  was  scarcely  felicitous,  and  when, 
after  a  day  or  two,  the  post  brought  me  a  rejoinder,  addressed  to 
'  The  Rev.  W.  E.  Norris,'  I  perceived,  coldly  shuddering,  that  I 
had  committed  a  blunder.  Inquiry  enlightened  me  as  to  its  nature  ; 
but  I  did  not  make  matters  worse  by  apologising  ;  nor,  beyond 
that  gentle  rebuke,  did  I  hear  any  more  of  it  from  him. 

When  my  first  meeting  with  him  took  place,  he  had  accepted  a 
novel  of  mine  which  had  duly  made  its  appearance  in  the  CORNHILL, 
and  upon  this  and  other  subjects  we  had  corresponded  at  some 
length ;  so,  in  complying  with  a  request  from  him  that  I  should 
call  in  Hyde  Park  Gate,  I  hardly  felt  that  I  was  about  to  be  con- 
fronted with  a  stranger.  And  indeed  the  tall,  lean,  stooping  man, 
with  ragged  reddish  beard,  overhanging  brows,  and  curiously 
luminous  eyes,  who  held  out  his  hand  became  —  I  despair  of 


48  LESLIE   STEPHEN,    EDITOR. 

explaining  why  Or  how — intimately  known  to  me  almost  on  the 
moment.  I  have  often  heard  Stephen  described  as  awe-inspiring, 
forbidding,  repellent ;  I  can  only  say  that  he  never  struck  me  as 
being  anything  of  that  sort.  Shy  myself,  I  recognised  at  once 
that  he  was  more  so  ;  that  he  was,  and  could  not  help  being, 
in  some  degree  inarticulate ;  yet  that  he  perfectly  understood  all 
that  there  was  any  need  for  him  to  understand.  His  quick  com- 
prehension and  unexpressed  sympathy  never  failed.  I  speak  with 
a  knowledge  and  grateful  remembrance  of  both  which  are  only  so 
far  relevant  to  the  present  attempt  at  an  appreciation  that  I  can- 
not think  of  him  in  any  capacity  as  divested  of  either.  With 
Stephen  one  could  say  or  leave  unsaid  anything  ;  he  was  always 
sure  to  understand.  1  saw  him  often  afterwards,  both  in  London 
and  at  the  little  house  on  the  north  coast  of  Cornwall  where  he 
made  his  summer  home,  and  to  look  back  upon  such  intercourse  as 
1  was  permitted  to  have  with  him  is  to  realise  how  solid  and  enduring 
a  possession  are  happy  retrospects  to  the  elderly. 

For  the  rest,  as  an  editor,  he  was  not  indulgent.  He  himself 
was  at  infinite  trouble  over  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  and  he  did 
not  mind  calling  upon  his  contributors  to  be  equally  painstaking. 
More  than  once  he  made  me  re-write  whole  chapters,  and  often  I 
was  required — a  little  against  the  grain  I  must  confess — to  strike 
out  passages  or  incidents  which  he  thought  likely  to  jar  upon  the 
susceptibilities  of  his  readers.  One's  tidy  manuscripts  used  to 
come  back  scrawled  all  over  with  alterations  and  emendations  in 
his  diminutive  script,  which  was  not  always  over-legible.  His  own 
manuscripts  were,  I  believe,  the  despair  of  the  printers,  who,  after 
the  manner  of  their  kind,  were  wont  to  '  make  sense  '  of  undecipher- 
able words — sometimes  with  the  oddest  results.  He  once  showed 
me  a  comic  example  of  this  in  the  proofs  of  a  volume  on  Swift  upon 
which  he  was  then  engaged.  Swift  had  said  that  something  or 
other  was  '  like  beef  without  mustard,'  and  Stephen  had  added  on 
the  margin,  by  way  of  reference,  '  in  a  letter  to  Arbuthnot.'  The 
printer's  reader  who  improved  this  footnote  into  '  or  wine  without 
nuts  '  deserved  some  credit  for  ingenuity. 

Stephen's  habit  of  scribbling  marginal  notes,  whether  in  books 
or  on  papers,  had,  I  think,  taken  such  hold  upon  him  that  it  was 
difficult  for  him  to  keep  his  hands  ofi  anybody's  manuscript.  More- 
over, he  had  to  consider  those  squeamish  readers  of  his,  even  though 
he  might  not  have  formed  a  very  high  estimate  of  their  average 
intelligence.  The  fear  of  Mrs.  Grundy  was  ever  before  his  eyes, 


LESLIE   STEPHEN,    EDITOR.  49 

and  this  rendered  him  inexorable.  '  I  am  sorry,'  he  wrote  once, 
'  that  you  don't  agree  as  to  the  excisions.  Very  likely  you  are 
right  and  I  am  wrong ;  but  I  must  use  my  own  judgment,  such 
as  it  is.' 

That  his  judgment  in  literary  matters  was  a  very  fine  and 
accurate  one  does  not  need  to  be  said.  Whether  he  was  absolutely 
the  right  man  in  the  right  place  as  editor  of  a  magazine  may  be 
open  to  question  ;  he  himself  seemed  to  think  that  he  was  not. 
I  never  heard  him  actually  say  that  the  task  of  editorship  bored 
him  ;  his  complaint  was  rather  that  he  was  conscious  of  inability 
to  discern  the  shifting  currents  of  public  taste.  But  it  is  hard  to 
doubt  that  he  must  have  been  more  than  a  little  bored  at  times 
by  the  close  study  which  he  thought  it  incumbent  upon  him  to 
give  to  page  after  page  of  contemporary  fiction.  For  my  own 
part,  I  often  felt  ashamed  that  so  much  of  his  time  and  attention 
should  be  devoted  to  the  loves  of  my  Edwins  and  Angelinas. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  take  these  fictitious  personages  very 
seriously  myself ;  but  he  did.  In  one  sense,  perhaps,  everything 
in  the  world  was  serious  to  him ;  that  is,  he  strongly  held  that,  if 
a  thing  is  to  be  done  at  all,  it  should  be  done  as  well  as  possible. 
It  may  be  that  he  was  less  exacting  with  authors  of  greater  emi- 
nence ;  but  I  am  very  sure  that  he  published  no  line  of  their  writings 
without  careful  perusal  beforehand,  for  he  never  scamped  or 
shirked  his  labours. 

What  will  not,  in  any  case,  be  denied  is  that  the  CORNHILL 
under  Leslie  Stephen's  rule  attained  and  kept  an  extremely  high 
level  of  literary  excellence.  In  what  fine  company  the  neophyte 
of  those  good  old  days  discovered  himself !  George  Meredith, 
Matthew  Arnold,  R  L.  Stevenson,  Henry  James,  Edmund  Gosse, 
Thomas  Hardy — to  take,  almost  at  random,  half  a  dozen  names 
from  the  list — these  were  amongst  his  companions  ;  some  of  them 
perchance,  through  benign  fortune,  to  become  numbered  amongst 
his  valued  friends.  The  memory  of  having  belonged,  in  no  matter 
how  unpretending  a  part,  to  that  brilliant  phalanx  is  a  very  solacing 
one  in  these  changed  times. 

For  the  times,  of  course,  have  submitted  to  the  universal, 
inevitable  law  of  change,  and  the  existing  generation  has  developed 
predilections  in  literature  which  differ  more  or  less  widely  from 
the  predilections  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Whether  the  taste 
of  readers  to-day  shows  improvement  or  deterioration,  as  compared 
with  that  of  their  predecessors,  we  need  not  discuss  ;  what  is  certain 

VOL.   XXVIII. — NO.  163,  N.S.  4 


50  LESLIE   STEPHEN,    EDITOR. 

is  that,  both  in  substance  and  in  form,  they  demand  another  kind 
of  fare  ;  and,  as  a  consequence,  there  have  been  shipwrecks  which 
some  of  us,  naturally  enough,  have  witnessed  with  regret.  All  the 
more  satisfactory  is  it  to  see  our  own  quinquagenarian  bark  forging 
bravely  ahead,  aura  popularis  still  filling  her  sails,  and  her  course 
shaped  by  an  efficient  skipper  who,  while  recognising  which  way 
the  wind  blows,  has  departed  from  none  of  the  honourable  sailing 
instructions  whereby  former  voyages  were  accomplished  with  credit 
and  success.  Not  only  are  we  justified  in  predicting  for  him  and 
his  craft  a  long  series  of  similar  trips,  but  we  may  safely  affirm  that 
if  the  captains  who  are  gone  could  watch  his  progress,  they  would 
bid  him  God- speed  with  the  happy  conviction  that  the  tiller  which 
has  dropped  from  their  hands  has  been  firmly  and  competently 
grasped. 

Between  the  respective  merits  of  those  bygone  captains  in- 
vidious distinctions  shall  not  be  drawn.  Stephen,  one  is  pretty 
sure,  would  not  have  claimed  to  be  the  greatest  of  them,  and 
perhaps  he  was  not  that.  Not  one  of  them,  however,  was — since 
it  was  not  possible  for  any  one  of  them  to  be — more  scrupulous, 
more  conscientious  or  more  industrious  in  the  fulfilment  of  ap- 
pointed work.  He  gave  to  the  magazine,  as  he  gave  to  everything 
else  that  he  undertook  in  his  life,  the  very  best  that  he  had  to  give, 
and  he  has  left  behind  him,  for  comfort  and  encouragement  to 
some  old  shipmates,  the  example  of  a  man  always  sincere,  always 
just,  patient,  valorous  and  master  of  himself.  '  Morality,  &c.,'  is 
grounded,  I  take  it,  precisely  upon  such  attributes,  and  Stephen's 
modest  hope  that  he  might  be  able  to  '  live  and  die  like  a  gentle- 
man *  was  assuredly  not  disappointed. 

W.  E.  NORRIS. 


51 


JAMES  PAYN,  EDITOR. 

WE  are  on  a  journey.  The  tall  trees  we  passed  at  noon,  that  shaded 
us  and  comforted  us,  charming  our  ears  with  the  songs  of  birds, 
have  sunk  behind  us.  The  low  hill  on  which  they  stood,  and  whence 
the  smiling  prospect  cheered  us,  is  mingled  with  the  common  plain. 
We  strive,  as  we  look  back,  to  separate  this  or  that  feature,  where 
we  toiled,  or  where  we  stood.  But  distance  blends  all  not  in- 
harmoniously  ;  and  tall  must  be  the  stem,  outstanding  the  eminence, 
white-gleaming  the  steeple,  that  still  catches  the  eye  or  takes  the 
setting  sun. 

And  this  is  true  also  of  the  past  in  time,  of  the  bygone  years,  and 
the  bygone  men,  of  those  who  have  helped  us  or  hindered  us,  whom 
we  have  loved  a  little  or  hated  not  overmuch.  A  kind  but  faulty 
memory  casts  its  glamour  over  all,  rendering  the  bad  less  bad,  the 
good  less  good,  the  indifferent  nothing  to  us  ;  with  the  result  that 
the  hand  that  clasped  ours  a  score  of  years  ago — ay,  and  ten  years 
ago — must  have  been  warm  indeed  for  its  grasp  to  be  still  felt  save 
in  dreams  ;  and  the  trick  played  on  us  in  the  'eighties  must  have 
been  foul  beyond  the  ordinary  if  we  cannot  to-day  smile  at  the 
injury  and  the  author. 

1  have  moralised  at  this  length  because  a  rule  finely  sets  off  the 
exception.  And  because — thank  God  ! — for  most  of  us  the  dead 
level  of  the  past  is  broken  by  a  few  figures,  upstanding,  one  here, 
one  there,  at  which  we  cannot  gaze  across  the  distance  without  a 
warmth  at  the  heart.  Time  was  when  they  helped  us  ;  and  we 
would  fain  cry  our  thankfulness  to  them  across  the  void  and  across 
the  years.  For  us  they  still  live,  and,  not  in  our  fancy  only,  do 
the  work  of  the  world.  For  still,  by  proxy,  they  open  the  doors 
they  opened  while  they  lived ;  still  they  stretch  forth  hands  of 
comfort,  ghostly  but  effectual,  to  those  who  lack. 

Such  a  man,  to  me,  to  many,  was  James  Payn,  who  fills  the 
middle  distance  of  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE  ;  he  was  editor  from 
1883  to  1896.  I  first  came  into  contact  with  him  in  the  spring  of 
the  former  year.  Incited,  as  to  the  manner  of  it,  by  Mr.  Anstey's 
'  Black  Poodle,'  I  had  written  a  slight  tale  of  life  in  the  Close  of  a 
Cathedral,  and  in  an  hour  of  happy  daring  had  sent  it  to  the 

4—2 


52  JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR. 

CORNHILL.  A  week  later  I  received  a  few  lines  accepting  it. 
But  whereas,  in  the  old  story  of  Horace  Greeley,  according  to 
which  his  screed  dismissing  a  writer  was  used  for  years  as  a  pass 
over  the  American  railways,  it  was  the  signature  only  that  the  most 
skilful  could  decipher,  here  it  was  the  signature  that  baffled  me. 
A  week  passed  before  a  friend  solved  the  riddle,  and  I  learnt  that 
the  god  who  had  stooped  to  me  from  Olympus  was  James  Payn. 
The  discovery  doubled  my  gratification,  for  as  a  boy  I  had  devoured 
his  novels  and  his  name  had  been  a  household  word  to  me.  I  had 
read,  and  not  once  only,  his  '  Lost  Sir  Massingberd,'  the  book  that 
raised  the  circulation  of  '  Chambers's  Journal '  by  20,000  ;  and 
this  and  that  among  his  other  stories.  Nor  was  this  all.  By  an  odd 
coincidence,  the  first  guineas  I  had  earned  by  my  pen  had  been 
drawn  from  the  exchequer  of  the  '  Edinburgh  Magazine,'  of  which  he 
had  been  editor  and  in  which  so  many  of  his  own  works  had  appeared. 

A  few  weeks  later,  and  doubtless  through  his  kindness,  I  was 
present  on  a  memorable  occasion — at  the  CORNHILL  dinner  given 
by  Mr.  George  Smith  to  mark  the  opening  of  the  new  adminis- 
tration. Up  to  that  time  I  had  not  met  Payn ;  and  that  even- 
ing the  presence  of  a  shining  company  of  writers  and  artists,  the 
survivors  of  a  band  which  had  once  embraced  Thackeray  and 
Trollope,  Lytton  and  Lever,  could  not  but  distract  the  attention. 
Yet  it  did  little  to  weaken  the  impress  which  the  personality  of 
the  new  editor  made  upon  me.  His  keen  twinkling  eyes,  his  fun, 
a  buoyancy  that  was  almost  boyishness,  and  a  kindness  that  would 
fain  place  on  his  level  and  hail  as  a  brother  the  latest  and  least  of 
contributors,  won  instant  loyalty,  and  a  little  later  added  to  loyalty 
a  lasting  affection.  He  had  an  almost  bird-like  quickness  of 
gesture  and  movement ;  and  even  at  that  first  interview  he  made 
it  clear  that  he  was  the  most  natural  of  men  and  the  most  simple  : 
for  with  all  his  interests  in  the  writing  world,  living  in  the  midst 
of  it  and  devoted  to  it,  he  never  'posed.'  He  never  talked  of 
himself  as  an  author  with  a  large  '  A,'  nor  of  Art  with  a  large  '  A.' 
The  humour  that  sparkled  in  his  eyes,  the  wit  that  bubbled  from 
his  lips  and  rose  as  spontaneously  and  naturally  as  water  from  a 
spring  made  the  notion  of  playing  a  part  not  only  distasteful  to 
him,  but  ridiculous. 

Unless  my  memory  tricks  me,  he  was  firm  in  declining  to  make  a 
speech  on  this  occasion.  Though  he  was  a  sparkling  talker  across 
a  table,  though  he  had  a  store  of  anecdotes  pertinent  to  every 
subject  that  arose,  and  a  singular  power  of  telling  them  crisply, 


JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR.  53 

he  could  never  be  induced,  1  believe,  to  speak  in  public.  Once, 
writing  to  me  on  the  subject  of  the  Eoyal  Literary  Fund,  '  the 
absence  of  novelists  from  the  committee,'  he  noted,  '  is  the  fault 
of  the  novelists.  I  am  one  of  that  indolent  class,  and  though  1 
have  never  shirked  work,  detest  trouble.  They  will  not  trouble 
themselves  to  take  any  official  part  in  the  proceedings,  nor  even 
to  dine  out  at  the  annual  feast.  They  are  afraid  of  being  put  up 
to  speak,  and  they  do  not  cultivate  oratory.'  And  at  the  end  of 
the  letter  he  adds,  in  a  most  characteristic  vein,  '  If  you  ask  me, 
I  think  you  ought  to  subscribe  to  the  Koyal  Literary  Fund.  The 
money  will  probably  come  in  the  end  to  your  impoverished  friend, 
James  Payn.' 

He  knew  me  at  this  time  only  as  a  chance  contributor  of  matter 
of  no  special  value ;  and  few  editors  would  have  troubled  them- 
selves to  give  a  second  thought  to  the  fortunes  or  the  future  of 
one  so  slenderly  connected  with  themselves  and  with  the  enterprise 
they  controlled.  But  this  was  not  Payn's  way,  nor  his  mode  of 
regarding  the  beginner.  His  thought  was  ever,  could  he  help  the 
man,  could  he  put  him  in  the  right  way,  could  he  give  him  a  hand 
up  the  hill  which  he  had  climbed  himself  ?  And  one  morning  he 
wrote  to  me  asking  me  to  call  upon  him  in  Waterloo  Place.  I  went. 
It  was  the  first  time  I  had  entered  the  office  of  the  CORNHILL 
MAGAZINE,  and  though  I  knew  that  it  was  not  through  that  door 
that  Thackeray  had  gone  in  and  out,  a  quarter  of  a  century  earlier, 
I  felt  that  the  occasion  was  notable. 

Payn  received  me  in  the  large  room  on  the  second  floor  looking 
on  the  street.  He  placed  me  in  an  armchair  on  one  side  of  the 
hearth,  seated  himself  in  another  opposite  me,  cast  one  knee  over 
the  other,  thrust  up  his  spectacles  on  his  forehead,  and  thin-faced, 
dark-eyed,  keen,  observant,  but  always  kindly,  began  to  question 
me,  his  pipe  in  his  hand.  Had  I  a  profession  ?  Had  I  an  income  ? 
Bread  and  cheese  ?  And  he  cited  and  endorsed  the  old  saying — 
less  to  the  point  in  these  days  than  in  Sir  Walter's — about  the 
crutch  and  the  walking-stick.  Finally,  did  I,  he  asked,  wish  to 
make  writing  my  trade  ?  I  did. 

'  Then  you  are  off  the  road,'  was  his  reply.  '  And  it  was  to  tell 
you  that,  my  young  friend,  that  I  asked  you  to  call  to-day.  You 
cannot  live  by  short  stories  ;  at  any  rate,  you  cannot  live  well. 
To  every  short  story  a  plot — and  a  plot  is  a  most  precious  thing. 
A  good  plot  is  the  greater  part  of  a  good  book.  A  really  novel  plot 
is  a  perfect  treasure.  When  you  are  as  old  as  I  am  and  have 


54  JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR. 

written  as  many  stories,  you  will  know  its  value.  No,  give  up 
short  stories  and  write  a  long  one — write  a  novel.' 

I  told  him  that  I  did  not  think  I  could;  that  the  length 
frightened  me  ;  that  I  had  never  thought  of  it. 

'  From  what  I  have  seen  of  your  work  I  believe  you  can,' 
he  answered.  '  Try,  at  any  rate.'  And,  turning  to  a  tall  desk 
beside  a  window,  he  explained  frankly  and  without  reserve  his 
own  method  of  working.  He  showed  me  the  large  card  on  which 
he  set  out  the  plot ;  and  a  second  card  on  which  he  wrote,  each 
at  the  head  of  a  column,  the  names  of  the  dramatis  personce,  and 
under  each  name  a  brief  analysis  of  the  character.  Then  returning 
to  his  seat,  '  Go  to  work  slowly,'  he  said.  '  Put  into  it  the  best  you 
have.  Remember  in  this  it  is  the  first  step  that  counts.  Make 
one  good  hit,  make  yourself  known,  and  you  will  be  well  paid 
thereafter.  One  good  piece  of  work  and  the  game  is  won.  But  take 
little  trouble,  do  anything  short  of  your  best,  and  you  will  earn 
but  labourer's  pay  all  your  life.' 

I  have  not  the  art  to  reproduce  the  seasoning  of  pun  and 
pertinent  instance  with  which  he  flavoured  his  advice  ;  nor  the 
gay  laugh,  nor  the  winning  manner.  But  the  counsel  I  can  set 
down,  and  I  do  so ;  believing  that  it  is  as  true  and  as  much  to  the 
point  to-day  as  it  was  when  it  fell  on  my  ears,  and  that  it  may 
prove  as  valuable  to  others  as  to  myself.  From  my  own  lower 
pulpit,  and  within  the  narrow  range  of  my  voice,  I  have  preached 
it  consistently. 

1  Give  a  year  to  the  book,'  were  Payn's  parting  words,  '  come 
and  see  me  at  times,  and  when  it  is  done  I  will  read  it.' 

I  went  out  from  him  with  a  full  heart,  grateful  beyond  words. 
And  if  the  Pall  Mall  I  trod  was  not  the  Pall  Mall  of  to-day — as  it 
certainly  was  not,  for  no  bicycle  desecrated  its  leisure,  no  telephone 
bell  rang  within  its  clubs,  a  motor-car  had  seemed  there  as  wonder- 
ful as  an  angel — neither  was  it  to  me  the  Pall  Mall  of  '84.  But, 
instead,  a  street  of  visions  and  golden  hopes  and  shining  columns 
set  up  to  benefactors  by  grateful  success  ;  such  a  street  as  we  have 
paced,  the  most  of  us,  on  one  happy  day,  for  one  happy  hour  in  our 
lives  !  I  hastened  to  Chancery  Lane — even  the  Strand  smiled 
cleanly  on  me,  and  Holywell  Street  was  wide — 

The  streets  were  paved  with  mutton  pies, 

Potatoes  ate  like  pine ; 
Nothing  looked  black  but  woman's  eyes  ; 

Nothing  grew  old  but  wine. 

I  bought  a  ream  of  scribbling  paper — and  the  rest  matters  not. 


JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR.  55 

Doubtless  there  have  been  editors  who  have  done  as  much 
and  with  equal  grace.  But  there  was  a  quality,  in  which  it  always 
seemed  to  me  that  Payn  outran  his  fellows  ;  a  quality  so  rare 
among  those  given  to  literature  and  art,  that  I  believe  its  possession, 
more  than  anything  else,  has  kept  his  memory  green  to  this 
day.  As  men  grow  older,  as  they  feel  the  rivalry  of  the  young, 
they  learn  that  it  is  one  thing  to  stoop  to  advise,  it  is  one  thing  to 
aid  the  tyro  and  the  beginner,  and  another  and  a  less  easy  thing 
to  look  with  honest  delight  and  un jaundiced  eye  on  full-blown 
success.  But  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  when  he  wrote  of  Payn  shortly 
after  his  death,  said  that  other  men  suppressed  jealousy  but  that 
in  him  it  did  not  seem  to  exist.  And  this  was  not  an  iota  beyond 
the  truth.  Payn's  pleasure  in  the  triumphs  of  others  was  real, 
vivid,  from  the  heart.  It  beamed  through  his  glasses  and  thrilled 
in  the  clasp  of  his  hand.  Beyond  doubt  he  took  an  honest  pride 
in  the  work  he  had  himself  done — with  his  pen  and  in  the  chair  ; 
but  in  his  later  years  his  deepest  and  purest  pleasure  was  drawn 
from  unselfish  springs.  If  the  ugly  duckling,  that  had  turned  out 
to  be  a  swan  of  sorts,  came  of  his  brood,  if  it  had  taken  to  the  water 
under  his  care,  or  had  preened  its  feathers  in  Waterloo  Place,  so 
much  the  better,  pride  had  part  in  his  joy.  But  if  there  appeared 
from  a  stranger's  hand  and  from  another  quarter  work  that  com- 
mended itself  to  Payn,  he  was  as  loud  to  acclaim  it,  and  as  warm  in 
his  welcome.  Those  who  knew  him  can  still  picture  him  crossing 
Pall  Mall  to  the  Eeform  Club,  hot-foot  to  proclaim  the  merits  of 
a  new  man,  to  enthrone  him,  and  to  procure  his  acceptance  by  others. 
And  weekly,  in  his  Notes  in  the  '  Illustrated  London  News,'  he 
praised  with  generous  warmth  the  books  that  pleased  him,  and 
thus  and  there  laid  the  corner-stone  of  the  fortunes  of  many  works 
and  of  not  a  few  writers.  This  freedom  from  jealousy  was  a  fine 
and  God-like  quality,  wherein,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  he  excelled 
all  other  men  of  letters. 

Possessing  it,  to  this  degree,  it  was  little  wonder  that  he  had 
troops  of  friends  ;  or  that  when  the  scene  began  to  narrow  and 
illness  kept  him  for  months  within  doors,  men  were  found  to  go 
week  by  week  from  the  club  to  make  up  the  rubber  which  had 
been  for  years  his  chief  relaxation.  Yet  he  who  had  spent  himself 
in  good  offices  hailed  a  return  in  kind  with  a  naive  surprise.  The 
most  ordinary  word  of  gratitude,  the  lightest  offer  of  service  over- 
whelmed him.  Not  long  before  his  death  I  had  proof  of  this  under 
circumstances  which,  with  some  hesitation,  I  venture  to  set  down. 


56  JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR. 

The  author  of  '  The  Sowers  '—who,  alas !  has  also  passed  beyond, 
and  who,  himself  the  most  natural  of  men,  loved  that  quality  in 
Payn — invited  me  to  join  him  in  making  a  little  presentation  to 
the  invalid.  Accordingly  we  sent  him  a  trifle,  of  very  small  value 
apart  from  that  which  a  few  words  owning  our  obligations  to  him 
might  be  taken  to  confer.  We  received  in  return— I  still  have 
mine,  and  value  it— letters  so  warm  in  their  expressions  and  so 
transparently  sincere— albeit  those  expressions  were  relieved 
here  and  there  by  a  delightful  play  of  fancy — that  they  abased 
the  givers.  We  wondered  why,  since  it  had  been  in  our  power 
to  give  so  much  pleasure,  we  had  not  done  it  before  !  Why  we  had 
not  hastened  instead  of  lingering  !  Could  a  finer  trait  be  told  of  a 
man  than  this :  that  of  what  he  did  for  others  he  made  little,  of 
what  they  did  for  him — so  much  ? 

And  how  pleasantly  would  he  tell  stories  against  himself — the 
story  perhaps  of  his  rejection  of  '  John  Inglesant '  !  With  what 
boyish  enthusiasm  the  story  of  his  '  find  '  in  '  Vice  Versa  '  !  What 
puns  would  he  not  make,  bad,  good,  and  indifferent,  but  all  amus- 
ing !  And  with  what  fervour,  from  his  early  days  when  he  slew 
his  first  villain — by  something  slow  with  boiling  oil  in  it — till  his 
death  did  he  not  hate  oppression  and  every  deed  that  smacked  of 
tyranny  or  wrong  ! 

A  word,  if  it  be  permitted,  about  his  novels,  which  from  1864 
onwards  for  a  full  quarter  of  a  century  enjoyed  a  great  vogue. 
They  were  breezy,  wholesome,  straightforward  stories,  frankly 
sensational ;  and  it  has  been  said  that  his  heroes  were  very  heroic 
and  his  villains  thoroughly  villainous — and,  moreover,  that  the 
latter,  in  accordance  with  their  creator's  sense  of  right  and  justice, 
always  came  to  very  bad  ends.  But  it  should  be  said  also  that 
Payn's  novels — therein  differing  from  most  of  the  sensational 
stories  of  to-day — were  full  of  character,  and  of  lovable  character, 
were  finely  and  pleasantly  written,  and  seasoned  throughout  with 
wit  and  humour.  To  those  who  once  devoured  and  still  remember 
them — and  no  boy,  and  no  girl,  ever  arose  from  reading  them  the 
worse  for  them — it  is  a  marvel  that  they  do  not  form  part  of  the 
cheap  editions  of  to-day,  and  elbow  from  the  bookstalls  their  puny 
successors  in  the  same  line.  His  '  Lost  Sir  Massingberd,'  with  its 
picture  of  pre-Keform  England  and  its  humorous  Bow  Street 
Runner,  has  been  so  published.  But  why  not '  A  Perfect  Treasure,' 
with  its  delightful  study  of  Miss  Mitford,  and  its  chivalrous 
Maharajah  ?  Why  not '  The  Family  Scapegrace,'  with  its  sketches 


15,SMaf?rIco  flttt.  S.W 


Speciiiien  signature  of  James  Puyti,  who  could  say  '  A'o  '  «.s  z^«  <r.s  '  V'cs  ' 


JAMES   PAYN,    EDITOR.  57 

of  the  road  in  days  when  rank  and  fashion  flocked  to  Wombwell's 
Menagerie  ?  And  what  railway  traveller  of  to-day,  were  it  set  off 
by  an  appropriate  cover,  could  resist  a  book  that  dubbed  itself 
'  Found  Dead,'  and  matched  its  title  to  the  full  ?  Or  having  read  it 
could  refrain  on  his  next  journey  from  buying  '  Bentinck's  Tutor  ' 
— with  its  generous  appreciation  of  Garibaldi — or  '  The  Bateman 
Household,'  or  '  A  County  Family '  ? 

.We  are  on  a  journey.  And,  true  it  is,  he  and  his  bocks  are  hasten- 
ing— and  we  also,  and  our  works,  and  more  quickly — to  oblivion. 
Fifteen  years  have  passed  since,  rejoicing  that  it  was  '  no  weakening 
of  his  long  bond  of  friendship  with  the  founder  of  the  CORNHILL  that 
divorced  him  from  his  occupation,'  he  ceased  to  edit  this  Magazine. 
Twelve  years  divide  us  from  his  death.  It  is  much,  it  is  very 
much,  if  he  be  still  remembered  with  affection,  with  regret,  with  a 
brightening  of  the  eye  when  his  stories  are  re-told,  and  this  pun  or 
that  jest  warmed  up.  And  as  it  is  no  common  thing  for  one  who 
played  his  part  so  long  ago  to  be  still  a  part  of  our  daily  talk,  to 
be  still  an  influence  in  our  world,  and  an  influence  for  good, 
so  it  is  no  common  privilege  for  one  who  owed  him  much  to  be 
able — after  many  days  and  in  measure  however  inadequate — 
to  pay. 

STANLEY  J.  WEYMAN. 


58 


HOW  I  CAME    TO  KNOW   THE  '  CORNHILL: 

MY  acquaintance  with  the  famous  magazine  began  nearly  fifty 
years  ago,  as  a  boy,  lying  beside  a  lonely  camp-fire  in  Queensland, 
hundreds  of  miles  beyond  all  settlement.  And  even  now  it 
curiously  pricks  my  imagination  to  look  back  across  that  stretch 
of  years,  and  see  myself,  lying  in  the  grass,  beside  the  crackling 
logs,  and  under  the  midnight  stars,  holding  in  my  boyish  hands 
the  first  copy  of  the  CORNHILL  I  ever  saw.  I  can  still  remember, 
as  the  red,  wind-shaken  flame  danced  on  the  orange-tinted  covers, 
how  the  figures  upon  it — the  stooping  reaper,  the  man  with  the 
flail,  the  sower  flinging  his  seed  left-handed — seemed  to  live.  And 
as  I  turned  over  the  pages  beside  that  lonely  camp-fire,  Thackeray 
talked  with  me  in  his  humorously  wise  fashion ;  Anthony  Trollope 
held  me  by  the  buttonhole  ;  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  sang  to 
me  ;  Matthew  Arnold  discussed  the  mystery  and  charm  of  litera- 
ture ;  and  my  boyish  intelligence  stirred  and  wakened  under  it  all. 
Great,  surely,  and  deathless,  is  the  magic  of  the  printed  word  ! 
Time  and  distance  have  no  office  against  it. 

We  had  started,  a  little  party  of  four,  from  Melbourne,  to  take 
up  a  sheep-run  in  what  was,  at  that  time,  the  almost  unknown, 
and  unsurveyed,  remoteness  of  Queensland.  Scores  of  such  parties 
started  out  about  the  same  time,  and  on  the  same  errand ;  and 
each  little  group  was  typical  of  the  race  to  which  it  belonged,  and 
of  the  process — unscientific,  but  delightfully  characteristic — by 
which,  in  the  British  fashion,  new  lands  are  settled,  and  new  nations 
created.  It  was  a  spray  of  unrelated,  in  a  sense  planless,  and  quite 
individual  energy,  which  was  scattering  the  seeds  of  settlement 
over  an  empty  continent. 

The  leader  of  the  party,  who  supplied  its  capital,  was  a  local 
merchant  who  was  learned  in  groceries,  an  expert  in  commercial 
bookkeeping,  but  who,  as  far  as  knowledge  of  the  bush  was  con- 
cerned, was  *  naked  and  unashamed.'  His  brother,  a  divinity 
student  from  Glasgow  University,  whose  health  had  broken  down, 
had  an  ignorance,  not  only  of  bush  life,  but  of  life  in  general,  more 
complete  and  helpless  than  ought  to  be  possible  even  to  a  divinity 
student.  I  remember  watching,  with  boyish  joy,  his  first  attempt 


HOW   I   CAME   TO   KNOW  THE   'CORNHILL.'        59 

to  saddle  a  horse.  He  knew  the  saddle  ought  to  be  placed  on  the 
back  of  the  animal,  and  so  threw  it  there ;  but,  as  he  threw  it,  the 
girths  were  caught  beneath  the  saddle,  and  no  means  of  fastening 
it  were  discoverable.  For  perhaps  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  divinity 
student  walked  round  the  horse  on  every  side,  contemplating  it 
with  perplexed  eyes  from  either  end ;  and  then  spent  another 
quarter  of  an  hour  trying  to  secure  the  saddle  by  making  the 
stirrups  meet  under  the  horse's  belly. 

A  butcher's  assistant,  engaged  at  a  weekly  salary,  was  supposed 
— a  very  vain  supposition — to  carry  all  the  practical  wisdom  the 
party  needed.  I  filled  the  noble  office  of  Jackeroo.  I  received  no 
salary,  was  to  spend  one  or  more  years  in  '  getting  experience,'  and 
then,  with  a  modest  investment  of  capital,  to  become  a  partner  in 
the  enterprise.  I  certainly  got  the  '  experience,'  but  not  the 
partnership.  A  pair  of  more  than  humanly  wise  sheep-dogs  com- 
pleted the  party  ;  and,  it  may  be  added,  they  were  the  only  members 
of  it  who  knew  their  business,  and  did  it. 

Sheep — a  modest  flock  of  1500 — to  start  the  new  station  were 
purchased  ;  but  the  party  had  to  travel  inland  from  Brisbane  to  the 
Dawson  River,  a  journey  of  some  hundreds  of  miles,  to  take  delivery 
of  them. 

The  caravan  consisted  of  a  tilted  cart,  drawn  by  a  couple  of 
horses  ;  a  laden  pack-horse,  which  the  '  practical '  man  of  the  party 
— gun  on  shoulder,  and  looking  like  a  Spanish  smuggler — led  by 
the  bridle.  The  pack-horse  was  a  hollow-backed,  Roman-nosed, 
hairless-headed  grey,  named  '  Baldy  ' ;  but  by  general  consent  it 
was  re-baptised  '  Balder  the  Beautiful.'  I  was  at  the  Longfellow 
stage  of  literary  development,  carried  a  volume  of  his  poems  in  my 
pocket,  and  the  verses  with  that  title  naturally  supplied  the  new 
name  for,  perhaps,  the  most  absurd-looking  quadruped  at  that 
moment  in  Australia.  I  was  the  sportsman  of  the  party ;  and, 
gun  in  hand,  daily  took  a  wide  circuit  round  the  tilted  cart  and  the 
pack-horse,  as  they  crept  along,  to  shoot  ducks  ;  and  still  I  re- 
remember  the  quite  justifiable  anxiety  the  wise  sheep-dogs  mani- 
fested, each  morning,  when  I  struck  off  into  the  bush,  and  their 
attempts  to  '  round  '  me  up,  and  bark  me  back  again.  It  was 
touching,  but  unflattering. 

When  delivery  had  been  taken  of  the  sheep,  they  had  to  be 
slowly  driven,  nibbling  as  they  went,  over  vast  distances  of  roadless 
plains — plains  sea-wide  and  sky-rimmed  ;  towed  across  rivers  ; 
beguiled  through  forests  ;  driven  with  shouts  up  steep  hill-ranges, 


60         HOW   I   CAME   TO   KNOW   THE    'CORNHILL.' 

and  through  mountain  defiles.  For  a  year,  during  that  expedition, 
I  lay  down  every  night  with  the  grass  for  a  bed,  and  the  stars  for 
a  counterpane,  and  grew  lean,  and  brown,  and  hardy  in  the  process, 
a  fact  which  speaks  volumes  for  the  Queensland  climate.  At  last 
the  station  was  reached.  It  was  an  area  as  big  as  a  German  prin- 
cipality, triangular  in  shape,  with  a  mountain  range  for  a  base,  and 
two  rivers — the  McKenzie  and  the  Isaacs — for  the  sides,  their 
junction  forming  the  apex.  But  by  this  time  the  divinity  student's 
health  had  broken  down.  His  brother  drove  him  off,  mournfully, 
in  the  tilted  cart,  to  the  distant  sea- coast,  and  the  '  practical '  man 
and  myself,  with  a  wandering  shepherd  who  had  been  picked  up, 
were  left  to  manage  affairs. 

Then  the  blacks  came  on  the  station  ;  the  smoke  of  their  fires 
was  seen  on  the  hills.  They  had  not  long  before  murdered  all  the 
'  hands  '  on  the  next  station — it  was  the  '  next,'  though  200  miles 
distant — and  those  faint  brief  eddies  of  smoke  rising  above  the 
trees  were  a  signature  of  peril  written  on  the  very  sky.  The 
solitary  shepherd  fled.  The  sheep  began  to  '  lamb.'  There  had 
been  no  rain  ;  there  was  no  grass,  and  the  starved  dams  refused  to 
acknowledge,  or  nourish,  their  own  offspring.  The  ex-butcher  and 
myself — always,  it  must  be  remembered,  a  boy — had  some  anxious 
weeks  ;  and  over  our  daily  toil,  under  hot  skies,  with  starving  sheep 
and  dying  lambs,  hung  the  constant  expectation  that  the  blacks 
might  break  in  upon  us  with  bloody  spears. 

At  last  the  familiar  tilted  cart  crept  into  sight  again.  The 
divinity  student  had  been  sent  back  by  steamboat  to  resume  his 
theological  studies,  while  his  practical  brother  returned  with  stores. 
The  months  spent,  creeping  with  the  nibbling  sheep  across  the 
Queensland  landscapes,  had  been  for  me — almost  from  my  birth 
a  hungry  reader — a  time  of  literary  starvation.  The  few  books  the 
party  carried  had  been  read  to  the  very  bone  ;  and  the  leader  of  the 
party  had  been  charged  to  put  into  his  tilted  cart  everything  in  the 
shape  of  a  book  to  be  bought,  borrowed,  or  stolen,  in  Rockhampton. 
He  brought  up  about  a  dozen  volumes,  one  of  them  a  tale  which, 
curiously  enough,  I  saw  was  published  in  London,  only  a  couple  of 
years  ago,  under  another  title,  pretending  to  be  the  fresh  work  of  a 
living  author.  But  the  chief  treasure  brought  from  the  sea-coast 
was  a  bundle  of  CORNHILLS,  and  the  night  the  tilted  cart  reached 
the  camp — hours  after  the  other  members  of  the  party  had  fallen 
asleep — I  hung  with  fresh,  unspoiled  appetite  over  the  wonderful 
magazine.  Thackeray  from  its  pages  began  to  tell  me  the 


HOW   I   CAME   TO   KNOW   THE    'CORNHILL.'        61 

adventures  of  Philip  on  his  way  through  the  world.  Anthony 
Trollope  lifted  the  roof  from  the  Framley  parsonage,  and  showed 
the  odd,  drab-coloured,  yet  vivid,  life  there.  There  were  verses  by 
George  Macdonald  and  Adelaide  Procter  ;  a  jesting  poem  by  Father 
Prout ;  pages  of  Buskin's  rainbow- coloured  prose. 

It  was  all  wonderful,  magical,  delightful.  The  lonely  plains, 
the  silent  forest,  the  river  that  crept  by  in  the  darkness,  the  sheep 
stirring  in  the  rough  yard  near,  the  possible  or  actual  blacks — all 
were  forgotten.  That  copy  of  a  London  magazine  to  my  boyish 
eyes  was  like  the  magic  casement  of  Keats's  deathless  stanzas  ;  only 
from  it  I  looked  out,  not  on  to  '  the  foam  of  perilous  seas  in  faery 
lands  forlorn,'  but  upon  great  cities,  ancient  universities,  and  nested 
villages  on  the  other  side  of  the  world.  Loves  and  sorrows,  villains, 
heroes  and  heroines,  real  or  imaginary,  crept  out  from  between  the 
bright  golden-tinted  covers,  and  marched  in  procession  through 
my  imagination.  The  hum  of  London  streets,  the  chatter  of  Oxford 
dons,  the  murmur  of  parsonage  gossip,  seemed  to  come  through 
space  and  darkness  to  my  boyish  senses.  It  was  all  so  new,  so  rich 
and  vivid,  that  it  made  an  ineffaceable  impression  on  my  as  yet 
un taxed  memory  and  unspoiled  imagination. 

I  can  still  remember  what  impressed  me  in  Thackeray  :  the 
soft-lapsing  rhythm  of  his  prose  (as  found,  say,  in  his  '  Roundabout 
Papers  ') — prose  as  liquid  and  musical  as  the  flow  of  a  June  brook  in 
an  English  meadow ;  and  his  easy,  short- worded  English,  with  no 
more  colour  in  it  than  light  has,  and  yet  as  transparent  as  light. 
I  can  remember,  too,  the  soft,  leisurely  play  of  his  humour — the 
pools  of  tender,  natural,  yet  half-ashamed  pathos  hidden  beneath  a 
very  thin  ice  of  apparent  cynicism. 

Thackeray,  I  am  sometimes  tempted  to  think,  might  be  judged 
better,  perhaps,  from  his  '  Roundabout  Papers  '  than  from  anything 
else  he  ever  wrote ;  and  I  turned  up,  a  few  hours  ago,  the  one  I  read, 
lying  in  the  grass,  at  midnight,  beside  a  camp-fire  in  Queensland ; 
and  the  sentences  stand  out  on  the  page  exactly  as  my  memory 
pictured  them,  and  had  vaguely  preserved  them,  for  some  fifty  years. 
They  are  as  rich  in  literary  charm  to  a  palate  which,  to-day,  is  dulled 
and  jaded  by  much  over-reading,  as  they  were  then  to  the  quick 
sensibilities  of  a  boy's  imagination,  kept  fresh  by  a  twelve  months' 
fast.  Thackeray  imagined  himself  to  be  a  cynic,  and  he  often 
enough  posed  in  the  attitude  and  talked  in  the  accents  of  a  cynic, 
but  it  was  pure  affectation.  He  has  a  deeper  and  more  unaffected 
tenderness,  as  well  as  a  truer  art,  than  Dickens.  The  death  of  Little 


62          HOW   I   CAME   TO    KNOW  THE    'CORNHILL.' 

Nell — in  patches,  at  least — is  fustian  ;  it  trembles  on  the  edge — and 
sometimes  goes  over  the  edge — of  bathos.  But  the  dying  '  Adsum  ' 
of  Colonel  Newcome  is  a  touch  of  the  finest  art,  and  it  has  the 
restraint  of  true  art  as  well  as  its  magic. 

The  '  Roundabout  Paper '  I  first  read  was  written  just  as  the 
shadow  of  imminent  war  with  the  United  States,  due  to  the  seizure 
of  the  Southern  delegates  by  Captain  Wilkes,  had  swept  over  Great 
Britain.  Thackeray  describes  himself  as  sitting  at  some  entertain- 
ment. In  the  next  stall  was  an  American  gentleman  whom  he 
knew.  '  Good  heavens,'  he  reflects,  '  is  it  decreed  that  you  and  I 
are  authorised  to  murder  each  other  next  week  ;  that  my  people 
shall  be  bombarding  your  cities,  destroying  your  navies,  making  a 
hideous  desolation  of  your  coast ;  that  our  peaceful  frontiers  shall 
be  subject  to  fire,  rapine,  and  murder  ? '  Then  he  draws  an  ex- 
quisite picture  of  the  black,  moving  shadow,  creeping  across  the 
whole  human  landscape,  which  the  bare  possibility  of  war  cast  on  so 
many  homes  in  England  ;  for  Thackeray  always  saw  the  human  and 
personal  side  of  things.  '  My  next-door  neighbour,  perhaps,  has 
parted  with  her  son.  Now  the  ship  in  which  he  is,  with  a  thousand 
brave  comrades,  is  ploughing  through  the  stormy  midnight  ocean. 
Presently  (under  the  flag  we  know  of)  the  thin  red  line  in  which  the 
boy  forms  a  speck  is  winding  its  way  through  the  vast  Canadian 
snows.  Another  neighbour's  boy  is  not  gone,  but  is  expecting 
orders  to  sail ;  and  someone  else,  besides  the  circle  at  home,  maybe, 
is  in  prayer  and  terror,  thinking  of  the  summons  which  calls  the 
young  sailor  away.  By  firesides,  modest  and  splendid,  all  over  the 
three  kingdoms,  sorrow  is  keeping  watch,  and  myriads  of  hearts  are 
beating  with  that  thought,  "  Will  they  give  up  the  men  ?  "  '  They 
will  never  give  up  the  men,'  said  the  Englishman.  '  They  will  never 
give  up  the  men,'  said  the  American.  Thackeray  says  he  never 
expected  the  men  to  be  given  up.  The  United  States,  he  protests, 
'  did  the  most  courageous  act  of  the  war  when  they  sent  back  the 
Southern  Commissioners.'  Who  will  deny  the  exquisite  charm,  the 
wise  tenderness  of  such  writing  ? 

The  CORNHILL  was  a  great  magazine,  great  even  as  judged  by 
the  standard  of  to-day.  Nothing  better,  judged  by  literary  tests, 
has  appeared  since  it  was  born  in  the  brain  of  George  Smith,  that 
prince  of  English  publishers.  As  I  look  to-day  over  the  numbers 
I  read  under  a  night  sky  in  Queensland,  it  is  clear,  at  a  glance,  how 
much  of  its  writing  had  the  imperishable  quality  of  that  literature 
which  is  for  all  time.  It  is  rich  in  thought,  in  scholarship,  in 


HOW   I    CAME   TO   KNOW   THE   'CORN HILL.'        63 

imagination,  and  in  style — that  one  final  literary  antiseptic.  Of 
what  generation  yet  unborn  will  not  Thackeray  be  the  contem- 
porary ?  When  will  Anthony  Trollope  or  Matthew  Arnold  want 
readers,  or  Ruskin  cease  to  quicken  to  richer  music  the  prose  of 
writers  yet  without  name  ?  In  some  of  the  early  numbers  no  less 
than  three  serials  ran  side  by  side ;  and  there  were  novels  of  the 
quality  of  Thackeray's  '  Philip  '  or  '  Lovel  the  Widower '  ;  of  George 
Eliot's  '  Romola,'  to  say  nothing  of  Anthony  Trollope's  '  Small 
House  at  Allington  ' ;  '  Armadale '  by  Wilkie  Collins  ;  '  Wives  and 
Daughters '  by  Mrs.  Gaskell ;  and  the  '  Roundabout  Papers.' 
Tennyson  and  George  Macdonald,  Tom  Hood  and  Elizabeth  Barrett 
Browning  were  its  poets  ;  Matthew  Arnold  and  Fitzjames  Stephen, 
G.  H.  Lewes  and  Herman  Merivale  sent  it  essays  ;  George  Augustus 
Sala  wrote  its  gossip. 

George  Smith  has  told  in  the  CORNHILL  itself  the  story  of  the 
scale  on  which  he  planned  his  magazine.  It  should  have  the  best  of 
everything — the  wisest  thinking,  the  finest  poetry,  the  most  popular 
fiction ;  and  it  is  to  the  imperishable  honour  of  the  founder  of  the 
CORNHILL  that  he  taught  English  publishing  a  quite  new  generosity 
towards  authorship.  He  has  told  us,  for  example,  how  he  paid 
Thackeray  350?.  a  month  for  the  serial  rights  of  a  novel  yet  unwritten ; 
he  gave  the  novelist  1000?.  a  year  for  editing  the  magazine ;  and 
when  the  phenomenal  success  of  the  venture  was  realised  he  doubled 
that  salary.  He  paid  Thackeray  121.  a  page  for  the  '  Roundabout 
Papers ' ;  offered  five  thousand  guineas  to  Tennyson — a  rate  of 
more  than  a  guinea  a  line — for  as  many  lines  as  are  found  in  the 
'  Idylls  of  the  King  '  ;  and  for  the  serial  rights  of  '  Romola  ' — with  a 
limited  right  of  subsequent  publication  in  volume  form — he  offered 
10,000?.  The  literary  payments  alone  of  the  CORNHILL  for  the  first 
four  years  amounted  to  over  32,000?.,  with  nearly  4500?.  in  addition 
for  illustrations.  And  it  is  exquisitely  characteristic  of  Mr.  Smith 
that,  while  he  paid  Thackeray  1000?.  a  year  for  editing  the 
CORNHILL,  and  doubled  that  salary  after  the  first  number,  he  prac- 
tically did  the  editing  himself,  and  records  that  afterwards  he  '  felt 
pangs  of  remorse  at  having  been  the  instrument  of  imposing  upon 
Thackeray  an  uncongenial  task,  and  not  having  done  more  than  he 
did  to  relieve  him  of  the  burden.' 

No  wonder  that  a  magazine,  planned  by  a  brain  so  fertile,  and 
fed  by  a  generosity  so  royal,  leaped  suddenly  to  the  highest  place  in 
English  literature.  It  must  be  remembered  that  such  publications 
as  the  '  Friendship's  Offering,'  for  which  men  like  Macaulay  and 


64         HOW   I   CAME   TO    KNOW  THE    'CORNHILL.' 

Ruskin  wrote,  counted  it  a  brilliant  success  if  they  reached  a  sale  of 
5000  or  6000  copies.  The  early  numbers  of  the  CORNHILL  had  a 
circulation  twenty  times  as  great.  A  new,  vast,  unknown — or,  at 
least,  unexplored — reading  constituency  was  coming  into  existence ; 
and  George  Smith,  if  he  did  not  create  it,  at  least  discerned  its 
approach,  and  provided  for  its  coming. 

In  1897— more  than  thirty  years  after  I  first  read  the  pages  of  the 
CORNHILL  with  boyish  eyes  and  boyish  delight— I  had  contributed 
to  a  Melbourne  journal  a  series  of  historical  sketches  which,  owing 
to  exceptional  circumstances,  had  an  extraordinary  local  popularity. 
They  were  reprinted  in  Melbourne  as  a  shilling  booklet,  under  the 
title  of  '  Deeds  that  won  the  Empire ' ;  and— certainly  with  little 
expectation  of  notice — one  copy  of  the  modest  brochure  was  sent  to 
the  London  '  Times  '  and  another  to  the  London  '  Spectator  '—my 
favourite  English  journals.  Sir  George  Clarke  long  afterwards,  at 
Government  House  in  Melbourne,  told  the  writer  how  he  had 
reviewed  that  tiny  and  ill-printed  volume  in  the  *  Times.'  The 
'  Spectator '  devoted  to  it  a  review  of  two  columns,  the  largest 
expenditure  of  critical  ink  on  the  smallest  object  perhaps  on  record. 
At  the  moment  when  both  the  '  Times  '  and  the  '  Spectator  '  gave 
such  attention  to  the  little  book,  there  were  only  those  two  copies 
of  it  in  England — a  mournful  waste  of  advertising  energy.  But 
there  came  a  cablegram  to  Melbourne,  inviting  the  writer  of  '  Deeds 
that  won  the  Empire '  to  contribute  to  the  CORNHILL  a  study  of 
the  Battle  of  Minden ;  and  thus  the  boy  who  by  a  Queensland 
camp-fire  had  almost  his  first  taste  of  true  literature  became  a 
contributor  to  the  magazine  to  which  he  owed  so  many  pleasant 
hours.  Later  I  was  invited  by  its  publishers  to  write,  under  the 
title  of  '  How  England  saved  Europe,'  a  history  of  the  great  war 
between  France  and  England  which  stretched  from  1793  to  1815  ; 
and  so  began  my  business  relations  with  one  of  the  great — with 
natural  bias  I  am  tempted  to  say  the  best — of  English  publishing 
houses. 

In  1899  I  visited  England,  and,  within  twenty-four  hours  of 
reaching  London,  found  myself  in  the  famous  room  at  15  Waterloo 
Place — to  many  writers  the  best-loved  room  in  London — and  met 
Mr.  George  Smith,  the  head  of  the  firm.  An  Australian,  by  mere 
necessity  of  geography,  dwells  remote  from  the  inner  and  personal 
circles  of  British  authorship  ;  but  here,  almost  at  a  breath,  I  found 
myself  at  their  very  centre.  George  Smith  knew  more  of  authors, 
living  and  dead,  than  probably  any  other  man  in  the  three  kingdoms. 


HOW   I   CAME    TO   KNOW   THE   'CORNHILL.'        65 

The  charm  of  his  talk,  rich  with  recollections  of  great  names  and 
famous  books,  was  nothing  less  than  bewildering.  I  had  stood,  on 
a  previous  visit  to  England,  in  the  long,  steep,  stony  street  at 
Haworth,  looking  at  the  little  post-office,  and  telling  my  companion 
that  it  was  in  that  tiny  slit  that  Charlotte  Bronte  had  thrust  the 
manuscript  of  '  Jane  Eyre.'  I  never  dreamed  that  I  should  sit  in 
London,  and  chat  with  the  publisher  into  whose  hands  the  immortal 
book  had  come.  But  here  I  had  the  whole  story — with  a  score  of 
others — told  at  first-hand.  One  of  the  best  journalists  in  London 
was  my  companion  on  that  visit.  When  we  had  left  he  stopped  in 
the  street,  took  off  his  hat,  ran  his  hand,  with  a  sort  of  fury,  through 
his  hair,  and  cried,  '  What  a  world  of  good  "  copy  "  has  gone  to 
waste  in  that  room  ! ' 

London  is  rich  in  good  talkers  and  striking  personalities ;  but 
I  doubt  if,  at  that  moment,  it  held  a  more  interesting  man  than 
George  Smith ;  certainly  none  who  had  been  in  touch  for  a  longer 
period  with  English  writers.  The  list  of  authors  whose  works  he 
had  published  stretches  across  two  generations — from,  say,  G.  P.  K. 
James  at  one  end  to  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  at  the  other.  To  me 
G.  P.  K.  James  represented  the  stone  age  of  literature ;  and  as  I 
listened  to  Mr.  Smith  describing  that  particular  writer,  it  seemed 
as  if  the  '  two  horsemen,'  with  whose  performances  the  romances  of 
Mr.  G.  P.  E.  James  always  began,  rode  boldly,  to  my  astonished 
eyes,  out  of  the  pea-green  covers  of  those  long-forgotten  volumes. 
The  line  of  authors  for  whom  Mr.  Smith  acted  as  publisher  stretched 
from  Darwin  to  Ruskin,  from  Leigh  Hunt  to  George  Eliot,  from 
Charles  Lever  to  Charles  Reade. 

I  enjoyed,  later,  the  distinction  of  being  a  guest  at  one  of  the 
famous  CORNHILL  dinners ;  the  other  guests  being  a  circle  of 
well-known  and  distinguished  writers.  Now,  for  an  Australian, 
distance  in  space  has  almost  the  effect  of  distance  in  time ;  and 
even  a  living  writer  12,000  miles  off  is,  when  set  in  that  vast  per- 
spective, a  classic.  He  has  the  scale,  the  remoteness,  the  distinction, 
of  history.  And  to  sit  at  the  same  table  with,  say,  a  score  of  men 
whose  books  have  been  a  delight  for  years,  was,  it  must  be  repeated, 
for  a  simple-minded  Australian  an  experience  nothing  less  than 
memorable.  But  the  most  striking  and  interesting  figure  amongst 
those  authors  of  many  books  was  the  man  who,  though  he  had 
published  many  volumes,  had  written  none.  I  knew  Mr.  George 
Smith  for  only  a  few  months,  but  his  character  was  so  open,  the 
qualities  in  it  so  vivid,  the  individuality  so  distinct,  that  the  mental 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  163,  N.S.  $ 


66         HOW   I   CAME   TO   KNOW  THE    'CORNHILL.' 

impression  he  left  was  as  definite  as  that  which  a  steel  die  leaves  on 
a  coin. 

He  had  visibly,  and  in  a  very  high  degree,  the  qualities  which 
make  a  successful  man  of  affairs  :  the  masterful  will ;  the  quick, 
methodical  and  vigilant  mind ;  the  glance  which  saw  everything  ; 
the  memory  which  forgot  nothing ;  the  habit  of  swift  decision  ; 
the  courage  that  took  great  risks  with  absolute  serenity.  He  was, 
in  the  realm  of  practical  things,  a  true  leader  of  men.  And  yet, 
linked  to  these  fine  qualities  was  an  exquisite  modesty  ;  a  simplicity 
nothing  less  than  beautiful.  Nothing  was  more  delightful  than  the 
visible  reverence  he  had  for  literature.  The  unaffected  and  generous 
respect  he  had  for  literary  qualities  is  really  the  key  to  the  spirit 
in  which  he  carried  on  his  work  as  a  publisher.  His  relations  with 
authors  were  much  more  of  a  personal  than  of  a  business  character. 
He  treated  them  as  possessors  of  rare  gifts  to  which  he  himself 
had  no  pretension.  To  be  of  service  to  them  in  the  realm  of 
practical  affairs  was  a  gladness,  not  to  say  a  duty.  Few  things 
impressed  me  more  than  the  spectacle  of  a  man  so  able  and  masterful 
— so  rich  in  the  very  gifts  writers  lack — sitting  in  a  company  of 
authors.  The  easy,  gracious,  modest  courtesy  he  showed  them  was 
altogether  beautiful. 

Although  George  Smith  loved  literature  so  much,  he  would  have 
smiled  if  told  that  he  himself  possessed  any  literary  gift.  And  yet 
anyone  who  heard  him  talk,  and  noted  his  felicity  of  phrase,  his 
instinct  for  the  picturesque,  his  sure  sense  of  humour,  and  the 
swiftness  of  his  mind,  could  not  doubt  his  power  to  write,  and  to 
write  well.  He  could  have  written  a  volume  of  literary  recollec- 
tions which  would  have  been  the  delight  of  generations  yet  to 
come.  That  he  did  not  write  such  a  book  is  a  loss  to  English 
literature. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  literature  which  Mr.  Smith  loved  so 
well  and  served  so  generously  has  not  been  kind  to  him.  His 
recollections  are  unwritten.  He  died  too  soon  for  those  public 
honours  which  not  merely  that  magnificent  work,  the  '  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography,'  but  his  whole  career  would,  it  is  certainly 
known,  have  brought  to  him.  But  he  lives  in  the  grateful  and 
admiring  memory  of  more  English  writers  than,  perhaps,  any  other 
man  of  his  generation.  When  Millais  was  dying,  and  speech  had 
failed  him,  he  wrote  on  a  slate  the  words  '  I  should  like  to  see 
George  Smith,  the  kindest  man  and  the  best  gentleman  I  have  had 
to  deal  with.'  And  those  words,  scribbled  painfully  on  a  slate  by 


HOW   I   CAME  TO   KNOW  THE   'CORNHILL.         67 

the  dying  hand  of  a  great  artist,  might  well  be  the  epitaph  of  George 
Smith. 

For  myself,  when  I  visited  England  again,  in  1905,  my  first  act 
in  London — before  I  slept,  or  called  on  a  friend — was  to  visit  the 
crypt  in  St.  Paul's,  and  stand  for  a  moment,  bare-headed,  before  the 
memorial  tablet  with  its  simple  inscription,  the  record,  by  friends 
who  loved  him,  of  the  man  '  to  whom  English  Literature  owes  the 
"  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,"  and  whose  warmth  of  heart 
endeared  him  to  men  of  letters  of  his  time.'  This  is  the  last  word 
of  a  career  so  successful  and  of  a  character  so  beautiful. 

W.   H.   FlTCHETT. 


5—2 


68 


MIDDLE   AGE    TO  — YOUTH. 

So,  'tis  your  Jubilee  to-day  ! 

And  you  have  reached  that  period  chilly 
When  mortal  men  are  bald,  or  grey, 

And  some  grow  wise,  and  more  grow  silly, 

When  with  our  life's  decreasing  span 
To  make  our  will 's  a  painful  duty, 

And  individuals  who  can 
Eead  Cicero  '  De  Senectute,'— 

WThen  circulation  slackly  goes, 

And  minds  are  slow  that  once  were  speedy, 
And  poets  take  to  writing  prose — 

These  are  the  signs  :  experto  crede ; 

For,  'spite  the  bold  pretence  of  youth, 
No  subtle  plea  or  pretext  shifty 

Can  quite  conceal  the  grisly  truth 
That  twenty-five  by  two  is — fifty. 

But  you,  CORNHILL  !  display  no  whit 
Of  gloomy  Age,  that  spectre  horrid, 

Nor  Time  hath  any  wrinkles  writ 
As  yet  upon  your  saffron  forehead ; 

Still  on  your  genial  page  abound 
Wisdom  and  wit  in  monthly  plenty ; 

Your  circulation  's  just  as  sound 
As  when  you  were  a  youth  of  twenty  ! 

Ne'er  less  than  now  your  shadow  grow  ! 

Thus,  in  that  not  (alas  !)  remote  age 
When  babes  of  fifty  years  ago 

Are  most  in  graves  and  some  in  dotage, 


MIDDLE   AGE   TO— YOUTH.  69 

While  periodicals  in  tribes 

Defy  respectable  tradition, 
And  hosts  of  mere  illiterate  scribes 

Still  break  the  head  of  poor  old  Priscian, 

Yet  may  your  purer  pen  recall 

Your  ardent  youth's  remembered  glories, 

The  mantle  of  immortals  fall 
Upon  their  backs  who  write  your  stories  ! 

A.  D.  GODLEY. 


70 


ENVOI. 
BY   MBS.  GEORGE   SMITH. 

"Being  one  of  those  closely  associated  with  the  early  days  of  the 
1  Cornhill,'  I  have  been  asked  to  fill  a  short  space  in  its  pages  to-day. 
As  I  look  back  on  the  fifty  years  that  have  passed  since  the  first  birth- 
day of  the  '  Cornhill '  many  happy  memories  come  to  my  mind  of  the 
hopes  and  the  fears  of  its  young  beginnings,  of  the  joy  of  its  early 
triumphs,  and  of  the  enthusiasm  of  those  who  launched  it  on  its 
successful  voyage. 

But  those  memories  bring  sadder  thoughts  in  their  train  when  I 
realise  how  few  of  those  first  friends  of  the  Magazine  are  left  to  greet 
it  on  its  Jubilee. 

All  has  been  said,  and  so  well  said,  of  the  Magazine's  career  from 
its  first  birthday  until  its  fiftieth  that  my  memories  of  the  past  are  not 
needed  to  add  to  its  history  ;  but  I  am  glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of 
recording  my  grateful  remembrance  of  those  kind  and  steadfast  friends 
who  have  carried  on  the  high  traditions  of  the  early  '  Cornhill '  through 
these  many  years,  and  of  those  who  have  now  marked  its  Jubilee  with 
words  of  generous  praise. 

To  all,  both  at  home  and  over  seas,  I  would  offer  warm  thanks  and 
congratulations,  but  specially  I  must  name  the  dear  friend  of  many 
years,  Lady  Ritchie  ;  although  she  cannot  look  back  through  so  long  a 
vista  of  time  as  I  can,  she  can  share  with  me  many  of  the  recollections 
of  those  early  days,  when  I  first  knew  her  and  her  father, 
Mr.  Thackeray,  and  that  is  one  of  the  happiest  memories  of  my  life. 

And  to  the  younger  contributors  to  the  '  Cornhill,''  many  of  them 
only  known  to  me  through  its  pages,  I  can  say  '  God  speed,'  feeling 
very  sure  that  they  will  carry  on  its  good  traditions  towards  a  second 
happy  Jubilee. 

E.  8. 


From  the  picture  pointed  by  G.  F.  Wtitts,  Ft. A.,  in  1873 


71 


CANADIAN  BORN} 
BY  MBS.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

OH  !  the  freshness  of  the  morning  on  Lake  Louise  ! 

It  was  barely  eight  o'clock,  yet  Elizabeth  Merton  had  already 
taken  her  coffee  on  the  hotel  verandah,  and  was  out  wandering  by 
herself.  The  hotel,  which  is  nearly  six  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea,  had  only  just  been  opened  for  its  summer  guests,  and  Elizabeth 
and  her  party  were  its  first  inmates.  Anderson  indeed  had  arranged 
their  coming,  and  was  to  have  brought  them  hither  himself.  But 
on  the  night  of  the  party's  return  to  LafEan  he  had  been  hastily 
summoned  by  telegraph  to  a  consultation  of  engineers  on  a  difficult 
matter  of  railway  grading  in  the  Kootenay  district.  Delaine, 
knocking  at  his  door  in  the  morning,  had  found  him  flown.  A  note 
for  Lady  Merton  explained  his  flight,  gave  all  directions  for  the 
drive  to  Lake  Louise,  and  expressed  his  hope  to  be  with  them  again 
as  expeditiously  as  possible.  Three  days  had  now  elapsed  since  he 
had  left  them.  Delaine,  rather  to  Elizabeth's  astonishment,  had 
once  or  twice  inquired  when  he  might  be  expected  to  return. 

Elizabeth  found  a  little  path  by  the  lake  shore,  and  pursued  it  a 
short  way  ;  but  presently  the  splendour  and  the  beauty  overpowered 
her ;  her  feet  paused  of  themselves.  She  sat  down  on  a  jutting 
promontory  of  rock,  and  lost  herself  in  the  forms  and  hues  of  the 
morning.  In  front  of  her  rose  a  wall  of  glacier  sheer  out  of  the  water 
and  thousands  of  feet  above  the  lake,  into  the  clear  brilliance  of 
the  sky.  On  either  side  of  its  dazzling  whiteness,  mountains  of 
rose-coloured  rock,  fledged  with  pine,  fell  steeply  to  the  water's 
edge,  enclosing  and  holding  up  the  glacier ;  and  vast  rock  pinnacles 
of  a  paler  rose,  melting  into  gold,  broke,  here  and  there,  the  gleam- 
ing splendour  of  the  ice.  The  sun,  just  topping  the  great  basin, 
kindled  the  ice  surfaces,  and  all  the  glistening  pinks  and  yellows, 
the  pale  purples  and  blood-crimsons  of  the  rocks,  to  flame  and 

1  Copyright,  1909,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


72  CANADIAN   BORN. 

splendour ;  while  shadows  of  coolest  azure  still  held  the  hollows 
and  caves  of  the  glacier.  Deep  in  the  motionless  lake,  the  shining 
snows  repeated  themselves,  so  also  the  rose-red  rocks,  the  blue 
shadows,  the  dark  buttressing  crags  with  their  pines.  Height 
beyond  height,  glory  beyond  glory, — from  the  reality  above,  the 
eye  descended  to  its  lovelier  image  below,  which  lay  there, 
enchanted  and  insubstantial,  Nature's  dream  of  itself. 

The  sky  was  pure  light ;  the  air  pure  fragrance.  Heavy  dews 
dripped  from  the  pines  and  the  moss,  and  sparkled  in  the  sun. 
Beside  Elizabeth,  under  a  group  of  pines,  lay  a  bed  of  snow-lilies, 
their  golden  heads  dew-drenched,  waiting  for  the  touch  of  the 
morning,  waiting,  too — so  she  thought — for  that  Canadian  poet 
who  will  yet  place  them  in  English  verse  beside  the  daffodils  of 
Westmoreland. 

She  could  hardly  breathe  for  delight.  The  Alps,  whether  in 
their  Swiss  or  Italian  aspects,  were  dear  and  familiar  to  her.  She 
climbed  nimbly  and  well ;  and  her  senses  knew  the  magic  of  high 
places.  But  never  surely  had  even  travelled  eyes  beheld  a  nobler 
fantasy  of  Nature  than  that  composed  by  these  snows  and  forests 
of  Lake  Louise ;  such  rocks  of  opal  and  pearl ;  such  dark  grada- 
tions of  splendour  in  calm  water ;  such  balanced  intricacy  and 
harmony  in  the  building  of  this  ice-palace  that  reared  its  majesty 
above  the  lake  ;  such  beauty  of  subordinate  and  converging  out- 
line in  the  supporting  mountains  on  either  hand  ;  as  though  the 
Earth-Spirit  had  lingered  on  his  work,  finishing  and  caressing  it  in 
conscious  joy. 

And  in  Elizabeth's  heart  too  there  was  a  freshness  of  spring ; 
an  overflow  of  something  elemental  and  irresistible. 

Yet,  strangely  enough,  it  was  at  that  moment  expressing  itself 
in  regret  and  compunction.  Since  the  dawn,  that  morning,  she 
had  been  unable  to  sleep.  The  strong  light,  the  pricking  air,  had 
kept  her  wakeful ;  and  she  had  been  employing  her  time  in  writing 
to  her  mother,  who  was  also  her  friend. 

.  .  .  '  Dear  little  mother, — You  will  say  I  have  been  unkind — 
I  say  it  to  myself.  But  would  it  really  have  been  fairer  if  I  had 
forbidden  him  to  join  us  ?  There  was  just  a  chance — it  seems 
ridiculous  now — but  there  was — I  confess  it !  And  by  my  letter 
from  Toronto — though  really  my  little  note  might  have  been  written 
to  anybody — I  as  good  as  said  so  to  him,  "  Come  and  throw  the  dice 
— and  let  us  see  what  falls  out !  "  Practically,  that  is  what  it 
amounted  to — I  admit  it  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Well ! — we  have 


CANADIAN   BORN.  73 

thrown  the  dice — and  it  won't  do  !  No,  it  won't,  it  won't  do !  And 
it  is  somehow  all  my  fault — which  is  abominable.  But  I  see  now, 
what  I  never  saw  at  home  or  in  Italy,  that  he  is  a  thousand  years 
older  than  I — that  I  should  weary  and  jar  upon  him  at  every 
turn,  were  I  to  marry  him.  Also  I  have  discovered — out  here — 
I  believe,  darling,  you  have  known  it  all  along ! — that  there  is  at 
the  very  root  of  me  a  kind  of  savage — a  creature  that  hates  fish- 
knives  and  finger-glasses  and  dressing  for  dinner — the  things  I 
have  done  all  my  life,  and  Arthur  Delaine  will  go  on  doing  all  his. 
Also  that  I  never  want  to  see  a  museum  again — at  least,  not  for 
a  long  time  ;  and  that  I  don't  care  twopence  whether  Herculaneum 
is  excavated  or  not  ! 

'  Isn't  it  shocking  ?  I  can't  explain  myself ;  and  poor  Mr. 
Arthur  evidently  can't  make  head  or  tail  of  me,  and  thinks  me  a 
little  mad.  So  I  am  in  a  sense.  I  am  suffering  from  a  new  kind 
of  folie  des  grandeurs.  The  world  has  suddenly  grown  so  big  ; 
everything  in  the  human  story — all  its  simple  fundamental  things 
at  least — is  writ  so  large  here.  Hope  and  ambition — love  and 
courage — the  man  wrestling  with  the  earth — the  woman  who  bears 
and  brings  up  children — it  is  as  though  I  had  never  felt,  never 
seen  them  before.  They  rise  out  of  the  dust  and  mist  of  our  modern 
life — great  shapes  warm  from  the  breast  of  Nature — and  I  hold 
my  breath.  Behind  them,  for  landscape,  all  the  dumb  age-long  past 
of  these  plains  and  mountains  ;  and  in  front,  the  future  on  the 
loom,  and  the  young  radiant  nation,  shuttle  in  hand,  moving  to 
and  fro  at  her  unfolding  task  ! 

'  How  unfair  to  Mr.  Arthur  that  this  queer  intoxication  of  mine 
should  have  altered  him  so  in  my  foolish  eyes ! — as  though  one  had 
scrubbed  all  the  golden  varnish  from  an  old  picture,  and  left  it 
crude  and  charmless.  It  is  not  his  fault — it  is  mine.  In  Europe 
we  loved  the  same  things ;  his  pleasure  kindled  mine.  But  here  he 
enjoys  nothing  that  I  enjoy  ;  he  is  longing  for  a  tiresome  day  to 
end,  when  my  heart  is  just  singing  for  delight.  For  it  is  not  only 
Canada  in  the  large  that  holds  me,  but  all  its  dear,  human,  dusty, 
incoherent  detail — all  its  clatter  of  new  towns  and  spreading 
farms — of  pushing  railways  and  young  parliaments — of  road- 
making  and  bridge-making — of  saw  mills  and  lumber  camps — detail 
so  different  from  anything  I  have  ever  discussed  with  Arthur 
Delaine  before.  Some  of  it  is  ugly,  I  know — I  don't  care  !  It  is 
like  a  Rembrandt  ugliness — that  only  helps  and  ministers  to  a 
stronger  beauty,  the  beauty  of  prairie  and  sky,  and  the  beauty  of 


74  CANADIAN   BORN. 

the  human  battle,  the  battle  of  blood  and  brain,  with  the  earth 
and  her  forces. 

*  Enter  these  enchanted  woods,  ye  who  dare  !  ' 

1  There  is  a  man  here — a  Mr.  George  Anderson,  of  whom  I  told 
you  something  in  my  last  letter — who  seems  to  embody  the  very 
life  of  this  country,  to  be  the  prairie,  and  the  railway,  and  the 
forest — their  very  spirit  and  avatar.  Personally,  he  is  often  sad  ; 
his  own  life  has  been  hard  ;  and  yet  the  heart  of  him  is  all  hope 
and  courage,  all  delight  too  in  the  daily  planning  and  wrestling, 
the  contrivance  and  the  cleverness,  the  rifling  and  outwitting  of 
Nature — that  makes  a  Canadian — at  any  rate,  a  Western  Canadian. 
I  suppose  he  doesn't  know  anything  about  art.  Mr.  Arthur  seems 
to  have  nothing  in  common  with  him  ;  but  there  is  in  him  that 
rush  and  energy  of  life,  from  which,  surely,  art  and  poetry  spring  ? 
— when  the  time  is  ripe. 

'  Don't  of  course  imagine  anything  absurd !  He  is  just  a  young 
Scotch  engineer,  who  seems  to  have  made  some  money  as  people  do 
make  money  here — quickly  and  honestly — and  is  shortly  going  into 
Parliament.  They  say  that  he  is  sure  to  be  a  great  man.  To  us — 
to  Philip  and  me,  he  has  been  extremely  kind.  1  only  meant  that 
he  seems  to  be  in  place  here — or  anywhere,  indeed,  where  the  world 
is  moving;  while  Mr.  Arthur,  in  Canada,  is  a  walking  anachronism. 
He  is  out  of  perspective  ;  he  doesn't  fit. 

1  You  will  say,  of  course,  that  if  I  married  him,  it  would  not  be 
to  live  in  Canada,  and  once  at  home  again,  the  old  estimates  and 
"  values  "  would  reassert  themselves.  But  in  a  sense — don't  be 
alarmed ! — I  shall  always  live  in  Canada.  Or,  rather,  I  shall  never 
be  quite  the  same  again ;  and  Mr.  Arthur  would  find  me  a  restless, 
impracticable,  discontented  woman. 

'  Would  it  not  really  be  kinder  if  I  suggested  to  him  to  go  home 
by  California,  while  we  come  back  again  through  the  Rockies  ? 
Don't  you  think  it  would  ?  I  feel  that  I  have  begun  to  get  on  his 
nerves — as  he  on  mine.  If  you  were  only  here !  But,  I  assure  you, 
he  doesn't  look  miserable  ;  and  I  think  he  will  bear  up  very  well. 
And  if  it  will  be  any  comfort  to  you  to  be  told  that  I  know  what 
is  meant  by  the  gnawing  of  the  little  worm,  Compunction,  then 
be  comforted,  dearest ;  for  it  gnaws  horribly,  and  out  of  all 
proportion — I  vow — to  my  crimes. 

'  Philip  is  better  on  the  whole,  and  has  taken  an  enormous  fancy 
to  Mr.  Anderson.  But,  as  I  have  told  you  all  along,  he  is  not  so 
much  better  as  you  and  I  hoped  he  would  be.  I  take  every  care 


CANADIAN    BORN.  75 

of  him  that  I  can,  but  you  know  that  he  is  not  wax,  when  it  comes 
to  managing.    However,  Mr.  Anderson  has  been  a  great  help.' 

Recollections  of  this  letter,  and  other  thoughts  besides,  coming 
from  much  deeper  strata  of  the  mind  than  she  had  been  willing  to 
reveal  to  her  mother,  kept  slipping  at  intervals  through  Elizabeth's 
consciousness,  as  she  sat  beside  the  lake. 

A  step  beside  her  startled  her,  and  she  looked  up  to  see  Delaine 
approaching. 

'  Out  already,  Mr.  Arthur  !     But  /  have  had  breakfast ! ' 

'  So  have  I.    What  a  place  ! ' 

Elizabeth  did  not  answer,  but  her  smiling  eyes  swept  the  glorious 
circle  of  the  lake. 

'  How  soon  will  it  all  be  spoilt  and  vulgarised  ?  '  said  Delaine, 
with  a  shrug.  '  Next  year,  I  suppose,  a  funicular,  to  the  top  of  the 
glacier.' 

Elizabeth  cried  out. 

'  Why  not  ?  '  he  asked  her,  as  he  rather  coolly  and  deliberately 
took  his  seat  beside  her.  '  You  applaud  telephones  on  the  prairies ; 
why  not  funiculars  here  ?  ' 

'  The  one  serves,  the  other  spoils,'  said  Elizabeth  eagerly. 

'  Serves  whom  ?  Spoils  what  ?  '  The  voice  was  cold.  '  All 
travellers  are  not  like  yourself.' 

'  I  am  not  afraid.     The  Canadians  will  guard  their  heritage.' 

'  How  dull  England  will  seem  to  you  when  you  go  back  to  it ! ' 
he  said  to  her,  after  a  moment.  His  tone  had  an  under  note  of 
bitterness  which  Elizabeth  uncomfortably  recognised. 

'  Oh  !  I  have  a  way  of  liking  what  I  must  like,'  she  said,  hur- 
riedly. '  Just  now,  certainly,  1  am  in  love  with  deserts — flat  or 
mountainous — tempered  by  a  private  car.' 

He  laughed  perfunctorily.  And  suddenly  it  seemed  to  her  that 
he  had  come  out  to  seek  her  with  a  purpose,  and  that  a  critical 
moment  might  be  approaching.  Her  cheeks  flushed,  and  to  hide 
them  she  leant  over  the  water's  edge  and  began  to  trail  her  finger 
in  its  clear  wave. 

He,  however,  sat  in  hesitation,  looking  at  her,  the  prey  of 
thoughts  to  which  she  had  no  clue.  He  could  not  make  up  his 
mind,  though  he  had  just  spent  an  almost  sleepless  night  on  the 
attempt  to  do  it. 

The  silence  became  embarrassing.  Then,  if  he  still  groped,  she 
seemed  to  see  her  way,  and  took  it. 


76  CANADIAN   BORN. 

'  It  was  very  good  of  you  to  come  out  and  join  our 
wanderings,'  she  said  suddenly.  Her  voice  was  clear  and  kind. 
He  started. 

'  You  know  I  could  ask  for  nothing  better,'  was  his  slow  reply, 
not  without  dignity.  '  It  has  been  an  immense  privilege  to  see 
you  like  this,  day  by  day.5 

Elizabeth's  pulse  quickened. 

'  How  can  I  manage  it  ?  '  she  desperately  thought.  '  But  I 
must — 

'  That's  very  sweet  of  you,'  she  said  aloud,  '  when  I  have  bored 
you  so  with  my  raptures.  And  now  it's  coming  to  an  end,  like  all 
nice  things.  Philip  and  I  think  of  staying  a  little  in  Vancouver. 
And  the  Governor  has  asked  us  to  go  over  to  Victoria  for  a  few 
days.  You,  I  suppose,  will  be  doing  the  proper  round,  and  going 
back  by  Seattle  and  San  Francisco  ?  ' 

Delaine  received  the  blow — and  understood  it.  There  had  been 
no  definite  plans  ahead.  Tacitly,  it  had  been  assumed,  he  thought, 
that  he  was  to  return  with  them  to  Montreal  and  England.  This 
gentle  question,  then,  was  Elizabeth's  way  of  telling  him  that  his 
hopes  were  vain  and  his  journey  fruitless. 

He  had  not  often  been  crossed  in  his  life,  and  a  flood  of  resent- 
ment surged  up  in  a  very  perplexed  mind. 

'  Thank  you.     Yes — I  shall  go  home  by  San  Francisco.' 

The  touch  of  haughtiness  in  his  manner,  the  manner  of  one 
accustomed  all  his  life  to  be  a  prominent  and  considered  person  in 
the  world,  did  not  disguise  from  Elizabeth  the  soreness  underneath. 
It  was  hard  to  hurt  her  old  friend.  But  she  could  only  sit  as 
though  she  felt  nothing — meant  nothing — of  any  importance. 

And  she  achieved  it  to  perfection.  Delaine,  through  all  his 
tumult  of  feeling,  was  sharply  conscious  of  her  grace,  her  reticence, 
her  soft  dignity.  They  were  exactly  what  he  coveted  in  a  wife — 
what  he  hoped  he  had  captured  in  Elizabeth.  How  was  it  they 
had  been  snatched  from  him  ?  He  turned  blindly  on  the  obstacle 
that  had  risen  in  his  path,  and  the  secret  he  had  not  yet  decided 
how  to  handle  began  to  run  away  with  him. 

He  bent  forward,  with  a  slightly  heightened  colour. 

'  Lady  Merton ! — we  might  not  have  another  opportunity— will 
you  allow  me  a  few  frank  words  with  you — the  privilege  of  an  old 
friend  ?  ' 

Elizabeth  turned  her  face  to  him,  and  a  pair  of  startled  eyes 
that  tried  not  to  waver, 


CANADIAN   BORN.  77 


'  Of  course,  Mr.  Arthur,'  she  said  smiling.  '  Have  I  been  doing 
anything  dreadful  ?  ' 

'  May  I  ask  what  you  personally  know  of  this  Mr.  Anderson  ?  ' 

He  saw — or  thought  he  saw — her  brace  herself  under  the  sudden 
surprise  of  the  name,  and  her  momentary  discomfiture  pleased  him. 

'  What  I  know  of  Mr.  Anderson  ?  '  she  repeated  wondering. 
'  Why,  no  more  than  we  all  know.  What  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Arthur  ? 
Ah,  yes,  I  remember,  you  first  met  him  at  Winnipeg  ;  we  made 
acquaintance  with  him  the  day  before.' 

'  For  the  first  time  ?  But  you  are  now  seeing  a  great  deal  of  him. 
Are  you  quite  sure — forgive  me  if  I  seem  impertinent — that  he  is 
— quite  the  person  to  be  admitted  to  your  daily  companionship  ? ' 

He  spoke  slowly  and  harshly.  The  effort  required  before  a 
naturally  amiable  and  nervous  man  could  bring  himself  to  put  such 
an  uncomfortable  question  made  it  appear  particularly  offensive. 

'  Our  daily  companionship  ?  '  repeated  Elizabeth  in  bewilder- 
ment. '  What  can  you  mean,  Mr.  Arthur  ?  What  is  wrong  with 
Mr.  Anderson  ?  You  saw  that  everybody  at  Winnipeg  seemed  to 
know  him  and  respect  him  ;  people  like  the  Chief  Justice,  and  the 
Senator — what  was  his  name  ? — and  Monsieur  Mariette.  I  don't 
understand  why  you  ask  me  such  a  thing.  Why  should  we  suppose 
there  are  any  mysteries  about  Mr.  Anderson  ? ' 

Unconsciously  her  slight  figure  had  stiffened,  her  voice  had 
changed. 

Delaine  felt  an  admonitory  qualm.  He  would  have  drawn  back  ; 
but  it  was  too  late.  He  went  on  doggedly — 

*  Were  not  all  these  persons  you  name  acquainted  with  Mr. 
Anderson  in  his  public  capacity  ?  His  success  in  the  strike  of  last 
year  brought  him  a  great  notoriety.  But  his  private  history — 
his  family  and  antecedents — have  you  gathered  anything  at  all 
about  them  ?  ' 

Something  that  he  could  not  decipher  flashed  through  Elizabeth's 
expression.  It  was  a  strange  and  thrilling  sense  that  what  she  had 
gathered  she  would  not  reveal — for  a  kingdom  ! 

'  Monsieur  Mariette  told  me  all  that  anyone  need  want  to 
know ! '  she  cried,  breathing  quick.  '  Ask  him  what  he  thinks — 
what  he  feels  !  But  if  you  ask  me,  1  think  Mr.  Anderson  carries 
his  history  in  his  face.' 

Delaine  pondered  a  moment,  while  Elizabeth  waited,  challenging, 
expectant,  her  brown  eyes  all  vivacity. 

'  Well — some  facts  have  come  to  my  knowledge,'  he  said,  at 


78  CANADIAN   BORN. 

last,  *  which  have  made  me  ask  you  these  questions.  My  only 
object — you  must,  you  will  admit  that ! — is  to  save  you  possible 
pain — a  possible  shock.' 

'  Mr.  Arthur  !  ' — the  voice  was  peremptory — '  If  you  have 
learnt  anything  about  Mr.  Anderson's  private  history — by  chance — 
without  his  knowledge — that  perhaps  he  would  rather  we  did  not 
know — I  beg  you  will  not  tell  me — indeed — please  ! — I  forbid  you 
to  tell  me.  We  owe  him  much  kindness  these  last  few  weeks. 
I  cannot  gossip  about  him  behind  his  back.' 

All  her  fine  slenderness  of  form,  her  small  delicacy  of  feature, 
seemed  to  him  tense  and  vibrating,  like  some  precise  and  perfect 
instrument  strained  to  express  a  human  feeling  or  intention.  But 
what  feeling  ?  While  he  divined  it,  was  she  herself  unconscious  of 
it  ?  His  bitterness  grew. 

'  Dear  Lady  Merton  ! — can  you  not  trust  an  old  friend  ?  ' 

She  did  not  soften. 

'  I  do  trust  him.  But — '  her  smile  flashed — '  even  new 
acquaintances  have  their  rights.' 

'  You  will  not  understand,'  he  said,  earnestly.  '  What  is  in  my 
mind  came  to  me,  through  no  wish  or  will  of  mine.  You  cannot 
suppose  that  I  have  been  prying  into  Mr.  Anderson's  affairs  ! 
But  now  that  the  information  is  mine,  I  feel  a  great  responsibility 
towards  you.' 

'  Don't  feel  it.     I  am  a  wilful  woman.' 

'  A  rather  perplexing  one  !  May  I  at  least  be  sure  that ' — he 
hesitated — '  that  you  will  be  on  your  guard  ?  ' 

1  On  my  guard  ?  ' — she  lifted  her  eyebrows  proudly — '  and 
against  what  ?  ' 

'  That  is  precisely  what  you  won't  let  me  tell  you.' 

She  laughed, — a  little  fiercely. 

'  There  we  are ;  no  forrarder.  But  please  remember,  Mr. 
Arthur,  how  soon  we  shall  all  be  separating.  Nothing  very  dreadful 
can  happen  in  these  few  days — can  it  ?  ' 

For  the  first  time  was  there  a  touch  of  malice  in  her  smile  ? 

Delaine  rose,  took  one  or  two  turns  along  the  path  in  front  of 
her,  and  then  suddenly  stopped  beside  her. 

'  I  think  ' — he  said,  with  emphasis,  '  that  Mr.  Anderson  will 
probably  find  himself  summoned  away — immediately — before  you 
get  to  Vancouver.  But  that  I  will  discuss  with  him.  You  could  give 
me  no  address,  so  I  have  not  been  able  to  communicate  with  him.' 

Again  Elizabeth's  eyebrows  went  up.    She  rose. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  79 

'  Of  course  you  will  do  what  you  think  best.  Shall  we  go  back 
to  the  hotel  ?  ' 

They  walked  along  in  silence.  He  saw  that  she  was  excited, 
and  that  he  had  completely  missed  his  stroke  ;  but  he  did  not  see 
how  to  mend  the  situation. 

'  Oh !  there  is  Philip,  going  to  fish,'  said  Elizabeth  at  last,  as 
though  nothing  had  happened.  '  I  wondered  what  could  possibly 
have  got  him  up  so  early.' 

Philip  waved  to  her  as  she  spoke,  shouting  something  which  the 
mountain  echoes  absorbed.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  young  man, 
who  seemed  to  be  attached  to  the  hotel  as  guide,  fisherman,  hunter, 
— at  the  pleasure  of  visitors.  But  Elizabeth  had  already  discovered 
that  he  had  the  speech  of  a  gentleman,  and  attended  the  University 
of  Manitoba  during  the  winter.  In  the  absence  of  Anderson,  Philip 
had  no  doubt  annexed  him  for  the  morning. 

There  was  a  pile  of  logs  lying  on  the  lake  side.  Philip,  rod  in 
hand,  began  to  scramble  over  them  to  a  point  where  several  large 
trunks  overhung  deep  water.  His  companion  meanwhile  was 
seated  on  the  moss,  busy  with  some  preparations. 

'  1  hope  Philip  will  be  careful,'  said  Delaine,  suddenly.  *  There 
is  nothing  so  slippery  as  logs.' 

Elizabeth,  who  had  been  dreaming,  looked  up  anxiously. 
As  she  did  so  Philip,  high  perched  on  the  furthest  logs,  turned  again 
to  shout  to  his  sister,  his  light  figure  clear  against  the  sunlit  distance. 
Then  the  figure  wavered,  there  was  a  sound  of  crashing  wood,  and 
Philip  fell  headforemost  into  the  lake  before  him. 

The  young  man  on  the  bank  looked  up,  threw  away  his  rod 
and  his  coat,  and  was  just  plunging  into  the  lake  when  he  was 
anticipated  by  another  man  who  had  come  running  down  the 
bank  of  the  hotel,  and  was  already  in  the  water.  Elizabeth,  as  she 
rushed  along  the  edge,  recognised  Anderson.  Philip  seemed  to  have 
disappeared  ;  but  Anderson  dived,  and  presently  emerged  with  a 
limp  burden.  The  guide  was  now  aiding  him,  and  between  them 
they  brought  young  Gaddesden  to  land.  The  whole  thing  passed  so 
rapidly  that  Delaine  and  Elizabeth,  running  at  full  speed,  had  hardly 
reached  the  spot  before  Anderson  was  on  the  shore,  bearing  the  lad 
in  his  arms. 

Elizabeth  bent  over  him  with  a  moan  of  anguish.  He  seemed 
to  her  dead. 

'  He  has  only  fainted,'  said  Anderson  peremptorily.  *  We  must 
get  him  in.'  Ajad  he  hurried  on,  refusing  Delaine's  help,  carrying 


80  CANADIAN   BORN. 

the  thin  body  apparently  with  ease  along  the  path  and  up  the  steps 
to  the  hotel.  The  guide  had  already  been  sent  flying  ahead  to 
warn  the  household. 

Thus,  by  one  of  the  commonplace  accidents  of  travel,  the  whole 
scene  was  changed  for  this  group  of  travellers.  Philip  Gaddesden 
would  have  taken  small  harm  from  his  tumble  into  the  lake,  but 
for  the  fact  that  the  effects  of  rheumatic  fever  were  still  upon  him. 
As  it  was  a  certain  amount  of  fever,  and  some  heart-symptoms  that 
it  was  thought  had  been  overcome,  reappeared,  and  within  a  few 
hours  of  the  accident  it  became  plain  that,  although  he  was  in 
no  danger,  they  would  be  detained  at  least  ten  days,  perhaps  a 
fortnight,  at  Lake  Louise.  Elizabeth  sat  down  in  deep  despondency 
to  write  to  her  mother,  and  then  lingered  awhile  with  the  latter 
before  her,  her  head  in  her  hands,  pondering  with  emotion  what  she 
and  Philip  owed  to  George  Anderson,  who  had,  it  seemed,  arrived 
by  a  night  train,  and  walked  up  to  the  hotel,  in  the  very  nick  of 
time.  As  to  the  accident  itself,  no  doubt  the  guide,  a  fine  swimmer 
and  coureur  de  bois,  would  have  been  sufficient,  unaided,  to  save  her 
brother.  But  after  all  it  was  Anderson's  strong  arms  that  had 
drawn  him  from  the  icy  depths  of  the  lake,  and  carried  him  to 
safety.  And  since !  Never  had  telephone  and  railway,  and 
general  knowledge  of  the  resources  at  command,  been  worked 
more  skilfully  than  by  him,  and  the  kind  people  of  the  hotel. 
c  Don't  be  the  least  anxious  ' —  she  had  written  to  her  mother — 
4  we  have  a  capital  doctor — all  the  chemist's  stuff  we  want — and 
we  could  have  a  nurse  at  any  moment.  Mr.  Anderson  has  only 
to  order  one  up  from  the  camp  hospital  in  the  pass.  But  for  the 
present,  Simpson  and  I  are  enough  for  the  nursing.' 

She  heard  voices  in  the  next  room  ;  a  faint  question  from  Philip, 
Anderson  replying.  What  an  influence  this  man  of  strong  character 
had  already  obtained  over  her  wilful,  self-indulgent  brother  !  She 
saw  the  signs  of  it  in  many  directions  ;  and  she  was  passionately 
grateful  for  it.  Her  thoughts  went  wandering  back  over  the  past 
three  weeks — over  the  whole  gradual  unveiling  of  Anderson 's  person- 
ality. She  recalled  her  first  impressions  of  him  the  day  of  the  '  sink- 
hole.' An  ordinary,  strong,  capable,  ambitious  young  man,  full  of 
practical  interests,  with  brusque  manners,  and  a  visible  lack  of 
some  of  the  outer  wrappings  to  which  she  was  accustomed  : — it 
was  so  that  she  had  first  envisaged  him.  Then  at  Winnipeg — 
through  Mariette  and  others — she  had  seen  him  as  other  men  saw 


CANADIAN   BORN.  81 

him,  his  seniors  and  contemporaries,  the  men  engaged  with  him  in 
the  making  of  this  vast  country.  She  had  appreciated  his  character 
in  what  might  be  hereafter,  apparently,  its  public  aspects  ;  the 
character  of  one  for  whom  the  world  surrounding  him  was  eagerly 
prophesying  a  future  and  a  career.  His  profound  loyalty  to 
Canada,  and  to  certain  unspoken  ideals  behind,  which  were  really 
the  source  of  the  loyalty  ;  the  atmosphere  at  once  democratic  and 
imperial  in  which  his  thoughts  and  desires  moved,  which  had  more 
than  once  communicated  its  passion  to  her ;  a  touch  of  poetry, 
of  melancholy,  of  greatness  even — all  this  she  had  gradually  per- 
ceived. Winnipeg  and  the  prairie  journey  had  developed  him  thus 
before  her. 

So  much  for  the  second  stage  in  her  knowledge  of  him. 
There  was  a  third  ;  she  was  in  the  midst  of  it.  Her  face  flooded 
with  colour  against  her  will.  '  Out  of  the  strong  shall  come  forth 
sweetness.'  The  words  rushed  into  her  mind.  She  hoped,  as  one 
who  wished  him  well,  that  he  would  marry  soon  and  happily.  And 
the  woman  who  married  him  would  find  it  no  tame  future. 

Suddenly  Delaine's  warnings  occurred  to  her.  She  laughed,  a 
little  hysterically. 

Could  anyone  have  shown  himself  more  helpless,  useless,  incom- 
petent, than  Arthur  Delaine  since  the  accident  ?  Yet  he  was  still 
on  the  spot.  She  realised,  indeed,  that  it  was  hardly  possible  for 
their  old  friend  to  desert  them  under  the  circumstances.  But 
he  merely  represented  an  additional  burden. 

A  knock  at  her  sitting-room  door  disturbed  her.  Anderson 
appeared. 

'  I  am  off  to  Banff,  Lady  Merton,'  he  said,  from  the  threshold. 
*  I  think  I  have  all  your  commissions.  Is  your  letter  ready  ?  ' 

She  sealed  it  and  gave  it  him.  Then  she  looked  up  at  him  ; 
and  for  the  first  time  he  saw  her  tremulous  and  shaken  ;  not  for  her 
brother,  but  for  himself. 

4 1  don't  know  how  to  thank  you.'  She  offered  her  hand  ;  and 
one  of  those  beautiful  looks — generous,  friendly,  sincere — of  which 
she  had  the  secret. 

He,  too,  flushed,  his  eyes  held  a  moment  by  hers.  Then  he, 
somewhat  brusquely,  disengaged  himself. 

'  Why,  I  did  nothing !  He  was  in  no  danger ;  the  guide  would 
have  had  him  out  in  a  twinkle.  I  wish —  '  he  frowned — '  you 
wouldn't  look  so  done  up  over  it.' 

'Oh!  I  am  all  right.' 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  163.  N.S.  6 


82  CANADIAN   BORN. 

'  I  brought  you  a  book  this  morning.  Mercifully  I  left  it  in  the 
drawing-room,  so  it  hasn't  been  in  the  lake.' 

He  drew  it  from  his  pocket.  It  was  a  French  novel  she  had 
expressed  a  wish  to  read. 

She  exclaimed, 

'  How  did  you  get  it  ?  r 

*  I  found  Mariette  had  it  with  him.  He  sends  it  me  from 
Vancouver.  Will  you  promise  to  read  it — and  rest  ?  ' 

He  drew  a  sofa  towards  the  window.  The  June  sunset  was 
blazing  on  the  glacier  without. 

Would  he  next  offer  to  put  a  shawl  over  her,  and  tuck  her  up  ? 
She  retreated  hastily  to  the  writing-table,  one  hand  upon  it.  He 
saw  the  lines  of  her  grey  dress,  her  small  neck  and  head,  the 
Quakerish  smoothness  of  her  brown  hair,  against  the  light.  The 
little  figure  was  grace,  refinement,  embodied.  But  it  was  a  grace 
that  implied  an  environment — the  cosmopolitan,  luxurious  environ- 
ment, in  which  such  women  naturally  move. 

His  look  clouded.  He  said  a  hasty  good-bye  and  departed. 
Elizabeth  was  left  breathing  quick,  one  hand  on  her  breast.  It 
was  as  though  she  had  escaped  something — or  missed  something. 

As  he  left  the  hotel,  Anderson  found  himself  intercepted  by 
Delaine  in  the  garden,  and  paused  at  once  to  give  him  the  latest 
news. 

'  The  report  is  really  good,  everything  considered,'  he  said, 
with  a  cordiality  born  of  their  common  anxiety  ;  and  he  repeated 
the  doctor's  last  words  to  himself. 

'  Excellent ! '  said  Delaine ;  then,  clearing  his  throat,  '  Mr. 
Anderson,  may  I  have  some  conversation  with  you  ?  ' 

Anderson  looked  surprised,  threw  him  a  keen  glance,  and 
invited  him  to  accompany  him  part  of  the  way  to  Laggan.  They 
turned  into  a  solitary  road,  running  between  woods.  It  was  late 
evening,  and  the  sun  was  striking  through  the  Laggan  valley 
beneath  them  in  low  shafts  of  gold  and  purple. 

'  I  am  afraid  what  I  have  to  say  will  be  disagreeable  to  you,' 
began  Delaine,  abruptly.  '  And  on  this  particular  day — when  we 
owe  you  so  much — it  is  more  than  disagreeable  to  myself.  But  I 
have  no  choice.  By  some  extraordinary  chance,  with  which  I  beg 
you  to  believe  my  own  will  has  had  nothing  to  do,  I  have  become 
acquainted  with  something — something  that  concerns  you  privately 
— something  that  I  fear  will  be  a  great  shock  to  you.' 


CANADIAN   BORN  83 

Anderson  stood  still. 

'  What  can  you  possibly  mean  ? '  lie  said,  in  growing  amazement. 

'  I  was  accosted  the  night  before  last,  as  I  was  strolling  along 
the  railway  line,  by  a  man  I  had  never  seen  before,  a  man  who — 
pardon  me,  it  is  most  painful  to  me  to  seem  to  be  interfering  with 

anyone's  private  affairs — who  announced  himself  as '  the 

speaker's  nervous  stammer  intervened  before  he  jerked  out  the 
words — '  as  your  father  !  ' 

'  As  my  father  ?  Somebody  must  be  mad  ! '  said  Anderson 
quietly.  '  My  father  has  been  dead  ten  years.' 

'  I  am  afraid  there  is  a  mistake.  The  man  who  spoke  to  me  is 
aware  that  you  suppose  him  dead — lie  had  his  own  reasons,  he 
declares,  for  allowing  you  to  remain  under  a  misconception ;  he  now 
wishes  to  reopen  communications  with  you,  and  to  my  great  regret, 
to  my  indignation,  I  may  say,  he  chose  me — an  entire  stranger — 
as  his  intermediary.  He  seems  to  have  watched  our  party  all  the 
way  from  Winnipeg,  where  he  first  saw  you,  casually,  in  the  street. 
Naturally  I  tried  to  escape  from  him — to  refer  him  to  you.  But 
I  could  not  possibly  escape  from  him,  at  night,  with  no  road  for 
either  of  us  but  the  railway  line.  I  was  at  his  mercy.' 

'  What  was  his  reason  for  not  coming  direct  to  me  ?  ' 

They  were  still  pausing  in  the  road.  Delaine  could  see  in  the 
failing  light  that  Anderson  had  grown  pale.  But  he  perceived 
also  an  expression  of  scornful  impatience  in  the  blue  eyes  fixed 
upon  him 

'  He  professed  to  be  afraid ' 

'  That  I  should  murder  him  ?  '  said  Anderson  with  a  laugh. 
'  And  he  told  you  some  sort  of  a  story  ?  ' 

'  A  long  one,  I  regret  to  say.' 

1  And  not  to  my  credit  ?  ' 

1  The  tone  of  it  was  certainly  hostile.  I  would  rather  not 
repeat  it.' 

'I  should  not  dream  of  asking  you  to  do  so.  And  where  is 
this  precious  individual  to  be  found  ?  ' 

Delaine  named  the  address  which  had  been  given  him — of  a 
lodging  mainly  for  railway  men  near  Laggan. 

'  I  will  look  him  up,'  said  Anderson  briefly.  '  The  whole  story 
of  course  is  a  mere  attempt  to  get  money — for  what  reason  I  do 
not  know ;  but  I  will  look  into  it.' 

Delaine  was  silent.  Anderson  divined  from  his  manner  that 
he  believed  the  story  true.  In  the  minds  of  both  the  thought  of 

6—2 


84  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Lady  Merton  emerged.  Anderson  scorned  to  ask,  £  Have  you  said 
anything  to  them  ?  '  and  Delaine  was  conscious  of  a  nervous  fear 
lest  he  should  ask  it.  In  the  light  of  the  countenance  beside  him, 
no  less  than  of  the  event  of  the  day,  his  behaviour  of  the  morning 
began  to  seem  to  him  more  than  disputable.  In  the  morning 
he  had  seemed  to  himself  the  defender  of  Elizabeth  and  the  class 
to  which  they  both  belonged  against  low-born  adventurers  with 
disreputable  pasts.  But  as  he  stood  there,  confronting  the 
4  adventurer,'  his  conscience  as  a  gentleman — which  was  his  main 
and  typical  conscience — pricked  him. 

The  inward  qualm,  however,  only  stiffened  his  manner.  And 
Anderson  asked  nothing.  He  turned  towards  Laggan. 

'  Good-night.  I  will  let  you  know  the  result  of  my  investiga- 
tions.' And,  with  the  shortest  of  nods,  he  went  off  at  a  swinging 
pace  down  the  road. 

1 1  have  only  done  my  duty,'  argued  Delaine  with  himself  as 
he  returned  to  the  hotel.  '  It  was  uncommonly  difficult  to  do  it 
at  such  a  moment !  But  to  him  I  have  no  obligations  whatever ; 
my  obligations  are  to  Lady  Merton  and  her  family.' 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IT  was  dark  when  Anderson  reached  Laggan,  if  that  can  be  called 
darkness  which  was  rather  a  starry  twilight,  interfused  with  the 
whiteness  of  snowfield  and  glacier.  He  first  of  all  despatched  a 
message  to  Banff  for  Elizabeth's  commissions.  Then  he  made 
straight  for  the  ugly  frame  house  of  which  Delaine  had  given  him 
the  address.  It  was  kept  by  a  couple  well  known  to  him,  an 
Irishman  and  his  wife  who  made  their  living  partly  by  odd  jobs 
on  the  railway,  partly  by  lodging  men  in  search  of  work  in  the 
various  construction  camps  of  the  line.  To  all  such  persons 
Anderson  was  a  familiar  figure,  especially  since  the  great  strike 
of  the  year  before. 

The  house  stood  by  itself  in  a  plot  of  cleared  ground,  some  two 
or  three  hundred  yards  from  the  railway  station.  A  rough  road 
through  the  pine  wood  led  up  to  it. 

Anderson  knocked,  and  Mrs.  Ginnell  came  to  the  door,  a  tired, 
and  apparently  sulky  woman. 

*  I  hear  you  have  a  lodger  here,  Mrs.  Ginnell,'  said  Anderson, 


CANADIAN   BORN.  85 

standing  in  the  doorway,  '  a  man  called  McEwen ;  and  that  he 
wants  to  see  me  on  some  business  or  other.' 

Mrs.  Ginnell's  countenance  darkened. 

*  We  have  an  old  man  here,  Mr.  Anderson,  as  answers  to  that 
name,  but  you'll  get  no  business  out  of  him — and  I  don't  believe 
he  have  any  business  with  any  decent  crater.  "When  he  arrive 
two  days  ago  he  was  the  worse  for  liquor,  took  on  at  Calgary.  I 
made  my  husband  look  after  him  that  night  to  see  he  didn't  get 
at  nothing,  but  yesterday  he  slipped  us  both,  an'  I  believe  he's 
now  in  that  there  outhouse,  a-sleeping  it  off.  Old  men  like  him 
should  be  sent  somewhere  safe,  an'  kep'  there.' 

'  I'll  go  and  see  if  he's  awake,  Mrs.  Ginnell.  Don't  you  trouble 
to  come.  Any  other  lodgers  ?  ' 

'  No,  sir.  There  was  a  bunch  of  'em  left  this  morning — got 
work  on  the  Crow's  Nest.' 

Anderson  made  his  way  to  the  little  '  shack,'  Ginnell's  house 
of  the  first  year,  now  used  as  a  kind  of  general  receptacle  for  tools, 
rubbish  and  stores. 

He  looked  in.  On  a  heap  of  straw  in  the  comer  lay  a  huddled 
figure,  a  kind  of  human  rag.  Anderson  paused  a  moment,  then 
entered,  hung  the  lamp  he  had  brought  with  him  on  a  peg,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  him. 

He  stood  looking  down  at  the  sleeper,  who  was  in  the  restless 
stage  before  waking.  McEwen  threw  himself  from  side  to  side, 
muttered,  and  stretched. 

Slowly  a  deep  colour  flooded  Anderson's  cheeks  and  brow ;  his 
hands  hanging  beside  him  clenched  ;  he  checked  a  groan  that  was 
also  a  shudder.  The  abjectness  of  the  figure,  the  terrible  identifica- 
tion proceeding  in  his  mind,  the  memories  it  evoked,  were  rending 
and  blinding  him.  The  winter  morning  on  the  snow-strewn  prairie, 
the  smell  of  smoke  blown  towards  him  on  the  wind,  the  flames  of 
the  burning  house,  the  horror  of  the  search  among  the  ruins,  his 
father's  confession,  and  his  own  rage  and  despair  : — deep  in  the 
tissues  of  life  these  images  were  stamped.  The  anguish  of  them 
ran  once  more  through  his  being. 

How  had  he  been  deceived  ?  And  what  was  to  be  done  ?  He 
sat  down  on  a  heap  of  rubbish  beside  the  straw,  looking  at  his  father. 
He  had  last  seen  him  as  a  man  of  fifty,  vigorous,  red-haired,  coarsely 
handsome,  though  already  undermined  by  drink.  The  man  lying 
on  the  straw  was  approaching  seventy,  and  might  have  been  much 
older.  His  matted  hair  was  nearly  white,  his  face  blotched  and 


««  CANADIAN    BORN. 

cavernous ;  and  the  relaxation  of  sleep  emphasised  the  mean 
cunning  of  the  mouth.  His  clothing  was  torn  and  filthy,  the  hands 
repulsive. 

Anderson  could  only  bear  a  few  minutes  of  this  spectacle.  A 
natural  shame  intervened.  He  bent  over  his  father  and  called  him. 

1  Robert  Anderson  ! ' 

A  sudden  shock  passed  through  the  sleeper.  He  started  up, 
and  Anderson  saw  his  hand  dart  for  something  lying  beside  him, 
no  doubt  a  revolver. 

But  Anderson  grasped  the  arm. 

4  Don't  be  afraid ;  you're  quite  safe.' 

McEwen,  still  bewildered  by  sleep  and  drink,  tried  to  shake  off 
the  grasp,  to  see  who  it  was  standing  over  him.  Anderson  released 
him,  and  moved  so  that  the  lamplight  fell  upon  himself. 

Slowly  McEwen's  faculties  came  together,  began  to  work.  The 
lamplight  showed  him  his  son  George — the  fair-haired,  broad- 
shouldered  fellow  he  had  been  tracking  all  these  days — and  he 
understood. 

He  straightened  himself,  with  an  attempt  at  dignity. 

*  So  it's  you,  George  ?     You  might  have  given  me  notice.' 

1  Where  have  you  been  all  these  years  ?  '  said  Anderson,  in- 
distinctly. '  And  why  did  you  let  me  believe  you  dead  ?  ' 

'  Well,  I  had  my  reasons,  George.  But  I  don't  mean  to  go  into 
'em.  All  that's  dead  and  gone.  There  was  a  pack  of  fellows 
then  on  my  shoulders — I  was  plumb  tired  of  'em.  I  had  to  get  rid 
of — I  did  get  rid  of  'em — and  you,  too.  I  knew  you  were  inquiring 
after  me,  and  I  didn't  want  inquiries.  They  didn't  suit  me.  You 
may  conclude  what  you  like.  I  tell  you  those  times  are  dead  and 
gone.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that  Robert  Anderson  was  best  put 
away  for  a  bit.  So  I  took  measures  according.' 

'  You  knew  I  was  deceived.' 

'  Yes,  1  knew,'  said  the  other  composedly.    '  Couldn't  be  helped.' 

'  And  where  have  you  been  since  ?  ' 

'  In  Nevada,  George, — Comstock — silver-mining.  Rough  lot,  but 
you  get  a  stroke  of  luck  sometimes.  I've  got  a  chance  on  now — 
me  and  a  friend  of  mine — that's  first-rate.' 

'  What  brought  you  back  to  Canada  ?  ' 

'  Well,  it  was  your  aunt,  Mrs.  Harriet  Sykes.  Ever  hear  of  her, 
George  ?  ' 

Anderson  shook  his  head. 

'  You  must  have  heard  of  her  when  you  were  a  little  chap. 


CANADIAN    BORN.  87 

When  I  left  Ayrshire  in  1840  she  was  a  lass  of  sixteen ;  never  saw 
her  since.  But  she  married  a  man  well-to-do,  and  was  left  a 
widder  with  no  children.  And  when  she  died  t'other  day,  she'd 
left  me  something  in  her  will,  and  told  the  lawyers  to  advertise 
over  here,  in  Canada  and  the  States — both.  And  1  happened 
on  the  advertisement  in  a  Chicago  paper.  Told  yer  to  call  on 
Smith  &  Dawkins,  Winnipeg.  So  that  was  how  I  came  to  see 
Winnipeg  again.' 

'  When  were  you  there  ?  ' 

'  Just  when  you  was,'  said  the  old  man,  with  a  triumphant  look, 
which  for  the  moment  effaced  the  squalor  of  his  aspect.  '  I  was 
coming  out  of  Smith  &  Dawkins'  with  the  money  in  my  pocket, 
when  I  saw  you  opposite,  just  going  into  a  shop.  You  could  ha' 
knocked  me  down  easy,  1  warrant  ye.  Didn't  expect  to  come  on 
yer  tracks  as  fast  as  all  that.  But  there  you  were,  and  when  you 
came  out  and  went  down  t'  street,  I  just  followed  you  at  a  safe 
distance,  and  saw  you  go  into  the  hotel.  Afterwards,  I  went  into  the 
Free  Library  to  think  a  bit,  and  then  I  saw  the  piece  in  the  paper 
about  you  and  that  Saskatchewan  place ;  and  I  got  hold  of  a  young 
man  in  a  saloon  who  found  out  all  about  you  and  those  English 
swells  you've  been  hanging  round  with ;  and  that  same  night,  when 
you  boarded  the  train,  I  boarded  it,  too.  See  ?  Only  I  am  not  a 
swell  like  you.  And  here  we  are.  See  ?  ' 

This  last  speech  was  delivered  with  a  mixture  of  bravado, 
cunning,  and  sinister  triumph.  Anderson  sat  with  his  head  in  his 
hands,  his  eyes  on  the  mud  floor,  listening.  When  it  was  over  he 
looked  up. 

'  Why  didn't  you  come  and  speak  to  me  at  once  ? ' 

The  other  hesitated. 

'  Well,  I  wasn't  a  beauty  to  look  at.  Not  much  of  a  credit  to 
you,  am  I  ?  Didn't  think  you'd  own  me.  And  I  don't  like  towns 
— too  many  people  about.  Thought  I'd  catch  you  somewhere  on 
the  quiet.  Heard  you  was  going  to  the  Eockies.  Thought  1  might 
as  well  go  round  by  Seattle  home.  See  ?  ' 

'  You  have  had  plenty  of  chances  since  Winnipeg  of  making 
yourself  known  to  me,'  said  Anderson  sombrely.  '  Why  did  you 
speak  to  a  stranger  instead  of  coming  direct  to  me  ?  ' 

McEwen  hesitated  a  moment. 

'  Well,  1  wasn't  sure  of  you.  1  didn't  know  how  you'd  take  it. 
And  I'd  lost  my  nerve,  d-mn  it !  the  last  few  years.  Thought  you 
might  just  kick  me  out,  or  set  the  police  on  me.' 


88  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Anderson  studied  the  speaker.  His  fair  skin  was  deeply  flushed ; 
his  brow  frowned  unconsciously,  reflecting  the  travail  of  thought 
behind  it. 

'  What  did  you  say  to  that  gentleman  the  other  night  ?  ' 

McEwen  smiled  a  shifty  smile,  and  began  to  pluck  some  pieces 
of  straw  from  his  sleeve. 

'  Don't  remember  just  what  I  did  say.  Nothing  to  do  you  no 
harm,  anyway.  I  might  have  said  you  were  never  an  easy  chap 
to  get  on  with.  I  might  perhaps  have  said  that,  or  I  mightn't. 
(Think  1  did.  Don't  remember.' 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met  for  a  moment,  Anderson's  bright 
and  fixed.  He  divined  perfectly  what  had  been  said  to  the  English- 
man, Lady  Merton's  friend  and  travelling  companion.  A  father 
overborne  by  misfortunes  and  poverty,  disowned  by  a  prosperous 
and  Pharisaical  son, — admitting  a  few  peccadilloes,  such  as  most 
men  forgive,  in  order  to  weigh  them  against  virtues,  such  as  all  men 
hate.  Old  age  and  infirmity  on  the  one  hand ;  mean  hardness  and 
cruelty  on  the  other.  Was  Elizabeth  already  contemplating  the 
picture  ? 

And  yet —  No  !  unless  perhaps  under  the  shelter  of  darkness, 
it  could  never  have  been  possible  for  this  figure  before  him  to  play 
the  part  of  innocent  misfortune,  at  all  events.  Could  debauch, 
could  ruin  of  body  and  soul  be  put  more  plainly  ?  Could  they 
express  themselves  more  clearly  than  through  this  face  and  form  ? 

A  shudder  ran  through  Anderson,  a  cry  against  fate,  a  sick 
wondering  as  to  his  own  past  responsibility,  a  horror  of  the  future. 
Then  his  will  strengthened,  and  he  set  himself  quietly  to  see  what 
could  be  done. 

'  We  can't  talk  here,'  he  said  to  his  father.  '  Come  back  into  the 
house.  There  are  some  rooms  vacant.  I'll  take  them  for  you.' 

McEwen  rose  with  difficulty,  groaning  as  he  put  his  right  foot  to 
the  ground.  Anderson  then  perceived  that  the  right  foot  and  ankle 
were  wrapped  round  with  bloodstained  rag,  and  was  told  that  the 
night  before  their  owner  had  stumbled  over  a  jug  in  Mrs.  Ginnell's 
kitchen,  breaking  the  jug  and  inflicting  some  deep  cuts  on  his  own 
foot  and  ankle.  McEwen,  indeed,  could  only  limp  along,  with 
mingled  curses  and  lamentations,  supported  by  Anderson.  In  the 
excitement  of  his  son's  appearance  he  had  forgotten  his  injury. 
The  pain  and  annoyance  of  it  returned  upon  him  now  with  added 
sharpness,  and  Anderson  realised  that  here  was  yet  another  com- 
plication as  they  moved  across  the  yard. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  89 

A  few  words  to  the  astonished  Mrs.  Ginnell  sufficed  to  secure  all 
her  vacant  rooms,  four  in  number.  Anderson  put  his  father  in  one 
on  the  ground  floor,  then  shut  the  door  on  him  and  went  back  to  the 
woman  of  the  house.  She  stood  looking  at  him,  flushed,  in  a 
bewildered  silence.  But  she  and  her  husband  owed  various  kind- 
nesses to  Anderson,  and  he  quickly  made  up  his  mind. 

In  a  very  few  words  he  quietly  told  her  the  real  facts,  confiding 
them  both  to  her  self-interest  and  her  humanity.  McEwen  was  to 
be  her  only  lodger  till  the  next  step  could  be  determined.  She  was 
to  wait  on  him,  to  keep  drink  from  him,  to  get  him  clothes.  Her 
husband  was  to  go  out  with  him,  if  he  should  insist  on  going  out ; 
but  Anderson  thought  his  injury  would  keep  him  quiet  for  a  day  or 
two.  Meanwhile,  no  babbling  to  anybody.  And,  of  course,  generous 
payment  for  all  that  was  asked  of  them. 

But  Mrs.  Ginnell  understood  that  she  was  being  appealed  to 
not  only  commercially,  but  as  a  woman  with  a  heart  in  her  body 
and  a  good  share  of  Irish  wit.  That  moved  and  secured  her.  She 
threw  herself  nobly  into  the  business.  Anderson  might  command 
her  as  he  pleased,  and  she  answered  for  her  man.  Renewed  groans 
from  the  room  next  door  disturbed  them.  Mrs.  Ginnell  went  in  to 
answer  them,  and  came  out  demanding  a  doctor.  The  patient  was 
in  much  pain,  the  wounds  looked  bad,  and  she  suspected  fever. 
'  Yo  can't  especk  places  to  heal  with  such  as  him,'  she  said, 
grimly. 

With  doggedness,  Anderson  resigned  himself.  He  went  to  the 
station  and  sent  a  wire  to  Field  for  a  doctor.  What  would  happen 
when  he  arrived  he  did  not  know.  He  had  made  no  compact  with 
his  father.  If  the  old  man  chose  to  announce  himself,  so  be  it- 
Anderson  did  not  mean  to  bargain  or  sue.  Other  men  have  had  to 
bear  such  burdens  in  the  face  of  the  world.  Should  it  fall  to  him  to 
be  forced  to  take  his  up  in  like  manner,  let  him  set  his  teeth  and 
shoulder  it,  sore  and  shaken  as  he  was.  He  felt  a  fierce  confidence 
that  he  could  still  make  the  world  respect  him. 

An  hour  passed  away.  An  answer  came  from  Field  to  the  effect 
that  a  doctor  would  be  sent  up  on  a  freight  train  just  starting,  and 
might  be  expected  shortly. 

While  Mrs.  Ginnell  was  still  attending  on  her  lodger,  Anderson 
went  out  into  the  starlight  to  try  and  think  out  the  situation.  The 
night  was  clear  and  balmy.  The  high  snows  glimmered  through  the 
lingering  twilight,  and  in  the  air  there  was  at  last  a  promise  of 
*  midsummer  pomps.'  Pine  woods  and  streams  breathed  freshness 


90  CANADIAN   BORN. 

and  when  in  his  walk  along  the  railway  line — since  there  is  no  other 
road  through  the  Kicking  Horse  Pass — he  reached  a  point  whence 
the  great  Yo  Ho  valley  became  visible  to  the  right,  he  checked  the 
rapid  movement  which  had  brought  him  a  kind  of  physical  comfort, 
and  set  himself — in  face  of  that  far-stretching  and  splendid  solitude 
— to  wrestle  with  calamity. 

First  of  all  there  was  the  Englishman — Delaine — and  the  letter 
that  must  be  written  him.  But  there  also  no  evasions,  no  sup- 
pliancy.  Delaine  must  be  told  that  the  story  was  true,  and  would 
no  doubt  think  himself  entitled  to  act  upon  it.  The  protest  on 
behalf  of  Lady  Merton  implied  already  in  his  manner  that  afternoon 
was  humiliating  enough.  The  smart  of  it  was  still  tingling  through 
Anderson's  being.  He  had  till  now  felt  a  kind  of  instinctive 
contempt  for  Delaine  as  a  fine  gentleman  with  a  useless  educa- 
tion, inclined  to  patronise  '  colonists.'  The  two  men  had  jarred 
from  the  beginning,  and  at  Banff,  Anderson  had  both  divined  in 
him  the  possible  suitor  of  Lady  Merton,  and  had  also  become 
aware  that  Delaine  resented  his  own  intrusion  upon  the  party, 
and  the  rapid  intimacy  which  had  grown  up  between  him  and  the 
brother  and  sister.  Well,  let  him  use  his  chance !  if  it  so  pleased 
him.  No  promise  whatever  should  be  asked  of  him ;  there 
should  be  no  suggestion  even  of  a  line  of  action.  The  bare 
fact  which  he  had  become  possessed  of  should  be  admitted,  and  he 
should  be  left  to  deal  with  it.  Upon  his  next  step  would  depend 
Anderson's  ;  that  was  all. 

But  Lady  Merton  ? 

Anderson  stared  across  the  near  valley,  up  the  darkness  beyond, 
where  lay  the  forests  of  the  Yo  Ho,  and  so  to  those  ethereal 
summits  whence  a  man  might  behold  on  one  side  the  smoke-wreaths 
of  the  great  railway,  and  on  the  other  side  the  still  virgin  peaks  of 
the  northern  Rockies,  untamed,  untrodden.  But  his  eyes  were 
holden ;  he  saw  neither  snow,  nor  forests,  and  the  roar  of  the  stream 
dashing  at  his  feet  was  unheard. 

Three  weeks,  was  it,  since  he  had  first  seen  that  delicately  oval 
face,  and  those  clear  eyes  ?  The  strong  man — accustomed  to  hold 
himself  in  check,  to  guard  his  own  strength  as  the  instrument,  firm 
and  indispensable,  of  an  iron  will — recoiled  from  the  truth  he  was 
at  last  compelled  to  recognise.  In  this  daily  companionship  with  a 
sensitive  and  charming  woman,  endowed  beneath  her  light  reserve 
with  all  the  sweetnesses  of  unspoilt  feeling,  while  yet  commanding 
through  her  long  training  in  an  old  society  a  thousand  delicacies  and 


CANADIAN   BORN.  91 

subtleties,  which  played  on  Anderson's  fresh  senses  like  the  breeze 
on  young  leaves — whither  had  he  been  drifting  ? — to  the  brink  of 
what  precipice  had  he  brought  himself,  unknowing  ? 

He  stood  there  indefinitely,  among  the  charred  tree-trunks  that 
bordered  the  line,  his  arms  folded,  looking  straight  before  him, 
motionless. 

Supposing  to-day  had  been  yesterday,  need  he — together 
with  this  sting  of  passion — have  felt  also  this  impotent  and  angry 
despair  ?  Before  his  eyes  had  seen  that  figure  lying  on  the  straw  of 
Mrs.  Ginnell's  outhouse,  could  he  ever  have  dreamed  it  possible  that 
Elizabeth  Merton  should  marry  him  ? 

Yes  !  He  thought,  trembling  from  head  to  foot,  of  that  expres- 
sion in  her  eyes  he  had  seen  that  very  afternoon.  Again  and  again 
he  had  checked  his  feeling  by  the  harsh  reminder  of  her  social 
advantages.  But,  at  this  moment  of  crisis,  the  man  in  him  stood 
up,  confident  and  rebellious.  He  knew  himself  sound,  intellectually 
and  morally.  There  was  a  career  before  him,  to  which  a  cool  and 
reasonable  ambition  looked  forward  without  any  paralysing  doubts. 
In  this  growing  Canada,  measuring  himself  against  the  other  men  of 
the  moment,  he  calmly  foresaw  his  own  growing  place.  As  to  money, 
he  would  make  it ;  he  was  in  process  of  making  it,  honourably 
and  sufficiently. 

He  was  well  aware  indeed  that  in  the  case  of  many  women 
sprung  from  the  English  governing  class,  the  ties  that  bind  them 
to  their  own  world,  its  traditions,  and  its  outlook,  are  so 
strong  that  to  try  and  break  them  would  be  merely  to  invite 
disaster.  But  then  from  such  women  his  own  pride — his  pride  in 
his  country — would  have  warned  his  passion.  It  was  to  Elizabeth's 
lovely  sympathy,  her  generous  detachment,  her  free  kindling 
mind — that  his  life  had  gone  out.  She  would,  surely,  never  be 
deterred  from  marrying  a  Canadian — if  he  pleased  her — because  it 
would  cut  her  off  from  London  and  Paris,  and  all  the  ripe 
antiquities  and  traditions  of  English  or  European  life  ?  Even  in 
the  sparsely  peopled  North-West,  with  which  his  own  future  was 
bound  up,  how  many  English  women  are  there — fresh,  some  of 
them,  from  luxurious  and  fastidious  homes — on  ranches,  on  prairie 
farms,  in  the  Okanagan  valley  !  *  This  North-West  is  no  longer  a 
wilderness ! '  he  proudly  thought ;  '  it  is  no  longer  a  leap  in  the  dark 
to  bring  a  woman  of  delicate  nurture  and  cultivation  to  the  prairies.' 

So,  only  a  few  hours  before,  he  might  have  nattered  the  tyranny 
of  longing  and  desire  which  had  taken  hold  upon  him. 


02  CANADIAN   BORN. 

But  now !  All  his  life  seemed  besmirched.  His  passion  had  been 
no  sooner  born  than,  like  a  wounded  bird,  it  fluttered  to  the  ground. 
Bring  upon  such  a  woman  as  Elizabeth  Merton  the  most  distant 
responsibility  for  such  a  being  as  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the 
log-hut  at  Laggan  ?  Link  her  life  in  however  remote  a  fashion  with 
that  life  ?  Treachery  and  sacrilege,  indeed  !  No  need  for  Delaine 
to  tell  him  that !  His  father  as  a  grim  memory  of  the  past — that 
Lady  Merton  knew.  His  own  origins — his  own  story — as  to  that 
she  had  nothing  to  discover.  But  the  man  who  might  have  dared 
to  love  her,  up  to  that  moment  in  the  hut,  was  now  a  slave,  bound 
to  a  corpse — 

Finis  ! 

And  then  as  the  anguish  of  this  thought  swept  through  him, 
and  by  a  natural  transmission  of  ideas,  there  rose  in  Anderson 
the  sore  and  sudden  memory  of  old,  unhappy  things,  of  the  tender 
voices  and  faces  of  his  first  youth.  The  ugly  vision  of  his  degraded 
father  had  brought  back  upon  him,  through  a  thousand  channels 
of  association,  the  recollection  of  his  mother.  He  saw  her  now — 
the  worn,  roughened  face,  the  sweet  swimming  eyes  ;  he  felt  her 
arms  round  him,  the  tears  of  her  long  agony  on  his  face.  She  had 
endured  ! — he  too  must  endure.  Close,  close  ! — he  pressed  her  to 
his  heart.  As  the  radiant  image  of  Elizabeth  vanished  from  him 
in  the  darkness,  his  mother — broken,  despairing,  murdered  in  her 
youth — came  to  him  and  strengthened  him.  Let  him  do  his  duty  to 
this  poor  outcast,  as  she  would  have  done  it — and  put  high  thoughts 
from  him. 

He  tore  himself  resolutely  from  his  trance  of  thought,  and  began 
to  walk  back  along  the  line.  All  the  same,  he  would  go  up  to  Lake 
Louise,  as  he  had  promised,  on  the  following  morning.  As  far  as 
his  own  intention  was  concerned,  he  would  not  cease  to  look  after 
Lady  Merton  and  her  brother ;  Philip  Gaddesden  would  soon  have 
to  be  moved,  and  he  meant  to  escort  them  to  Vancouver. 

Sounds  approached,  from  the  distance — the  '  freight,'  with  the 
doctor,  climbing  the  steep  pass.  He  stepped  on  briskly  to  a  signal- 
man's cabin  and  made  arrangements  to  stop  the  train. 

It  was  towards  midnight  when  he  and  the  doctor  emerged  from 
the  Ginnells'  cabin. 

'  Oh,  I  daresay  we'll  heal  those  cuts,'  said  the  doctor.  '  I've  told 
Mrs.  Ginnell  what  to  do ;  but  the  old  fellow's  in  a  pretty  cranky 
state.  I  doubt  whether  he'll  trouble  the  world  very  long.' 


CANADIAN   BORN.  93 

Anderson  started.  With  his  eyes  on  the  ground  and  his  hands 
in  his  pockets,  he  inquired  the  reason  for  this  opinion. 

'  Arteries  ! — first  and  foremost.  It's  a  wonder  they've  held  out 
so  long,  and  then — a  score  of  other  things.  What  can  you  expect  ?  ' 

The  speaker  went  into  some  details,  discussing  the  case  with 
gusto.  A  miner  from  Nevada  ?  Queer  hells  often,  those  mining 
camps,  whether  on  the  Canadian  or  the  American  side  of  the  border. 

'  You  were  acquainted  with  his  family  ? — Canadian,  to  begin  with, 
I  understand  ?  ' 

4  Yes.  He  applied  to  me  for  help.  Did  he  tell  you  much  about 
himself  ?  ' 

'  No.  He  boasted  a  lot  about  some  mine  in  the  Comstock  district 
which  is  to  make  his  fortune,  if  he  can  raise  the  money  to  buy  it  up. 
If  he  can  raise  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  he  says,  he  wouldn't  care  to 
call  Kockefeller  his  uncle  ! ' 

'  That's  what  he  wants,  is  it  ?  '  said  Anderson,  absently,  '  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  ?  ' 

'  Apparently.  Wish  he  may  get  it ! '  laughed  the  doctor.  '  Well, 
keep  him  from  drink,  if  you  can.  But  I  doubt  if  you'll  cheat  the 
undertaker  very  long.  Good-night.  There'll  be  a  train  along  soon 
that'll  pick  me  up.' 

Anderson  went  back  into  the  cabin,  found  that  his  father  had 
dropped  asleep,  left  money  and  directions  with  Mrs.  Ginnell,  and 
then  returned  to  his  own  lodgings. 

He  sat  down  to  write  to  Delaine.  It  was  clear  that,  so  far,  that 
gentleman  and  Mrs.  Ginnell  were  the  only  other  participants  in 
the  secret  of  McEwen's  identity.  The  old  man  had  not  revealed 
himself  to  the  doctor.  Did  that  mean  that — in  spite  of  his  first 
reckless  interview  with  the  Englishman — he  had  still  some  notion  of 
a  bargain  with  his  son,  on  the  basis  of  the  fifteen  thousand  dollars  ? 

Possibly.  But  that  son  had  still  to  determine  his  own  line  of 
action.  When  at  last  he  began  to  write,  he  wrote  steadily  and 
without  a  pause.  Nor  was  the  letter  long. 

(To  be  continued,.) 


94 


MAKING   GOOD. 
BY  A.  E.  W.   MASON. 


THERE  were  four  of  them.  They  were  sitting  on  the  terrace  of  an 
old  Tudor  house  in  one  of  the  Home  Counties — Colonel  Faraday 
who  had  done  his  work,  young  Arthur  Pynes  who  was  sailing  out 
to-morrow  to  begin  his,  and  two  other  men  of  no  importance.  It 
was  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  the  sun  was  rather  low  in  their 
faces.  Half  a  dozen  steps  led  down  from  the  terrace  to  a  broad 
lawn  which,  flanked  upon  the  one  side  by  a  grey  stone  wall  and 
upon  the  other  by  a  high  grove  of  elms,  ran  out  smooth  and  level 
and  green  to  a  low  parapet.  Beyond  the  parapet  a  chain  of  still 
ponds,  each  one  of  them  a  platter  of  gold,  linked  the  lawn  to  a 
field  of  deep  grass  ready  for  the  scythe.  But  of  the  lawn  and  of  the 
pools  three  of  the  four  men  took  no  heed,  and  the  fourth  was  not 
given  a  chance. 

'  There's  a  ritual,  of  course  ?  '  said  Arthur  Pynes. 

He  was  questioning  the  Colonel  about  the  secret  clubs  of  West 
Africa.  To-morrow  at  this  hour  he  would  be  steaming  down  the 
Mersey  on  his  way  to  the  Gold  Coast,  and  he  was  eager  for  know- 
ledge. Colonel  Faraday  drew  down  the  peak  of  his  cap  to  shade 
his  eyes  from  the  sun,  and  spoke  wearily  of  Ikun  and  Ukuku  and 
Poorah,  and  how  Egbo  could  go  from  Calabar  and  meet  with  respect 
in  Okyon  but  with  none  in  Cameroon.  He  spoke  resentfully  as  well 
as  wearily.  For  the  peace  of  the  garden  had  entered  into  his  soul — 
he  was  so  lately  back  from  Sierra  Leone — and  he  did  not  wish  to 
lose  it  as  he  surely  would,  if  the  talk  went  on  upon  these  lines. 
Arthur  Pynes,  however,  was  pitiless. 

'  You  haven't  mentioned  the  Leopard  Society,'  he  said. 

'  No,'  replied  Colonel  Faraday,  '  I  haven't.' 

There  was  just  a  shade  of  difference  in  his  voice.  He  moved 
too  in  his  chair  sharply.  Pynes  was  encouraged. 

'  Did  you  ever  come  across  it,  Colonel  ?  ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Faraday  reluctantly,  '  I  did.  I  came  across  the 
Human  Leopards  once.  There's  murder  in  their  ritual.' 

Upon  that  he  stopped.  But  he  had  already  said  too  much.  The 
peace  of  the  garden  had  gone  from  him.  Its  very  aspect  was 


MAKING   GOOD.  95 

changing  before  his  eyes  as  he  looked  out  under  the  peak  of  his 
cap.  The  grove  of  elms  thickened  to  a  twilit  forest  of  cotton  trees 
slung  with  monstrous  orchids,  the  lawn  became  a  batter  of  black 
mud,  the  chain  of  pools  a  river. 

'  And,'  he  added  slowly,  '  I  believe  they  do  something  with 
fat.' 

The  phrase  startled  the  Colonel's  audience.  It  had  a  sugges- 
tion of  sinister  and  odious  things.  There  was  a  momentary  feeling 
of  discomfort  in  each  one  of  them.  Moreover,  Faraday  had  spoken 
with  finality.  He  wished  for  no  more  questions  ;  that  was  evident. 
But  if  they  had  been  put  to  him,  he  would  hardly  have  answered 
them.  A  story  which  in  the  course  of  years  had  faded  in  his  recollec- 
tions was  growing  slowly  into  vividness  again,  resuming  its  details, 
clothing  itself  with  commencement,  development,  and  conclusion. 
And  then  a  sentence  spoken  by  one  of  his  companions,  a  sentence 
accidentally  and  strangely  apposite,  pierced  through  the  wall  which 
remembrance  had  built  about  him  and  caught  his  attention.  He 
answered  it. 

'  No,'  he  said.  '  Men  have  relapsed  into  barbarism  after  they 
have  been  educated  out  of  it.  There  have  been  cases  no  doubt. 
But  this  man  didn't.  That  explanation  would  not  account  for 
him.  No,  what  he  did  was  quite  deliberate.' 

The  three  men  looked  at  Colonel  Faraday,  surprised  by  his 
interruption,  and  wondering  who  '  this  man  '  might  be.  But  they 
had  not  to  wait.  For  now  of  his  own  accord  he  told  his  story. 
It  follows  here  as  he  told  it. 

It  happened  some  years  ago  in  the  Imperi  country  at  the  back 
of  Freetown  in  Sierra  Leone.  I  had  a  district  there.  I  was  judge, 
policeman,  public  prosecutor,  and  counsel  for  the  defence  all  in  one. 
I  was  Minister  for  all  the  Departments.  I  was  King.  And  I  had 
twenty  soldiers  of  the  tribe  to  maintain  my  authority.  I  was  on  a 
tour  of  inspection,  and  I  stopped  fairly  early  one  afternoon  at  a 
big  village  in  a  clearing  of  the  forest.  I  had  no  particular  business 
at  that  village,  and  I  should  really  have  liked  to  go  forward 
for  another  six  miles  to  a  better  camping  ground.  But  I  could 
not.  I  was  too  late.  It  was  perfectly  well  known  that  at  a  bend 
in  the  forest,  two  miles  from  the  clearing,  the  ghost  of  a  spear  was 
in  the  habit  of  hurtling  to  and  fro  across  the  path  after  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  and  anyone  who  was  hit  by  it  was  sure  to  die  very 
painfully  and  quickly. 


96  MAKING   GOOD. 

It  would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  me  to  persuade  my 
escort  to  chance  that  ghost,  and  it  would  hardly  have  been  tactful 
for  me  to  pass  the  bend  in  the  path  at  this  hour  of  the  day  uninjured. 
So  I  pitched  my  camp  just  outside  the  stockade  of  the  village,  and 
sat  down  in  my  camp  chair  at  the  opening  of  my  tent  to  make  up 
my  report. 

I  faced  the  gigantic  wall  of  forest.  Just  opposite  to  me  in  fact 
was  the  mouth  of  the  path  along  which  in  single  file  I  must  march 
with  my  company  down  towards  Freetown  in  the  morning.  I 
happened  to  raise  my  head  from  the  block  on  which  I  was  writing. 
My  eyes  were  good  in  those  days,  and  though  the  pathway  looked  as 
narrow  as  the  slit  of  a  letter-box  I  detected  something  moving  in  the 
darkness  of  the  mouth.  I  watched,  and  in  a  moment  or  two  a  man 
stepped  out  on  to  the  clearing.  He  was  a  tall  man  and  ebony  black. 
There  was  nothing  to  surprise  me  in  his  colour.  But  I  was  astonished 
at  his  dress,  for,  instead  of  the  loin-cloth  and  the  assortment  of 
charms  which  I  should  naturally  have  expected,  he  wore  a  black 
broadcloth  suit,  the  highest  clerical  collar  I  have  ever  seen,  and  an 
extremely  shiny  silk  hat. 

He  advanced  across  the  clearing  to  me,  drew  out  a  letter-case, 
and  with  a  bow  handed  me  a  card.  I  read  : 

THE  KEV.  GEORGE  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  SMITH, 

Washington,  U.S.A. 

'  I  am  speaking  of  course  to  the  Commissioner,  Captain  Faraday,' 
he  said  a  little  pompously,  but  in  extraordinarily  good  English. 

'  Yes,'  said  I,  and  then  he  gave  me  a  letter. 

I  had  a  chair  placed  for  him  in  the  shade  of  the  tent,  and  he 
sat  down,  and  taking  off  his  silk  hat  wiped  the  inside  of  the  brim 
with  a  reverent  tenderness.  I  noticed  that  the  hat,  like  the  broad- 
cloth suit,  was  quite  new.  He  had  obviously  attired  himself  in 
this  elaborate  fashion  just  within  the  border  of  the  forest. 
t  The  letter  recommended  him  to  me  as  a  missionary. 

'  And  where  are  you  going  to  settle  ?  '  I  asked. 

'  Here,'  said  he.  '  At  this  village.  These  are  my  people.  1  am 
of  the  Imperi  tribe.' 

'  And  are  you  going  to  trade  too  ?  '  I  asked. 

'  No,'  said  Mr.  Smith. 

The  whole  business  seemed  to  me  a  trifle  suspicious,  and  i  looked 
at  the  letter  again.  The  sudden  eruption  of  a  black  man  quite 


MAKING   GOOD.  97 

alone,  in  a  silk  hat  and  frock  coat,  from  a  forest  in  the  interior  of 
West  Africa  was  after  all  a  remarkable  affair. 

'  Have  you  come  alone  ?  '  I  asked. 

'  No,'  he  answered  with  a  smile.  '  But  my  porters  will  not  be 
here  till  the  night  falls.  They  are  waiting  at  the  head  of  the 
path.' 

'  Oh,  I  understand,'  I  cried. 

'  Yes  ;  it  was  my  fault,'  he  went  on.  '  1  should  have  remem- 
bered. But  I  was  a  boy  when  I  went  away  from  here,  and  until 
we  came  to  the  bend  I  had  quite  forgotten  the  spear.' 

He  spoke  of  it  as  one  speaks  of  a  child's  terrors  of  the  dark,  in  a 
kindly  humouring  way,  which  did  more  to  convince  me  of  his  good 
faith  than  even  his  letter  of  recommendation.  For  even  a  mis- 
sionary of  the  Imperi  tribe  might  have  been  pardoned  if  upon 
his  first  return  through  that  twilit  forest  fear  of  the  ghost-spear 
had  suddenly  seized  upon  him  and  turned  his  blood  to  water. 

'  I  left  them  behind,'  he  said,  '  and  of  course  came  on 
alone.' 

'  Very  well,'  said  1.  'If  you  will  come  back  this  evening  we 
will  have  palaver ; '  and  Mr.  George  Abraham  Lincoln  Smith 
gingerly  replaced  his  shiny  hat  upon  his  head  and  moved  off  towards 
his  village.  In  a  few  moments  the  uproar  began.  The  cries  of 
the  women,  the  howls  of  the  men,  the  barking  of  dogs  rent  the  air, 
and  upon  that  came  the  beating  of  drums  and  the  blowing  of  horns. 
The  Reverend  George  Smith  was  having  a  first-class  welcome 
palaver,  and  as  soon  as  it  grew  dark  a  great  fire  was  lit  in  his  honour 
in  the  open  space  between  the  huts.  My  only  fear  was  lest  his 
friends  should  be  tempted  to  roast  him  at  that  fire  and  eat  him  for 
the  sake  of  his  shiny  hat. 

At  nine  o'clock,  however,  he  returned  to  my  tent  safe  and 
sound  and  smiling  joyfully. 

'  I  shall  do  good  work  here,'  he  cried.  '  I  shall  sow  the  seed. 
I  shall  turn  them — my  people — from  their  heathen  practices.  Yet 
it  will  not  be  my  doing.  No,  it  will  not  be  mine.'  And  he  stood 
at  his  great  height  with  his  mouth  open,  and  his  eyes  kindled  like 
a  man  inspired.  There  was  no  doubting  his  sincerity  for  a  moment. 
The  words  were  banal  enough,  the  crumbs  and  leavings  of  revivalist 
meetings,  but  his  voice  had  an  extraordinary  thrill  of  enthusiasm 
in  it  and  the  veins  stood  out  upon  his  throat  like  cords. 

'  Sit  down,'  I  said.  '  Will  you  smoke  ?  '  I  pushed  the  canister 
of  tobacco  over  towards  him.  He  shook  his  head. 

VOL.  XXVIII.— .VO.  163,  N.S.  7 


98  MAKING   GOOD. 

'  A  cigarette  ?  '  he  asked. 

He  was  duly  provided  with  one,  and  while  I  drank  a  whisky 
and  soda  he  told  me  his  story.  He  had  drifted  down  to  the  coast 
with  a  black  trader  on  his  way  to  replenish  his  stores.  A  thorn 
had  run  into  the  lad's  foot.  The  wound  had  festered.  There  were 
already  signs  of  gangrene  when  he  had  been  picked  up  and  taken 
into  a  Mission  Hospital. 

'  And  what  turned  your  thoughts  to  religion  ?  '  I  asked. 

He  was  quite  simple  and  naive  in  his  reply.  On  the  wall  of  the 
room  there  was  hanging  a  picture  illustrated  in  colours  which  filled 
his  young  soul  with  delight.  The  picture  represented  on  one  side 
the  broad  path,  on  the  other  the  narrow.  The  narrow  path,  very 
sparsely  populated,  ran  past  many  chapels  and  round  many  corners, 
and  at  each  corner  an  elderly  gentleman  with  a  white  beard  preached 
from  the  top  of  a  tub.  I  am  sorry  to  say,  however,  that  it  was  at 
first  the  broad  path  which  filled  young  Abraham  Lincoln  Smith's 
imagination  with  delicious  thrills.  There  were  gaily  dressed 
youths  crowding  into  gambling  houses.  Here  a  ruined  man  was 
blowing  out  his  brains.  There  highly-coloured  ladies  leaned 
engagingly  out  from  first-floor  windows.  People  were  fighting  ; 
an  intoxicated  gentleman  upon  a  garden  seat  was  being  gagged  and 
robbed  of  a  great  sack  of  gold  by  ruffians  of  the  worst  description. 
There  was  a  mysterious  and  thrilling  picture  of  a  most  ghastly 
collision  labelled  '  Sunday  Trains.'  And  at  the  end  of  it  all  a  black 
figure,  as  terrible  as  Egbo  himself,  with  a  pitchfork  and  a  tail 
greedily  awaited  his  victims.  The  boy  would  sit  up  in  his  bed  as 
he  recovered,  gloating  over  the  illustrated  card  by  the  hour. 
Chiefly  the  Sunday  trains  delighted  him. 

'  They  all  go  dead  one  time,'  he  cried,  and  gurgled  with  delight* 
until  a  day  came  when  his  nurse  informed  him  that  if  he  was  very 
very  good  he  might  in  the  course  of  years  become  one  of  those 
white-bearded  gentlemen  on  a  tub. 

George  Abraham  Lincoln  Smith,  whose  name  by  the  way  at  this 
time  was  simply  Obea,  took  the  proposition  into  his  thoughtSJ 
looked  at  it  all  round,  and  decided  that  it  would  do.  He  saidi 
as  much  to  his  nurse,  though  he  concealed  the  reason  for  his  con-| 
sent,  after  the  fashion  of  his  race.  It  was  the  white  beard  which! 
attracted  him.  It  would  be  delightful  to  have  a  white  beard  andj 
be  seen  with  it  at  street  corners. 

'  Very  well '  we  will  see,'  said  the  nurse,  and  in  due  course  Obeaj 
was  sent  to  school,  baptized,  taken  to  America,  educated  at  a  college 


MAKING   GOOD.  99 

and  brought  back  to  convert  far  and  wide  the  heathen  Imperi  of 
Sierra  Leone. 

'  And  1  shall  do  it,'  he  cried,  rising  up  strong  with  the  faith 
which  was  in  him.  '  See  !  If  a  little  child  starving  with  hunger, 
a  lost  waif  crying  bitterly,  were  to  stray  into  that  village  there  to 
to-night  and  ask  for  food,  it  would  be  driven  into  the  forest  with 
blood-curdling  cries  out  of  fear — fear  lest  it  be  Tando  come  to  bring 
an  epidemic.  All  these  terrors  shall  go.' 

Thus  he  spoke  confidently,  and  I  went  on  my  way  in  the  morn- 
ing and  left  him  to  his  work.  It  was  eighteen  months  before  I 
saw  him  again,  and  then  one  morning  he  walked  into  the  fort  on 
the  borders  of  the  Imperi  country  which  I  made  my  headquarters. 
He  had  walked  for  twelve  days  through  the  forest  to  reach  me. 
I  gave  him  some  breakfast  and  asked  him  no  questions,  for  I  could 
see  that  he  was  a  disheartened  man.  His  step  was  heavy,  his  voice 
had  lost  its  buoyancy.  Failure  was  written  all  over  him. 

*  They  will  not  listen  to  me,'  he  cried  suddenly,  and  looked  at 
me  for  help. 

'  It  is  too  soon  to  lose  heart,'  I  said. 

*  Yes,  and  I  do  not,'  he  replied  eagerly.      '  I  can  win  them  still, 
I  am  sure.     Yes,'  and  still  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  me. 

'  What  can  I  do  ?'  I  asked/ 

'  Everything,  Captain  Faraday.  They  say  they  will  not  listen 
to  me  because  I  am  not  a  chief.  It  is  in  your  power  to  make  me  a 
chief  of  the  Imperi  tribe.' 

I  sat  back  in  my  chair. 

'  Yes,'  I  said  doubtfully, '  I  have  that  power.  But  I  do  not  often 
use  it.  I  do  not  want  needlessly  to  interfere.' 

*  But  it  is  not  needless,'  my  visitor  exclaimed.    He  walked  up 
and  down  the  room  besieging  me  with  entreaties.    Every  now  and 
then  he  dropped  in  his  excitement  into  '  pidgin  '  English  ;  and  once 
he  dropped  a  most  significant  Americanism.    '  I  must  make  good,' 
he  cried,  with  his  hands  clutching  at  his  head.     '  Yes,  I  must  make 
good.' 

These  eighteen  months,  you  see,  had  brought  about  a  change 
in  the  man.  More  than  a  change — a  deterioration.  Eighteen 
months  before  he  had  been  confident  because  of  the  Power  informing 
him.  Now  he  had  become  an  egotist.  It  was  he  himself  who  must 
do  what  he  had  relied  upon  the  Power  to  do.  He  must  make  good 
—he,  the  individual,  George  Abraham  Lincoln  Smith.  For  the 
sake  of  the  Mission  and  in  return  for  what  had  been  spent  upon  him 

7—2 


100  MAKING   GOOD. 

he  must  make  good.  '  At  all  cost  I  must  make  good,'  he  cried,  and 
I,  like  a  fool,  was  moved  to  pity  by  the  appeal  and  forgot  to  take  note 
of  the  words.  After  all  there  did  seem  to  be  something  tragic  in 
the  man's  history.  Brought  up  and  carefully  taught,  taken  to  far 
lands  to  be  polished  and  finished,  trained  all  his  years  to  look  upon 
his  education  as  just  the  means  to  one  end,  the  conversion  of  his 
ignorant  brethren — and  then  to  find  himself  beating  vainly  upon  the 
closed  doors  of  their  superstitions,  and  his  whole  life  a  waste  and  a 
joyless  failure — I  admit  that  I  was  moved.  I  travelled  across 
country  to  his  village.  There  was  a  new  wooden  house  now  in  the 
clearing — Smith's  house.  I  held  a  grand  palaver  in  the  street  and 
duly  appointed  the  missionary  a  chief  of  the  Imperi  people.  Abraham 
Lincoln  Smith  was  radiant  with  delight.  He  overwhelmed  me  with 
gratitude.  He  welcomed  me  to  his  house,  whither,  by  the  way,  he 
had  already  taken  a  wife  of  his  tribe  and  her  orphan  niece.  And 
he  accompanied  me  some  distance  into  the  forest  on  my  way  back. 

'  All  be  right  now,'  he  said.  '  I  thank  you,  I  thank  you,'  and 
the  last  I  saw  of  him  he  was  waving  his  tall  hat,  now  a  dull  and 
almost  shapeless  thing,  in  an  ecstasy  of  thankfulness,  while  the  great 
flowers  drooped  about  him  from  the  boughs,  and  the  branches  met 
in  a  screen  above  his  head.  But  I  was  not  so  sure  that  it  was  all 
right.  I  had  seen  the  men  of  the  village  whispering  together  apart 
after  the  palaver  was  over.  He  was  a  chief.  Yes  ;  but  the  recollec- 
tion of  those  men  whispering  together  troubled  me.  I  did  not 
feel  sure. 

However  my  life  was  fairly  busy.  I  took  a  long  leave  home, 
and  it  was  quite  two  years  before  I  passed  through  that  part  of 
the  country  again.  I  don't  suppose  that  I  had  thought  about  the 
Reverend  Smith  more  than  half  a  dozen  times  during  the  two  years. 
But  as  I  approached  his  village  he  came  vividly  back  into  my 
memory,  and  I  quickened  my  pace  that  I  might  hear  the  sooner 
how  far  his  chieftainship  had  helped  him.  But  I  had  reckoned  with- 
out that  bend  in  the  forest  path.  I  passed  it  myself,  indeed, 
without  thinking,  and  went  on  a  few  yards  before  I  realised  that  no 
one  was  following  me.  Then  I  turned  and  saw  my  column  of  escort 
crowded  together,  like  bathers  at  the  edge  of  the  sea  on  a  cold  day. 
I  shouted  to  them  to  come  on.  They  clamoured  back  confusedly, 
but  they  did  not  come  on.  They  squatted  down  one  behind  the 
other  on  the  path.  I  knew  that  nothing  would  induce  them  to 
cross  the  playground  of  the  spear  while  a  ray  of  light  lasted.  So  I 
shrugged  my  shoulders  and  pushed  on  alone.  But  it  was  already 


MAKING  GOOD.  101 

late  and  the  darkness  closed  in  about  me  as  I  walked.  In  a  very 
little  while  it  was  so  inkily  dark  that  I  could  not  see  my  hand  when 
I  raised  it  before  my  face.  And  a  moment  or  two  afterwards  I 
pitched  over  a  fallen  tree  trunk  and  came  with  a  crash  to  the 
ground.  I  picked  myself  up  and  went  on.  But  I  had  not  gone  very 
far  when  I  found  myself  entangled  in  a  thick  undergrowth.  I 
understood  what  had  happened.  The  tree  had  fallen  across  the 
narrow  path.  The  natives,  instead  of  burning  it,  had  beaten  out 
another  track  round  the  trunk.  Meanwhile,  on  the  old  path  the 
undergrowth  of  rubber  and  bushes  had  quickly  grown  and  obliterated 
all  traces  of  those  thousands  of  feet  which  were  wont  to  tramp 
between  here  and  the  coast.  I  was  on  the  old  path.  I  turned  to  my 
left  and  tried  to  force  a  way  to  where  the  new  must  lie.  But  it  was 
as  black  as  a  cave.  Overhead  somewhere  the  moon  was  shining, 
but  not  the  thinnest  palest  ray  pierced  down  through  the  dense 
foliage.  I  knocked  against  trees,  I  stumbled  over  bushes,  I  caught 
my  feet  in  festoons  of  trailing  creepers.  And  all  about  me  the  forest 
woke  to  life.  Small  eerie  noises  close  by  my  face  began  to  daunt  me. 
Sudden  scamperings  and  rustlings  of  leaves  by  my  feet  sent  my 
heart  into  my  mouth.  Sometimes  I  stopped  and  listened  ;  and  the 
whole  forest  seemed  at  once  in  a  conspiracy  of  silence.  I  went  on 
again  and  the  noise  broke  out  afresh.  Far  away  I  heard  a  long 
melancholy  howl.  I  had  a  revolver  in  my  pocket  and  I  kept  my 
hand  upon  the  butt.  After  a  while  I  began  to  be  afraid  of  the  sound 
of  my  own  footsteps  upon  the  dry  twigs.  I  stopped  with  the  dismal 
thought  that  the  night  had  only  just  begun.  I  plunged  on  again 
desperately,  tearing  my  skin  and  my  clothes  against  the  thorns  and 
not  conscious  of  a  single  scratch.  I  was  on  the  point  of  giving  up 
the  struggle  and  trusting  to  luck  to  see  me  through  the  night  when 
I  noticed  that  on  my  right  there  was  a  lightening  of  the  darkness.  I 
turned  in  that  direction,  but  I  had  not  taken  a  step  before  a  shrill 
scream  tore  the  night,  violent  as  the  crack  of  a  pistol.  It  was  the 
scream  of  a  child — a  sharp  scream  of  unearthly  terror.  The  sound 
of  it  in  the  blackness  and  loneliness  of  the  forest  turned  my  blood 
cold.  And  it  was  never  repeated.  That  was  almost  the  most 
appalling  part  of  the  mystery.  There  was  just  the  one  awful 
shriek,  and  then  not  another  sound  beyond  the  noises  of  the  forest. 
By  comparison  these  latter  were  now  as  the  whisperings  of  a  friend. 
I  pushed  on  cautiously  to  where  the  darkness  thinned,  and  all 
at  once  I  found  myself  on  the  edge  of  an  open  dell,  with  the  air  cool 
upon  my  face  and  the  moonlight  changing  the  night  into  a  silver 


102  MAKING  GOOD. 

dusk.  I  stood  in  the  shadow  of  the  trees  for  perhaps  five  minutes, 
baring  my  throat  and  chest  to  the  air  after  the  intolerable  heat  of 
the  undergrowth.  And  then  above  a  bush  at  the  opposite  side  of 
the  open  space  a  tongue  of  flame  shot  up.  I  crouched  quickly  down 
upon  the  ground,  sheltering  myself  behind  the  trunk  of  a  tree.  I 
had  hardly  gained  this  position  before  a  great  uproar  of  voices 
broke  out.  The  uproar  was  followed  by  the  beating  of  a  drum,  and 
then  seven  grotesque  and  inhuman  figures  came  at  a  sort  of  tripping 
run  into  the  open  space  and  one  behind  the  other  began  to  dance. 
Two  of  them  I  noticed  carried  what  looked  like  a  box  slung  upon 
poles  between  them.  There  was  some  kind  of  method  in  the  dance, 
and  it  brought  them  near  enough  to  me  to  see  that  the  figures  were 
men  clothed  in  leopard  skins.  The  skins  covered  their  faces  as  well 
as  their  bodies,  their  hands  were  thrust  into  the  paws  of  the  leopards, 
and  for  claws  pronged  knives  glittered  in  the  moonlight.  They 
stopped  from  time  to  time  at  a  bush  and  spoke  into  it  in  a  chant, 
holding  the  box  close  by  the  bush.  It  was  difficult  for  me  to  follow 
the  ritual,  but  I  gathered  that  from  one  bush  the  leopard  spirit 
entered  the  box. 

The  seven  men  then  continued  their  dance  down  towards  the 
undergrowth  in  which  I  lay.  I  held  my  breath.  They  came  so 
close  that  they  nearly  stepped  on  me.  I  was  watching  their  feet 
when  I  noticed  that  one  of  them,  the  last  in  the  line,  had  lost  the 
big  toe  from  his  right  foot.  When  they  reached  the  line  of  the 
trees,  they  turned,  danced  back  in  the  same  order  and  disappeared 
once  more  in  the  direction  of  the  fire. 

As  soon  as  they  had  gone  I  crept  out  cautiously.  I  ran  swiftly 
across  the  dell  from  bush  to  bush  until  I  reached  a  point  where  I 
could  see  the  fire  and  the  men  crowding  about  it.  I  could  not 
clearly  distinguish  what  they  were  doing,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that 
they  had  taken  the  wooden  image  of  a  leopard  from  the  box  and 
were  smearing  it  with  fat.  Very  likely  there  were  other  ceremonies. 
But  I  dared  go  no  nearer.  I  lay  in  the  shadow  of  the  bush  while 
the  fire  died  out  and  the  moon  dropped  behind  the  trees.  The 
seven  men  dug  for  a  little  while  in  the  ground.  Then  they  scattered 
the  fire  and  in  single  file  glided  away.  But  I  waited  where  I  was 
until  the  morning  came.  Then  I  crept  up  to  the  ashes  of  the  fire. 
The  ground  near  by  had  been  disturbed.  I  disturbed  it  again. 
Covered  lightly  with  soil  I  found  what  I  had  thought  to  find — the 
bones  of  a  child.  I  had  a  compass  in  my  pocket  and  by  the  help  of 
it  I  regained  the  path.  When  I  came  to  the  clearing  I  found  that 


MAKING  GOOD.  103 

my  tent  was  pitched.     I  breakfasted  and  walked  on  to  the  house  of 

the  Keverend  George  Smith.    I  found  his  wife  busy  about  the  house. 

'  My  husband  is  not  yet  awake,'  she  said.     4 1  will  rouse  him.' 

I  looked  about  the  yard. 

'  And  where  is  your  niece  ? '  I  asked. 

She  did  not  know.  She  was  in  great  trouble,  she  told  me.  The 
child  had  strayed  into  the  forest,  and  so  few  came  back.  I  re- 
turned to  my  tent  and  in  half  an  hour  the  Keverend  George  Smith 
came  walking  towards  me.  I  noticed  particularly  the  way  he 
walked.  I  asked  him  to  come  inside  the  tent. 

4  Well,'  I  said,  '  are  you  making  good  ? ' 

I 1  shall  make  good,'  he  replied  confidently,  and  he  smiled  his 
enthusiastic  and  friendly  smile.     *  I  shall  now.' 

'  Why  now  ? '  I  asked.  I  did  not  wait  for  a  reply.  '  When  you 
were  a  boy  you  went  into  hospital  with  a  wound  in  your  foot,' 
I  said.  '  Your  right  foot  ? ' 

'  Yes.' 

'  Take  off  your  boot  and  let  me  see.' 

Mr.  Smith  looked  surprised.  But  he  smiled  and  obeyed.  It 
lacked  the  big  toe. 

'  I  understand  why  you  now  think  you  will  make  good,'  I  said. 
'  I  understand,  too,  why  your  niece  strayed  into  the  forest.  It  is 
necessary  for  a  man  who  is  initiated  into  the  Leopard  Club  to  bring 
to  sacrifice  a  female  of  his  blood  or  his  wife's  blood.' 

The  missionary  sprang  up,  but  my  revolver  was  already  levelled 
at  his  breast.  I  called  in  a  couple  of  soldiers  and  placed  him  under 
arrest.  I  searched  his  house  and  I  found  the  leopard  skin  in  it 
with  the  pronged  knives  attached  to  the  claws.  He  had  become  a 
chief  to  make  good.  But  that  was  not  enough.  He  must  show 
himself  to  be  a  real  chief  if  he  was  to  make  good.  And  real  chiefs 
of  the  Imperi  join  the  Leopard  Club. 

I  took  him  down  to  headquarters  and  tried  him  and  sentenced 
him  to  death,  and  despatched  notice  of  his  sentence  to  Freetown 
for  confirmation. 

'  So  he  was  hanged,'  said  Pynes. 

'  Not  at  all,'  said  Colonel  Faraday.  '  He  was  an  American 
citizen,  and  a  polite  request  was  urged  that  he  should  be  tried  by  a 
jury.  He  was — by  a  jury  of  black  men  at  Freetown — and  was  at 
once  and  unanimously  acquitted.  He  is  still  a  missionary.  He 
still  wears  a  tall  hat  and  a  frock  coat.  You  will  probably  meet  him, 
Pynes,  in  Sierra  Leone.' 


104 


HIGH  TIDE   ON  THE    VICTORIA    EMBANKMENT. 

I. 

THE   SEA'S  SALUTATION.  1 

The  immense  life  of  the  Sea,  out  of  remote  horizons 
Rushing  on  buoyant  wings,  the  breath  of  the  Sea ! 
Listen  !    You  shall  not  hear  your  own  heart  beating, 

The  heart  beats  so  quietly, 

Neither  shall  hear  through  the  roar  of  the  huge  tenebrous  city 
The  slow  pulse  of  its  heart,  which  is  the  heart  of  the  Sea. 

Here,  where  the  bent  river 

Cleaves  with  silence  and  sky  the  loud  confusion  of  London, 
Moving  inland  behold  the  flooding  silent 
Majestic  tide,  which  carries  upward  in  noiseless  procession 

The  long  barges,  the  sombre  glow  of  their  sails. 

Com'st  thou  an  alien  guest, 
0  unregarded  Sea  ?    Without  purpose  wandering 
Sweepest  thou  silverly  under  the  high  towers  and  pinnacles  ? 

Where  at  the  shining  tip  of  the  bent  bow, 

Westminster  darkly  enthroned 

Looks  toward  the  enormous  bulk  of  the  City  and  soaring 
Clear,  consummate,  a  vision — the  supreme  Dome. 

Nay,  for  thou  art  the  Sea.     Lo  to  the  Imperial  City 
Thou  comest,  the  great  Spouse,  having  mighty  messages. 
Hear  the  word,  thou  veiled  one,  enwrapped  from  the  stars, 
As  though  thou  would'st  hide  from  Destiny,  the  word  of  the  Sea ! 
'Queen,  thou  hast  many  lovers,  but  one  lord — the  Ocean.' 

The  tide  knows  it,  the  air  is  eagerly  bringing  thee  tidings 
Of  the  waters  whose  shining  turmoil  engirdles  the  Earth, 
Of  solitary  ships  moving  in  waste  horizons, 

Thy  Life  throbbing  in  their  hearts, 

Of  the  deep  Ocean  currents  that  sweeping  on  ageless  errands 
Have  carried  thy  Life  in  their  courses  and  sown  it  through  the 
world. 


HIGH   TIDE:[ON  jTHE  VICTORIA   EMBANKMENT.     105 

The  Sea  scattered  it  abroad  and  again  the  Sea  brings  it, 
Thy  Life  from  afar,  multiplied,  regal,  renewed. 
This  is  the  tide's  report,  proudly  under  thy  bridges 
Passing,  under  the  clatter  of  wheels  and  of  crowding  feet. 


II. 

THE   GREAT   ROAD. 

It  came  up  the  Narrow  Seas,  as  a  flock  it  gathered  thy  children, 

It  ushered  in  thy  ships, 

Where  away  from  here,  from  the  endless  tumult  and  darkness, 
Serene  and  apart  under  the  wide  arch  of  Heaven, 
Stands  thy  royal  gateway,  runs  the  road  of  the  Sea. 

Vaunt  no  more  over  London  your  proud  streets,  0  ye  cities ! 
The  road  of  the  Sea  is  hers,  even  as  the  streets  and  avenues 
Her  towers  look  on,  the  road  meet  for  her  mighty  procession. 

No  footfall  rings  there, 

Nor  the  perpetual  rumour  of  an  eddying  crowd  ; 
It  is  spread  as  with  silk,  it  is  paved  with  the  perfect  silence  of 

waters 

Or  their  large  primordial  sound.   Along  it  like  palaces, 
Like  gardens  ranged  is  the  coast ;  the  way  follows  it  westward. 

Yonder  westward  it  opens,  gathering  in  from  the  Ocean 
All  thy  ships,  there  where  the  wind-worn  bastions 
And  crumbled  towers  of  Cornwall  darken  over  the  Atlantic, 
Where  southward  wild  Finistere  flashes  on  the  night. 

Out  of  the  old  adventure,  the  single  battle  of  Ocean, 
The  Giant  Wars  of  the  waves,  they  are  gathered  in, 
Out  of  the  wide  lonely  dazzle  of  water  and  air. 

Long,  rapidly  fading  streamers  of  smoke  they  multiply, 

Sail  after  sail  they  arise 

This  way  and  that  and  on  each,  intent  with  a  new  vigilance, 
The  Captain  walks  alert  and  watches  the  narrowing  road. 

And  low  chaplets  of  light  he  sees  in  the  gradual  evening 
Distantly  burn,  who  beheld  eve  after  eve  but  the  stars 

Wheeling  in  a  wide  heaven 
Uncompanied,  over  the  waste  irresponsive  sea. 


106     HIGH   TIDE   ON  THE   VICTORIA   EMBANKMENT. 

Lights  of  the  great  Sea  Road,  they  brighten  in  long  ranges, 

Lone  challenging  lights 
Out  of  invisible  towers  leap  on  the  dark, 

Pierce  it  and  pass,  while  ever  behind  them  a  phantom  country 
Vaguely  appears,  and  again  hurrying  sweeps  into  night. 
As  lamps  incessantly  crowd  and  fly  through  the  heart  of  the  city, 
Feverish  sparks,  he  beholds  here  majestic 
Pass  without  haste,  without  pause,  lamps  on  the  Road  of  the  Sea. 

So  the  night  he  watches,  driving  through  dim  waters 

The  dark  garrulous  keel ; 

While  ever  the  whispering  water  asks  of  the  garrulous  keel 
'  What  bearest  thou  ?  ' — and  the  keel  makes  answer,  '  Life. 


III. 

THE   LOOM   OF   LONDON. 

Strange  far  lives,  manifold,  each  from  the  other 

Sundered  and  secret  and  hid,  that  the  waste  sea  hath  sundered 

And  the  round  earth  and  the  sun, 
The  marching  stars  and  the  soul's  inexpugnable  walls — 

Threads  on  the  loom  of  London 

The  lives  of  the  world  are  woven,  and  her  life  is  the  warp  of  the 
world. 

But  the  grey  weavers  toil, 

Sightless  men,  beholding  never  the  woof  tremendous 
Nor  its  colours,  but  clamouring  of  idle  things, 
Weave  incurious  here  in  the  darkness  webs  of  Destiny. 

Diverse  colours  :  the  colour  of  lions  and  of  tawny  deserts, 

Of  thronged  secular  shrines  and  dim  bazaars, 

Rich-gleaming,  silent-floored — 

The  colour  of  populous  plains  immense  and  of  mighty  rivers, 
And  clouds  flowing  round  the  feet  of  the  mountain  walls  of  the 
world. 

All  the  fair  colours  of  time-enduring  cities, 
All  the  ashen  tones  of  rude  ephemeral  camps 

And  sudden  seething  towns, 
The  sheen  of  the  wide  pampas,  the  shade  of  the  lone  estancia. 


HIGH   TIDE   ON   THE   VICTORIA   EMBANKMENT.     107 

The  colour  of  monstrous  Life  wallowing  in  great  waters 
And  deep  shadow  of  forests,  where  glittering-eyed 

The  stealthy  hunters  crawl, 

And  one  by  one,  silently  footing  the  silent  pathway, 
Dusk  burden-bearers  pass,  balancing  their  loads. 

The  blackness  of  under-earth  and  the  soft  gloaming  of  caverns 

Under  the  green  sea — 

Thence  with  a  swift  shudder  emerges,  races  a  splendour 
Along  the  loom,  as  of  fabulous  jewels  ranged 
On  white  bosoms  of  women,  shaken  with  laughter,  or  sinister 
Flaming  century-long,  sole,  the  eye  of  a  god. 

The  gleaming  of  gold  is  there,  of  steel,  the  sword  and  the  plough- 
share, 
The  long  shimmer  of  rails  vanishing  in  remote  perspectives, 

The  solemn  stain  of  blood. 
This  is  the  web  of  London  dipped  in  the  dyes  of  the  world. 

Blindly  the  weavers  toil, 

But  deep  tides  are  driving  the  measureless  loom  and  the  spindles 
That  are  spinning  through  all  the  hours  with  the  spinning  of  Earth. 
The  Sea  wrought  it,  the  Sea  brought  it,  and  therefore  exulting 
The  welcoming  water  chants  with  the  garrulous  keel, 

'  Life,  Life  we  bear  ! ' 
And  again  whispers  to  the  walls  of  the  unheeding  city,  '  Life.' 

IV. 
THE  QUEEN'S  SONS. 

The  Tide  of  the  Sea — listen,  its  breathing  voice  is  triumphant 
As  the  sound  of  clarions  and  trumpets  heralding  kings — 

The  tide  whispers  her,  '  Hail, 

Mother  !    Kulers  of  men  are  thy  sons,  born  to  be  princes 
In  dim  far-frontiered  lands.    Government  is  on  their  shoulders. 

'  Sovereign  justice  and  order  and  peace  they  plant  in  their  foot- 


They  subdue  the  desert  with  streams,  the  vast  ravaging  rivers 
With  bridges  of  steel,  alone  they  grip  in  a  mortal  contest 

Demons,  things  that  devour, 
Plague,  Pestilence,  Famine,  pitiless  beasts, 
The  venomous,  ancient,  dark,  elemental  Powers  of  the  Jungle. 


108    HIGH   TIDE   ON  THE   VICTORIA   EMBANKMENT. 

'  Not  in  purple  arrayed  nor  crowned  with  any  diadem 

Are  these  thy  sons.    From  the  deep  heart  of  unrealised  continents, 

Where  as  strangers  they  rule,  they  as  strangers  return, 

Mother,  here  to  thy  heart. 
Many  may  not  return,  so  hospitable  the  alien  grave. 

'  One  is  the  vital  power  that  is  urging  them,  whether  incessant 
They  move  with  the  travelling  tide  or  are  scattered  over  Earth. 
The  Sea  glories,  the  Sea  in  a  rapture  of  rushing  surges 
Triumphs,  his  waves  clap  their  innumerable  hands, 

Dancing  before  the  Sun. 

"  Mine  are  thy  sons  !  "  he  calls  to  thee,  "  Queen,  rejoice  in  my 
children."  ' 


V. 

THE   DARK   VISION. 

But  the  Sea  is  immortal,  he  knows  nothing,  he  cannot  divine 
Anything  of  Age,  in  his  great  heart  he  beholds  thee 

Young  as  his  great  heart, 
He  beholds  thee  ever  immortally  throned,  a  shining  goddess. 

What  shall  we  affirm  ?    Isis,  art  thou,  of  the  secret  countenance 
Impenetrably  veiled,  thundering  darkly  stupendous  oracles. 

Yet  when  the  breath  of  the  Sea, 
When  the  swift  water  sweeps  up  the  silver  arc 
To  thy  glooming  towers,  I  with  reluctant  look  have  beheld 
A  vision,  a  dream  of  thee,  Mother.   False  be  the  vision  ! 
Lying  the  dream  !    Unlifted  the  solemn  veil ! 

I  saw  in  her  palace  halls  enthroned,  yet  from  divinity 
Fallen  already,  a  goddess,  a  mighty  bulk 

Bowed  in  the  golden  chair. 

Deaf  are  her  ears  to  the  voices  afar,  to  the  tide's  admonition, 
Dim  her  eyes,  no  longer  with  eagle  glance 
Sweeping  from  her  high  seat  over  the  spaces  of  Earth. 

With  drooped  eyelids  she  leans,  passionate,  eager,  absorbed. 
Over  an  interminable  game,  clutching  at  counters. 
For  these  all  she  stakes,  she  gambles  all,  a  gamester 

Debile,  sinister,  ridiculous, 
Monstrous  Mother,  pushing  on  the  board  with  palsied  fingers 


HIGH   TIDE   ON  THE   VICTORIA   EMBANKMENT.    109 

All  the  heritage,  the  honour,  the  goodly  estate, 
The  wealth,  the  achievement,  the  toil,  the  tears,  the  blood  of  her 
children. 

Darkly  behind  her  in  shadow  a  shadow  looming  gigantic 
Watches,  a  Titan  attends,  vigilant,  superb, 

The  last,  the  impotent  hour. 

Once  and  again  she  thrusts  back  with  ignoble  gesture 
The  bright  diadem,  it  reelsr  it  totters  on  her  brow- 
Then  eagerly,  murmuring  triumph  and  scorn,  the  Titan 
Starts  and  stretches  nearer  the  huge  menace  of  his  hand. 

But  she  regards  not.    Away 

The  dream  ! — with  its  long  low  sound  as  of  desperate  sorrow, 
Of  sea  winds  that  wail,  with  a  saltness  of  tears 
Blown  along  her  pale  coasts  ! — Lady,  the  Sea  salutes  thee 

Now,  as  through  all  years, 

Since  naked  and  nameless  among  the  blanching  osiers, 
First  he  found  thee  and  crowned  thee  in  waste  dominions  a  queen. 

MARGARET  L.  WOODS. 


110 


IN   THE   DARK  HOUR.1 

THE  house  overlooked  the  starlit  bay,  nearly  ringed  with  a  sparse 
fence  of  palms,  and  on  its  roof,  a  little  scarlet  figure  on  the  white 
rugs,  Incarna9ion  sat  waiting  till  Scott  should  come.  Below  her, 
the  reeking  city  was  hushed  to  a  murmur,  through  which  there 
sounded  from  the  Pra9a  a  far  throb  of  drums  and  pipe-music  ;  and 
overhead  the  sky  was  a  dome  of  velvet,  spangled  with  a  glory  of  bold 
stars.  Save  to  the  east,  where  the  blank  white  walls  of  the  house 
overlooked  the  water,  there  was  on  all  sides  a  shadowy  prospect  of 
parapets,  for  in  Superban  the  houses  are  close  together  and  folk  live 
intimately  upon  their  roofs.  As  she  sat,  Incarna9ion  could  hear  a 
voice  that  quavered  and  choked  as  some  stricken  man  laboured  with 
his  prayers  against  the  plague  that  was  laying  the  city  waste. 
Through  all  Superban  such  petitions  went  up,  while  daily  and 
nightly  the  tale  of  deaths  mounted  and  the  corpses  multiplied 
faster  than  the  graves. 

Incarna9ion  lit  herself  a  cigarette,  tucked  her  feet  under  her, 
and  wondered  why  Scott  did  not  come.  But  her  chief  quality  was 
serenity  ;  she  did  not  give  herself  over  to  worry,  content  to  let  all 
problems  solve  themselves,  as  most  problems  will.  She  was  a  wee 
girl,  preserving  on  the  threshold  of  sun-ripened  womanhood  the  soft 
and  pathetic  graces  of  a  docile  child.  Her  scarlet  dress  left  her 
warm  arms  bare,  and  did  not  trespass  on  the  slender  throat ;  she 
had  all  the  charm  of  intrinsic  femininity  which  comes  to  fruit  so  soon 
in  the  climate  of  Mozambique  and  fades  so  early.  It  was  this,  no 
doubt,  that  had  taken  Scott  and  held  him  ;  gaunt,  harsh,  direct  in 
his  purposes  as  he  was  quick  in  his  strength,  Incarna9ion  had  given 
scope  to  the  tenderness  that  lurked  beneath  his  rude  forcefulness. 

He  came  at  last.  She  heard  his  step  on  the  stair,  cast  her 
cigarette  from  her,  and  sprang  to  meet  him  with  a  little  laugh  of 
delight.  He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  lifted  her  from  her  little  bare 
feet  to  kiss  her. 

'  0-oh,  Jock,  you  break  me,'  she  gasped,  as  he  set  her  down. 
'  You  are  strong  like  a  bull.  What  you  bin  away  so  long  ?  ' 

He  smiled  at  her  gravely  as  he  let  himself  down  on  her  rugs  and 
put  a  long  arm  round  her. 

1  Copyright,  1909,  by  Perceval  Gibbon,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


IN   THE   DARK   HOUR.  Ill 

'  Did  you  want  me,  'Carnation  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  Me  ?  No  ! '  she  answered,  laughing.  *  I  don'  want  you,  Jock. 
You  go  away — twenty — thirty — days  ;  I  don'  care.  Ah,  Jock  ! ' 

He  pressed  her  close  and  kissed  the  crown  of  her  head  gently. 
His  strong,  keen-featured  face  was  very  tender,  for  this  small  woman 
of  the  old  tropics  was  all  but  all  the  world  to  him. 

'  You're  a  little  rip,'  he  said,  as  he  released  her.  '  Make  me  a 
cigarette,  'Carna9ion.  I've  found  the  boat.' 

She  looked  up  quickly,  while  her  deft  fingers  fluttered  about  the 
dry  tobacco  and  the  paper. 

'  You  find  him,  Jock  ?  '  she  asked. 

He  nodded.  '  Yes,  I've  found  it,'  he  answered.  '  She's  in  a 
creek,  about  six  miles  down  the  bay.  A  big  boat,  too,  with  a  pretty 
little  cabin  for  you  to  twiddle  your  thumbs  in,  'Carnacion.  She's 
pretty  clean,  too.  I  reckon  the  old  chap  must  have  been  getting 
ready  to  clear  out  in  her  when  he  dropped.  It's  a  wonder  nobody 
found  her  before.' 

Incarna9ion  sealed  the  cigarette  carefully,  pinched  the  loose 
ends  away,  kissed  it,  and  put  it  in  his  mouth. 

1  Then,'  she  said,  thoughtfully,  '  you  take  me  away  to-morrow, 
Jock  ?  ' 

He  frowned  ;  he  was  shielding  the  lighted  match  in  both  hands, 
and  it  showed  up  his  drawn  brows  as  he  bent  to  light  the  cigarette. 

'  I  don't  know,"  he  said.  '  You  see,  'Carnagion,  there's  a  good 
many  things  I  can't  do,  and  sail  a  boat  is  one  of  'em.  I  haven't  got 
a  notion  how  to  set  about  it,  even.  I  don't  know  the  top  end  of  a 
sail  from  the  bottom.' 

'  You  make  a  kafir  do  it  ?  '  suggested  Incarnacion. 

He  smiled,  a  brief  smile  of  friendship. 

'  That  would  do  first-rate,'  he  explained  ;  '  only,  you  see,  there's 
no  kafir,  kiddy.  Every  nigger  that  had  ever  seen  a  boat  was 
snapped  up  a  week  ago,  when  the  big  flit  was  happening.  That 
dead-scared  crowd  that  cleared  out  then  took  every  single  sailor- 
man  to  ferry  'em  down  the  coast — white,  black  and  piebald.  And 
the  plain  truth  of  it  is,  'Carnagion,  I've  been  up  and  down  this  old 
rabbit-warren  of  a  city  since  sundown  looking  for  a  sailor,  an'  the 
only  one  I  could  hear  of  I  found — in  the  dead-house.' 

He  spat  at  the  parapet  upon  the  memory  of  that  face,  where  the 
plague  had  done  its  worst. 

'  So  ? '  remarked  Incarnagion  gaily.  '  Then  we  stop,  Jock — we 
stop  here,  eh  ?  ' 


112  IN   THE   DARK   HOUR. 

'  There'll  be  something  broken  first,'  retorted  Scott.  c  It's  all 
bloomin'  rot,  Incarna9ion ;  you  can't  have  a  town  this  size  without  a 
man  in  it  that  can  handle  a  boat.  A  seaport,  too.  It  isn't  sense. 
It  don't  stand  to  reason.' 

4  There  was  the  Capitan  Smeeth,'  suggested  Incarna9ion  help- 
fully. 

'  Just  so,'  said  Scott.  '  There  was.  He's  dead.' 
Incarna9ion  crossed  herself  in  silence,  and  they  sat  for  a  while 
without  speaking.  From  the  Pra9a  the  music  was  still  to  be  heard  J 
some  procession  to  the  great  church  was  in  progress,  to  pray  for  a 
remission  of  the  scourge.  Over  the  line  of  roof  there  was  a  dull 
glow  of  the  watch-fires  in  the  streets  ;  where  they  sat,  Scott  and  the 
girl  could  smell  the  pitch  that  fed  them.  And  over  all,  the  unseen 
sick  man  gabbled  his  prayers  in  a  halting  monotone.  A  quick  heat 
of  wrath  lit  in  Scott  as  his  thoughts  travelled  round  the  situation, 
for  Incarna9ion  sat  with  her  head  bowed,  playing  with  her  toes,  and 
the  ever-ready  terror  lest  the  plague  should  reach  her  moved  in  his 
heart.  He  had  been  away  from  Superban  when  the  plague  arrived, 
and  though  he  had  come  in  on  the  first  word  of  the  news,  he  had 
been  too  late  to  find  a  place  for  her  on  the  ships  that  fled  down  the 
coast  from  the  pest.  And  now  that  he  had  found  a  boat  there  was 
no  one  to  sail  her  ;  in  all  that  terror-ridden  city  he  could  find  no 
man  to  hold  the  tiller  and  tend  the  sheet. 

'  You're  feeling  all  right,  eh,  Carna9ion  ?  '  he  asked  sharply. 
She  turned  to  him,  smiling,  at  once.     '  All  right,'  she  assured 
him.     '  An'  you,  Jock — you  all  right,  too  ?  ' 

'  Fit  as  can  be,'  he  answered,  fingering  her  hair  where  it  was 
smooth  and  short  behind  her  ear. 

'  You  see,'  she  said,  '  it  is  the  plague,  but  the  plague  don't  come 
for  us,  Jock.' 

'  That's  right,'  he  said.  '  You  keep  your  pecker  up,  little  girl, 
an'  we  '11  be  married  in  Delagoa  Bay.' 

He  rose  to  his  feet.  '  Kiss  me  good-night,  'Carna9ion.'  he  said. 
'  I'm  busy  these  days,  an'  I  can't  stop  any  longer.' 

She  kissed  him  obediently,  giving  her  fresh  lips  frankly  and 
eagerly ;  and  Scott  came  out  to  the  narrow  lane  below  with  the 
flavour  of  them  yet  on  his  mouth  and  new  resolution  to  pursue  his 
quest  for  a  sailor. 

He  moved  on  to  the  Pra9a,  where  still  the  stridency  of  the  music 
persisted.  Great  fires  burned  at  every  entrance  to  the  square,  so 
that  between  them  a  man  walked  in  the  midst  of  leaping  shadows, 


IN   THE   DARK    HOUR.  113 

as  though  his  feet  were  dogged  by  ghosts.  The  tall  houses  around 
the  place  were  blind  with  shuttered  windows  ;  from  their  balconies 
none  watched  the  crowd  before  the  great  doors  of  the  church. 
Here  a  priest  stood  in  a  cart  with  a  great  cross  in  his  hand ;  his  high 
voice,  toneless  and  flat,  echoed  vainly  over  the  heads  of  the  throng, 
where  some  kneeled  in  a  passion  of  prayer,  but  most  stood  talking 
aloud.  Through  the  doors,  the  lights  on  the  altar  were  to  be  seen 
in  the  inner  gloom,  sparkling  from  the  brass  and  golden  accoutre- 
ments of  the  church.  Scott  shouldered  a  road  through  the  crowd, 
scanning  faces  expertly.  To  a  big,  brown  man  with  empty  blue 
eyes  he  put  the  question  : 

'  Can  you  sail  a  boat  ?  ' 

The  man  stared  at  him.     '  Have  you  got  one  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  Can  you  ?  '  repeated  Scott.  '  Do  you  know  anything  about 
sailing  a  boat  ?  ' 

'  No,'  said  the  other.     '  But— 

Scott  pushed  on,  and  left  him.  In  the  church,  his  heart  leaped 
at  sight  of  a  man  in  the  clothes  of  a  Portuguese  man-o'-warsman, 
asleep  by  a  pillar — a  little,  swarthy  weed  of  a  man.  He  woke  him 
with  a  kick,  only  to  learn,  after  further  kicks,  that  the  man  was  a 
stoker  and  knew  as  little  about  boats  as  himself.  At  the  door  of  a 
confessional  lay  another  man  in  the  same  uniform.  A  kick  failed 
to  wake  him,  and  Scott  bent  to  shake  him.  But  the  hand  he 
stretched  out  recoiled  ;  the  plague  had  been  before  him. 

In  that  time,  men  knew  no  difference  of  day  and  night,  for  death 
knew  none  ;  and  the  traffic  of  the  close,  twisted  streets  never  lulled. 
The  blatant  cafes  were  ablaze  with  lamps,  and  in  them  the  tables 
were  crowded,  and  the  fiddles  raved  and  jeered.  In  one,  Scott 
found  a  chair  to  rest  in,  and  sat  awhile  with  liquor  before  him.  He 
had  carried  his  search  from  the  shore  to  the  bush,  through  all  the 
town,  and  to  no  end.  Now,  mingled  with  his  resolution,  there  was 
something  of  desperation.  He  sat  heavily  in  thought,  his  glass  in 
his  hand ;  and  while  he  brooded,  the  cafe  roared  and  clattered 
about  him,  he  unheeding.  To  his  right  a  group  of  white-clad 
officers  chattered  over  a  languid  game  of  cards ;  at  his  left,  a  forlorn 
man  sang  dolorously  to  himself.  Others  were  behind.  From  these 
last,  as  he  sat,  a  word  reached  him  which  woke  him  from  his  pre- 
occupation like  a  thrust  of  a  knife.  He  sat  without  moving, 
straining  his  ears. 

4  De  ole  captain,  he  die,'  said  someone.  '  But  hees  boat,  she  lie 
on  de  mud  now.' 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  163,  N.S.  8 


114  IN   THE   DARK   HOUR. 

1  An'  ye  know  where  she  is  ?  '  demanded  another  voice,  a  deeper 
one. 

4  Yais,'  the  first  speaker  replied.  He  had  a  voice  that  purred 
in  undertones,  the  true  voice  of  a  conspirator. 

There  was  a  sound  of  a  fist  on  the  table.  c  Good  for  you,'  said  the 
deeper  voice.  '  We'll  get  away  by  noon,  then.' 

Scott  carried  his  glass  to  his  lips  and  drained  it.  Then  he  rose 
deliberately  in  his  place  and  commenced  to  thread  his  way  out 
between  the  tables.  He  had  to  pause  to  pay  the  waiter  for  his  drink 
when  he  was  a  yard  or  two  away ;  he  gave  the  man  an  English 
sovereign,  and  thus,  while  change  was  procured,  he  could  stand  and 
look  at  the  owners  of  the  voices.  They  paid  him  no  attention  ;  he 
was  unsuspected.  One  of  the  men  he  knew,  a  tall  Italian  with  a 
heavy,  brutal  face,  a  knife-fighter  of  notoriety  and  a  bully.  The 
other  was  a  square,  humpy  man,  half  of  whose  face  was  jaw. 
Not  men  to  put  in  the  company  of  little  Incarna9ion,  either  of  them. 
Scott's  experience  of  the  Coast  spared  him  any  doubts  about  that. 
It  would  be  easy,  of  course,  to  settle  the  matter  at  once — simply  to 
step  up  and  let  his  knife  into  the  Italian,  under  the  neck,  where  he 
sat.  At  that  season,  and  in  that  place,  it  was  almost  an  obvious 
remedy  ;  but  it  would  not  be  less  than  a  week  before  he  could  get 
clear  of  the  gaol,  and  in  that  time  anyone  might  find  the  boat. 

He  grasped  his  change  and  went  out.     There  was  but  one  thing 
to  do.  '  He  must  go  to  the  creek  where  the  boat  was  and  lie  in  wai 
for  them  there. 

'  Nobody  '11  miss  'em,'  he  said  to  himself.  *  And  there's  croco- 
diles in  that  creek,  all  handy.' 

He  struck  across  the  Pra9a  again,  between  the  fires,  and  down 
an  alley  that  would  lead  him  to  the  beach.  The  voice  of  the  priest 
in  the  cart  seemed  to  pursue  him  till  he  out-distanced  it,  and  he 
pressed  on  briskly.  His  way  was  between  tall,  dark  houses  ;  the 
path  lay  at  their  feet,  narrow  and  tortuous,  like  some  remote  canon. 
Here  was  no  light,  save  when,  at  the  turn  of  the  way,  a  star  swam 
into  view  overhead,  pale  and  cold,  and  bright  as  a  lantern.  Indis- 
tinct figures  passed  him  sometimes  ;  when  one  came  into  sight,  he 
would  move  close  to  the  wall  with  a  hand  on  his  knife,  and  the  two 
would  edge  by  one  another  watchfully  and  in  silence. 

He  was  almost  clear,  and  could  smell  the  sea,  when  he  came 
round  a  corner  and  met  some  four  or  five  white  figures  in  the 
middle  of  the  way,  sheeted  like  ghosts  and  walking  in  silence.  There 
was  not  space  to  avoid  them,  and  he  stopped  dead  for  them  to 


IN   THE   DARK   HOUR.  115 

approach  and  speak — or,  if  that  was  the  way  of  it,  to  attack.  Some 
of  the  others  stopped  too,  but  one  came  on  ;  Scott  marked  that  he 
walked  with  a  shuffle  of  his  feet  and  made  out,  by  the  starlight,  that 
his  sheet  clung  about  him  as  though  it  were  wet.  And  at  the  same 
time  he  noticed  some  faint  odour,  too  vague  to  put  a  name  to,  but 
sickly  and  suggestive  of  hospitals. 

1  Go  with  God,'  said  the  figure,  when  it  was  close  to  him.  "the 
words  were  Portuguese,  but  the  inflection  was  foreign. 

c  Are  you  English  ?  '  demanded  Scott  sharply. 

The  other  had  halted,  a  man's  length  from  him. 

'  Ay,'  he  said,  '  I'm  English.' 

'  Well,'  said  Scott,  making  to  move  on,  but  pointing  to  where 
the  other  white  figures  were  waiting  in  a  group  near  by,  '  what  are 
those  chaps  waiting  for  ?  ' 

'  They  '11  not  hurt  you,'  answered  the  other.  He  mumbled  a 
little  when  he  spoke,  like  a  man  with  a  full  mouth. 

4  Anyhow,'  said  Scott,  '  they  'd  better  pass  on.  I  prefer  it  that 
way.  Superban's  not  London,  you  know.' 

There  came  a  laugh  from  the  sheet  that  covered  the  man's  head, 
short  and  harsh. 

4  If  it  was,'  he  said,  4  you'd  not  be  meeting  us,  me  lad.' 

*  Who  are  you  ?  '  demanded  Scott.     Some  quality  in  the  man,  his 
manner  of  speech,  the  tone  of  his  laugh,  or  that  faint,  unidentifiable 
taint,  made  him  uneasy. 

4  Me  ?  '  said  the  man.  '  Well,  I'll  tell  you.  I'm  Captain  John 
Crowder,  I  am — what's  left  of  me  ;  and  that's  a  sick  soul  inside  a 
dead  body.  And  them ' — lie  made  a  motion  towards  the  waiting 
ghosts — '  them's  my  crew,  these  days.  We're  the  chaps  that 
fetches  the  dead,  we  are.' 

Scott  peered  at  him  eagerly  and  stepped  forward.  The  other 
avoided  him  by  stepping  back. 

'  Not  too  near,'  he  said.'     '  It  ain't  sense.' 

*  Captain,  you  said  ?  '  asked  Scott.     '  Er — not  a  ship-captain, 
you  mean  ?  ' 

4  Ay,  I'm  a  ship-captain  right  enough,'  was  the  answer.  4  And 
in  my  day ' 

Scott  interrupted  excitedly.  4  See  here,'  he  said,  '  I've  got  a 
boat,  and  I  want  a  man  to  sail  her  to  Delagoa  Bay.  I'll  pay  ;  I'll 
pay  you  a  level  hundred  to  start  by  nine  in  the  morning,  cash  down 
on  the  deck  the  minute  you're  outside  the  bar.  What  d'you  say 
to  it  ?  ' 

8—2 


116  IN  THE   DARK   HOUR, 

The  sheeted  man  seemed  to  stare  at  him  before  he  answered. 

'  You're  on  the  run,  then  ?  '  he  mumbled  at  last.  *  You're 
dodging  the  plague,  eh  ?  ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Scott.  '  A  level  hundred,  an'  you  can  have  the  boat 
as  well.' 

'  Man,  you  must  be  badly  scared,'  said  the  other.  c  What's 
frightened  you  ?  Are  you  feared  you'll  die  ?  ' 

1  Go  to  blazes ! '  retorted  Scott.  '  Will  you  come,  or  won't 
you? ' 

The  man  laughed  again,  the  same  short  cackle  of  mirth. 

'  Listen,'  urged  Scott,  wiping  his  forehead.  '  I've  got  a — er — 
I've  got  a  girl.  You  say  I'm  scared.  Well,  I  am  scared  ;  every 
time  I  think  of  her  in  this  plague-rotten  place  I  go  cold  to  the 
bone.  Is  it  more  money  you  want  ?  You  can  have  it.  But  there's 
no  time  to  lose  ;  I'm  not  the  only  one  that  knows  about  the  boat.' 

'  A  girl ! '     The  other  repeated  the  word  and  then  stood  silent. 

'  Curse  it,'  cried  Scott,  '  can't  you  say  the  word  ?  Will  you 
come,  man  ?  ' 

'  It  wouldn't  do,'  said  the  sheeted  man  slowly.  '  You're  fond  of 
her,  eh  ?  Ay,  but  it  wouldn't  do.  Any  other  man  'ud  suit  ye 
better,  me  lad.' 

'  There's  no  other  man,'  said  Scott  angrily.  '  In  all  this  blasted 
town  there's  no  man  but  you.  I've  been  through  it  like  a  terrier 
under  a  rick.  And  I'll  tell  you  what.' 

He  took  a  step  nearer  ;  in  his  pocket  his  hand  was  on  his  knife. 

4  You  can  have  a  hundred  and  fifty,'  he  said,  '  and  the  boat,  if 
you'll  come.  An'  if  you  won't,  by  the  Holy  Iron,  I'll  cut  your 
bloomin'  throat  here  where  you  stand.' 

The  other  did  not  flinch  from  him.  '  Ay,  an'  you'll  do  that  ?  ' 
he  said.  '  I  like  to  hear  you  talk.  Lad,  do  you  know  what  fashion 
o'  men  it  is  that  serve  the  dead  carts  ?  Do  ye  know  ?  '  he  demanded, 
seeming  to  clear  his  voice  with  an  effort  of  the  obstacle  that 
hampered  his  speech. 

'  What  d'you  mean  ?  '  cried  Scott. 

'  Look  at  me,'  bade  the  man,  and  drew  back  the  sheet  from  his 
face.  The  starlight  showed  him  clear. 

Scott  looked,  while  his  heart  slowed  down  within  him,  and 
bowed  his  head. 

4  And  shall  I  steer  your  girl  to  Delagoa  Bay  ?  '  the  other  asked. 

'  Yes,'  said  Scott,  after  a  pause.  '  There's  nobody  else,  leper 
or  not.' 


IN   THE   DARK   HOUR.  117 

'  Ah,  well,'  said  the  leper,  with  a  sigh,  '  so  be  it.' 

Scott  fought  with  himself  for  mastery  of  the  horror  that  rose  in 
him  like  a  tide  of  fever,  and  when  the  leper  had  put  back  the  sheet 
and  stood  again  a  figure  of  the  grave,  he  told  him  of  the  boat  and 
how  others  knew  of  it  beside  himself.  In  quick,  panting  sentences, 
he  bade  him  get  forthwith  to  the  creek  where  the  boat  lay,  directing 
him  to  it  through  the  paths  of  the  night  with  the  sure  precision  of  a 
man  trained  to  the  trek.  He  himself  would  go  and  fetch  Incar- 
na9ion  and  beat  up  some  provisions,  and  thus  they  might  get 
afloat  before  the  Italian  and  his  mate  came  on  the  scene. 

'  It's  every  step  of  six  miles,'  Scott  explained.  '  Are  you  sure 
you  can  walk  it  ?  ' 

The  leper  nodded  under  his  hood.  '  I'll  do  it,'  he  said.  '  And  if 

there's  to  be  a  fight,  I'm  not  so  far  gone  but  what He  broke 

off  with  a  short  spurt  of  laughter.  '  It  '11  be  something  to  feel  deck 
planks  under  me  again,'  he  said. 

'  Then  let's  be  gone,'  cried  Scott. 

'  Wait.'  The  captain  that  had  been  stayed  him.  *  There's  just 
this,  matey.  Have  a  shawl  or  the  like  on  your  girl's  shoulders. 
They  wear  'em,  you  know.  An'  then,  when  you  come  in  sight  o' 
me,  you  can  rig  it  over  her  head  an'  all.  For  it's — it's  truth,  no 
woman  should  set  eyes  on  the  like  o'  me.' 

'  I'll  do  it,'  said  Scott.     '  You're  a  man,  captain,  anyhow.' 

'  I  was,'  said  the  other,  and  turned  away. 

Scott  had  a  dozen  things  to  do  in  no  more  than  a  pair  of  hours. 
They  were  not  to  be  done,  but  he  did  them.  A  couple  of  donkeys 
were  procured  without  difficulty  ;  he  knew  of  a  stable  with  a  flimsy 
door.  A  revolver,  his  own  small  odds  and  ends,  and  his  money, 
and  such  food  as  he  could  lay  hands  on — rousing  reluctant  store- 
keepers with  outcries  and  expediting  commerce  with  violence — 
were  got  together.  Then  Incarnasion  must  be  fetched.  She  came 
at  once,  smiling  drowsily,  with  a  flush  of  sleep  on  her  little,  ardent 
face  and  all  her  belongings  in  a  bundle  no  bigger  than  a  hat-box. 
But  with  all  his  urgency,  the  eastern  sky  w^as  stained  with  dawn 
before  he  was  clear  of  the  town,  bludgeoning  the  donkeys  before  him 
with  the  gear  on  one  and  IncarnaQion  laughing  and  crooning  on  the 
other. 

The  beach  stretched  in  a  yellow  bow  on  either  hand,  fringed 
with  bush  and  palms,  receding  to  where  the  ultimate  jaws  of  the  bay 
stood  black  and  thin  against  the  sunrise.  Once  upon  it,  they  could 
be  seen  by  whoever  should  look  from  the  town,  and  there  was 


118  IN   THE   DARK   HOUR. 

peremptory  occasion  for  haste.  Scott  had  counted  on  forcing  the 
journey  into  a  little  over  an  hour,  but  he  was  not  prepared  for  the 
eccentricities  of  a  pack  adjusted  on  a  donkey's  back  by  an  amateur. 
There  is  no  art  in  the  world  more  arbitrary  than  that  of  tying  a 
package  on  a  beast.  It  must  be  done  just  so,  with  just  such  a  hitch 
and  such  an  adjustment  of  the  burden,  or  one's  rope  might  as  well 
be  of  sand.  These  refinements  were  outside  Scott's  knowledge, 
and  he  had  not  gone  far  before  he  saw  his  bags  and  bundles  clear 
themselves  and  tumble  apart.  There  was  a  halt  while  he  picked 
them  up  and  lashed  them  on  the  ass  anew.  Again  and  again  it 
happened,  till  his  patience  was  raw  ;  and  all  the  time  the  steady 
sun  swarmed  up  the  sky  and  day  grew  into  full  being. 

Incarnacion  sat  serenely  in  her  place  while  these  troubles  occupied 
him,  smoking  her  cigarette  and  looking  about  her.  He  was  involved 
in  an  effort  to  jam  the  pack  and  the  donkey  securely  in  one  over- 
whelming intricacy  of  knots  when  she  called  to  him. 

4  Jock !  '  she  called. 

'  Yes,  what's  up  ?  '  he  grunted,  hauling  remorselessly  on  a  line 
with  a  knee  against  the  ass's  circumference. 

c  A  man,'  she  said  placidly.     '  He  come  along,  too,  behin'  us.' 

'  Eh  ?  Where  ?  '  he  demanded,  putting  a  last  knot  to  the  tedious 
structure. 

Incarna9ion  pointed  to  the  bush.  '  I  see  him  poke  out  his 
head,  two  times,'  she  explained. 

Scott  passed  his  hand  behind  him  to  his  revolver,  and  stared  with 
narrow  eyes  along  the  green  frontier  of  the  bush.  He  could  see 
nothing. 

*  A  big  man,  'Carnagion  ?  '  he  asked.  '  Moustaches  ?  Black 
hair  ?  ' 

She  nodded  and  lit  another  cigarette.     '  You  know  him,  Jock  ?  ' 

'  I  know  him,'  he  answered,  and  drove  the  donkeys  on,  thwacking 
the  pack  ass  cautiously  for  the  sake  of  the  load. 

It  was  an  anxious  passage,  then,  on  the  open  beach.  The  men 
who  followed  had  the  cover  of  the  shrubs  ;  theirs  was  the  advantage 
to  choose  the  moment  of  collision.  They  could  shoot  at  him  from 
their  concealment  and  flick  his  brains  out  comfortably  before  he 
could  set  eyes  on  them.  Or  they  could  shoot  the  donkeys  down, 
or  put  a  bullet  into  Incarnagion  where  she  rode,  quiet  and  regardless 
of  all.  He  flogged  the  beasts  on  to  a  trot  with  a  hail  of  blows  am 
ran  up  into  the  bush  to  take  an  observation. 

His  foot  was  barely  off  the  sand  of  the  beach  when  a  shot 


IN   THE   DARK   HOUR.  119 

sounded,  and  the  wind  of  the  bullet  made  his  eyes  smart.  Inven- 
tion was  automatic  in  his  mind  ;  on  the  noise,  he  fell  forthwith  on  his 
face,  crashing  across  a  bush,  so  that  his  head  was  up  and  his  pistol 
in  reach  of  his  hand.  Thus  he  lay,  not  moving,  but  searching 
through  half -closed  eyes  the  maze  of  green  before  him.  He  heard 
the  rustle  of  grass  and  prepared  for  action,  every  nerve  taut ;  and 
there  came  into  sight  the  big  Italian,  smiling  broadly,  a  Winchester 
in  his  hand. 

In  Scott's  brain  some  nucleus  of  motion  gave  the  signal ;  with  a 
single  movement,  his  knee  crooked  under  him  and  he  swung  the 
heavy  revolver  forward.  A  howl  answered  the  shot,  and  he  saw  the 
Italian  blunder  against  a  palm,  drop  his  rifle  and  scamper  out  of 
sight.  Firing  again,  Scott  dashed  forward  and  picked  up  the 
Winchester,  while  from  in  front  of  him  the  Italian  or  his  companion 
sent  bullet  after  bullet  about  his  ears.  It  was  enough  of  a  victory 
to  carry  on  with,  for  Incarna9ion  would  have  heard  the  shots  and 
might  come  back  to  him  ;  so  he  turned  and  ran  again,  and  caught 
her  just  as  she  was  dismounting. 

It  was  a  race  now.  He  silenced  the  girl's  questions  sharply,  and 
thumped  the  donkeys  on  to  a  canter,  running  doggedly  behind  them 
with  his  stick  busy.  In  the  bush,  too,  there  was  the  noise  of  hurry  ; 
he  heard  the  crash,  of  feet  running,  and  twice  they  shot  at  him. 
Then  Incarna9ion  gasped,  and  held  up  her  cloak  to  show  him  a  hole 
through  it,  but  she  was  not  touched.  He  swore,  but  did  not  cease 
to  flog  and  run.  The  strain  told  on  him  ;  his  legs  were  water,  and 
the  sweat  stood  on  his  face  in  great  gouts  ;  and  to  embitter  the 
labour  there  was  suddenly  a  shout  from  ahead.  The  men  had 
passed  him,  and  he  saw  the  Italian  show  himself  with  a  gesture  of 
derision  and  disappear  again  before  he  could  aim. 

'  They  '11  kill  the  leper,'  he  thought,  '  and  they  '11  get  the  boat 
But  they  '11  not  get  out.  I'll  be  on  my  belly  in  the  bush,  then,  with 
this.' 

And  he  patted  the  stock  of  the  Winchester. 

'  You  bin  shoot  a  man,  Jock  ?  '  asked  'Carna9ion,  as  the  desperate 
pace  flagged. 

*  Not  yet,'  he  answered,  grimly.  '  But  there's  time  yet, 
'Cama9ion.' 

Already  he  could  see,  through  the  slim  palms,  the  straight  mast 
of  the  boat  against  the  sky,  with  its  gear  about  it,  not  a  mile  away. 
He  cocked  his  ear  for  the  shot  that  should  announce  its  capture  and 
the  end  of  the  leper. 


120  IN   THE   DARK    HOUR. 

'  Ai,  hear  that ! '  exclaimed  Incarna9ion. 

It  was  a  sound  of  screams — cries  of  men  in  stress,  travelling 
thinly  over  the  distance.  Scott  checked  at  it  as  a  horse  checks  at  a 
snake  in  the  road,  for  the  cries  had  a  note  of  wild  terror  that  daunted 
him. 

'  You  frightened,  Jockie  ?  '  crooned  Incarna9ion.  '  See,'  she 
cried,  lifting  her  hand  over  him — '  I  make  the  cross  on  you.' 

'  It's  the  damned  mysteriousness  that  gets  me,'  said  Scott, 
wiping  his  forehead.  '  Here,  get  on,  you  beasts.  We'll  have  to 
take  a  look  at  'em,  anyhow.' 

He  strode  on  between  the  animals,  the  rifle  in  the  crook  of  his 
arm,  ready  for  use,  and  all  his  senses  alert  and  vivacious.  Day 
was  broad  above  them  now  and  bitter  with  the  forenoon  heat.  At 
their  side  the  bay  was  rippled  with  a  capricious  breeze,  and  in  all 
the  far  prospect  of  earth  and  sea  none  moved  save  themselves, 
detached  in  a  haunting  significance  of  solitude. 

'Ah!' 

He  stopped  short  and  jerked  the  rifle  forward.  In  the  bush 
ahead  there  was  a  movement.  For  an  instant  he  saw  something 
white  flash  among  the  palms,  and  then  the  Italian  burst  forth  and 
came  towards  them,  running  all  at  large,  with  head  down  and 
jolting  elbows.  He  ran  like  a  man  hunted  by  crazy  fears,  and  did 
not  see  Scott  until  he  was  within  twenty  yards. 

'  Halt  there,  dago ! '  ordered  Scott,  and  brought  the  butt  to  his 
shoulder. 

The  Italian  gasped  and  blundered  to  his  knees,  turning  on  Scott 
a  glazed  and  twitching  face. 

'  For  peety,  for  peety,'  he  quavered. 

'  Draw  that  shawl  over  your  face,  'Carna9ion,'  said  Scott, 
without  turning  his  head.  '  Can  you  see  now  ?  ' 

'  No,'  she  answered. 

He  fired,  and  the  Italian  sprawled  forward  on  his  face,  ploughing 
up  the  sand  with  clutching  hands. 

'  Keep  the  shawl  over  your  eyes,  'Carna9ion,'  directed  Scott,  and 
soon  they  came  round  a  palm  bunch  and  were  on  the  bank  of  the 
creek,  where  a  fifteen-ton  cutter  lay  on  the  mud.  A  plank  lay 
between  her  deck  and  the  shore,  and  as  they  came  to  it  the  captain 
hailed  them  from  the  cockpit. 

'  Come  aboard,'  he  said,  '  all's  ready.' 

Scott  picked  Incarna9ion  up  in  his  arms,  wound  another  fold  of  the 


IN   THE   DARK   HOUR.  121 

shawl  about  her  face,  and  carried  her  aboard.  He  set  her  down  on 
the  settee  in  the  cabin,  released  her  head,  and  kissed  her  fervently. 

*  Now  make  yourself  comfy  here,  little  'un,J  he  said,  '  for  here 
you  stay  till  we  make  Delagoa.' 

He  helped  her  to  dispose  herself  in  the  cabin,  showed  her  its 
arrangements,  and  saw  her  curious  delight  in  the  little  space-saving 
contrivances.  Then  he  went  out,  closing  the  door  behind  him. 
It  did  not  occur  to  him  to  render  her  any  explanations  ;  what  Scott 
did  was  always  sufficient  for  Incarnation. 

Again  on  deck,  he  found  the  swathed  leper  busy,  and  started 
when  he  saw,  along  the  banks  of  the  creek,  a  gang  of  shrouded 
figures  at  work  with  a  hawser. 

'  My  crew,'  said  the  captain.     '  They're  to  haul  us  off  the  mud. ' 

'  Then,'  said  Scott,  '  it  was  them— 

The  leper  laughed.  '  Ay,  they  ran  from  us,'  he  said.  '  They 
ran  from  the  lazaretto-hands.  The  one  we  caught,  we  put  him 
overside  for  the  crocodiles.  An'  you  got  the  other.' 

'  They  chased  him  ?  '  asked  Scott,  trembling  with  the  thought. 

'  Ay,'  said  the  leper.  '  They  uncovered  their  faces,  and  they 
chased.  Ye  heard  the  squealing  ?  ' 

He  broke  off  to  oversee  his  gang. 

'  Make  fast  on  that  stump,'  he  called.  In  spite  of  the  disease 
that  blurred  his  speech,  there  was  the  authority  of  the  quarter-deck 
in  his  voice.  '  Now,*all  hands  tally  on  and  walk  her  down.' 

And  the  silent  lepers  in  their  grave-clothes  ranged  themselves  on 
the  rope  like  the  ghosts  of  drowned  seamen. 

And  when  the  mainsail  filled  and  the  cutter  heeled  to  the  breeze, 
pointing  fair  for  the  bar,  the  leper  looked  back.  Scott  followed  his 
glance.  On  the  spit  by  the  mouth  of  the  creek  there  stood  the  white 
figures  in  a  little  group,  lonely  and  voiceless,  and  over  them  the 
palms  floated  against  the  sky  like  tethered  birds. 

'  There  was  some  that  was  almost  Christians,'  said  the  captain. 
'  They  '11  miss  me,  they  will.'  And  after  a  pause  he  added  :  '  And 
I'll  be  missing  them,  too.  For  they  was  my  mates.' 

There  was  six  days  of  sailing  ere  the  captain  made  his  landfall, 
and  they  stood  off  till  nightfall.  Then  he  put  in  to  where  the  sea 
shelved  easily  on  a  beach,  four  or  five  miles  south  of  the  town,  and 
it  was  time  to  part. 

1  You  can  wade  ashore,'  said  the  leper. 

Scott  opened  the  doors  of  the  little  cabin.     On  the  settee 


122  IN   THE   DARK  HOUR. 

Incarnation  lay  asleep,  her  dark  hair  tumbled  about  her  warm  face. 
He  was  about  to  wake  her,  but  stayed  his  hand  and  drew  back. 

'  You  can  look,'  he  said  to  the  leper  in  a  whisper. 

The  shrouded  man  bent  and  looked  in  ;  Scott  marked  that  he 
held  his  breath.  For  full  a  minute  he  stared  in  silence,  his  shoulders 
blocking  the  little  door.  Then  he  drew  back. 

'  Ay,'  he  murmured,  '  it's  like  that  they  are,  lad,  and  it's  grand 
to  be  a  man.  It's  grand  to  be  a  man.' 

Scott  closed  the  door  gently.     '  If  ever  there  was  a  man '  he 

began,  but  choked  and  stopped.     '  What  will  you  do  now  ?  '  he 
asked. 

'  Oh,  I'll  just  be  gettin'  back,'  said  the  leper.  '  You  see,  there's 
them  lads — my  crew.  It  was  me  made  a  crew  of  'em  in  that 
lazaretto.  They  was  just  stinking  heathen  till  I  come.  An'  I  sort 
of  miss  'em,  I  do.' 

'  Will  you  shake  hands  ?  '  said  Scott,  torn  by  a  storm  of  emotions. 

The  leper  shook  his  head.  '  You've  the  girl  to  think  of,'  he 
said.  '  But  good  luck  to  the  pair  of  ye.  Ye'll  make  a  fine  team.' 

Half  an  hour  later,  Scott  and  Incarna9ion  stood  together  on  the 
beach,  and  watched  the  cutter's  lights  as  she  stood  on  a  bowline  to 
seaward. 

*  Kiss  your  hand  to  it,  darling,'  said  Scott. 

'  I  bin  done  it,'  answered  Incarnation. 

PERCEVAL  GIBBON. 


123 


A   RELIQUARY. 

PRIZED  litter  from  a  perished  past ; 

Seals,  tokens,  trinkets,  tossed  together  ; 
Hard  garnered  trifles,  hoarded  fast 

In  Treasury  box  of  tarnished  leather. 

A  box  where  Secretary  James 

Preserved  some  compromising  papers — 
Pitt's  hand  ;  Lord  North's — these  ladies'  names 

Suggest  Vauxhall,  the  play,  the  vapours. 

An  auburn  lock  with  ribbon  tied  ; 

In  faded  ink  '  To  dearest  Harry.' 
With  good  Eiou  he  sailed,  and  died. 

And  she  ?     Ah,  no  ;  she  would  not  marry. 

A  Patent,  with  great  George's  seal, 
And  portrait  on  the  parchment  painted. 

Our  Judge— A  Daniel  ?     H'm,  with  Steele, 
And  ah1  the  wits,  too  well  acquainted. 

A  sword-knot,  red  from  Nolan's  ride  ; 

Some  salmon  flies — now  paled  to  pallor 
Of  her  dead  hand  their  plumes  that  tied  ; 

A  little  cross,  inscribed  '  For  Valour.' 

By  this  dim  writing  good  Queen  Anne 
Gives  General  Hugh  his  rank  of  Cornet. 

A  knitted  purse  ;  frail  painted  fan — 
A  flutter  or  a  fop  has  torn  it. 

This  seal,  with  scutcheon  of  pretence, 

Displays  how  Lady  Di  for  dower 
Brought  half  the  lands  within  our  fence, 

The  London  house,  and  Border  tower. 


124  A   RELIQUARY. 

That — where,  azure,  four  fleurs-de-lis, 
Argent,  impale  an  amice,  vairy — 

Shows  how  our  Ambrose  filled  his  See  ; 
Keluctant  non  Episcopari. 

Joan's  wedding  ring — she  ne'er  was  wed, 
Though  this  was  forged  to  fit  her  finger. 

He  kept  it  when  they  found  him  dead 
'Neath  Delhi's  wall,  the  last  to  linger. 

That  gold  ?     A  nugget.     See  '  from  Jack 
The  Digger  to  the  Squire  ; '  his  brother. 

'Twas  kept  here  for  his  welcome  back. 
He  stayed,  enriched  by  many  another. 

Some  pious  cousin,  every  fall, 

Takes  rubbings  from  our  knightly  brasses, 
Kodaks  the  Church,  the  park,  the  Hall, 

A  little  petrol  begs  and  passes. 

Sad  silk  cockade  of  wither'd  white  ! 

One  loved  the  Chevalier,  and  wore  you. 
Returning  from  Culloden's  fight, 

Our  grandsire's  grandsire  homeward  bore  you. 

There  !    Lay  them  by  ;  and  shut  the  box  ; 

A  tomb,  filled  full  with  scentless  roses. 
New  blossoms  crown  the  ancient  stocks, 

Though  every  eve  some  floweret  closes. 

C.  J.  DARLING. 


125 


A   PAUPERS'    RESTAURANT  AND    HOME. 

'  I  AM  better  off  now  than  I  ever  was  in  my  life  before,'  an  old  man, 
with  keen  eyes  and  a  much  bewrinkled  little  face,  informed  me 
cheerily,  in  his  broad  Vienna  dialect,  the  first  time  I  was  at  Lainz. 

'  Ja,  es  geht  uns  ganz  gut  hier,'  another  old  fellow  remarked, 
and  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  room  but  repeated  his  words,  '  Ja, 
ja,  es  geht  uns  ganz  gut.' 

'  Is  your  food  to  your  liking  ?  '  I  inquired  ;  and  again  there  was 
a  chorus  of  '  Ja,  ja,'  accompanied  this  time  by  much  chuckling ; 
for  it  would  be  odd,  as  they  told  me,  were  it  not  to  their  liking, 
seeing  that  they  had  the  choosing  of  it  themselves. 

A  more  contented  little  company  1  have  never  seen,  nor  a  little 
company  on  better  terms  with  themselves  and  the  world  at  large. 
They  welcomed  me  in  the  most  friendly  fashion,  as  hosts  welcoming 
a  guest ;  and  when  they  heard  that  I  had  come  all  the  way  from 
England  to  see  what  their  new  home  was  like,  they  beamed  with 
delight.  For  they  are,  as  I  soon  discovered,  immensely  proud  of 
this  new  home  of  theirs  :  there  is  not  such  another  home  in  all 
Europe  they  are  firmly  convinced  ;  not  so  beautiful  a  home,  not  a 
home  in  which  the  indwellers  are  so  well  cared  for  ;  and,  above  all, 
not  a  home  in  which  they  are  so  well  fed.  One  of  them  drew  my 
attention  to  the  comfortable  chairs  they  have  to  sit  on  ;  another 
to  the  warm,  well-fitting  clothes  they  were  wearing  :  '  Were  we 
burghers  we  could  not  be  better  dressed  '  ;  while  they  all  seemed 
anxious  I  should  note  how  well  the  room  was  heated,  and  what  a 
beautiful  view  they  had  from  their  windows.  '  That  is  our 
Emperor's  Thiergarten,'  they  told  me  proudly,  pointing  to  the 
great  park  that  lies  just  beyond  their  own  garden.  '  The  Em- 
peror is  a  near  neighbour  of  ours,  you  see.' 

These  old  men  were  not  only  well  clothed,  but  spick  and  span  : 
their  hair  was  well  brushed,  their  collars  were  clean,  and  not  a 
button  was  missing  anywhere.  Sitting  there  in  their  pretty  green 
and  white  room,  with  its  great  balcony  which  catches  every  sun-ray, 
they  might  have  been  barons,  so  far  as  appearances  went,  if  only 
they  could  have  kept  their  poor  battered  old  hands  out  of  sight. 
Not  but  that  most  of  them  had  on  their  faces  those  lines  that  tell 


126  A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME. 

of  moiling  and  toiling  and  burden-bearing  ;  just  here  and  there 
among  them,  indeed,  was  a  man  with  the  look  in  his  eyes  that  a 
close  tussle  with  starvation  leaves  behind.  For,  notwithstanding 
their  dignified  appearance,  notwithstanding,  too,  their  cheerful- 
ness and  genial  good  manners,  they  were  only  poor  old  paupers, 
although  all  Vienna  would  rise  up  in  wrath  were  it  to  hear  the  word 
'  pauper '  applied  to  its  old  people  at  Lainz.  These  old  people,  by 
the  way,  cost  the  town  only  Is.  5d.  a  day  each,  or  Id.  a  day  less 
than  our  old  workhouse  inmates  in  London  cost  us.  Yet  both 
food  and  clothing  are,  if  anything,  dearer  in  Vienna  than  here. 

Lainz  is  the  old-age  home  the  city  of  Vienna  has  built  on  land 
presented  to  it  for  the  purpose  by  the  Emperor  Franz  Josef. 
There  nearly  3400  of  its  worn-out  workers  are  not  only  well  housed, 
well  fed,  well  clothed,  and  well  tended,  but  they  are,  so  far  as  in 
them  lies,  made  happy.  It  is  a  huge  place ;  still  there  is  nothing 
oppressive  about  its  size ;  for  it  consists,  not  of  one  building,  but 
of  a  series  of  buildings,  detached  pavilions,  each  one  of  which  is  a 
separate  home,  its  inmates  forming  a  separate  community.  There 
are  homes  for  old  men  and  homes  for  old  women  and  homes  for  old 
married  couples.  There  are  homes  for  the  sorely  afflicted,  too,  for 
the  very  feeble,  for  those  who  are  just  waiting  for  the  end  to  come  ; 
and  there  will  soon  be  a  hospital  quite  near  at  hand  for  those 
who  need  special  treatment.  There  are  no  homes,  however,  it 
must  be  noted,  for  the  drunken,  the  vicious,  or  the  degraded  ;  for 
Lainz  was  built  as  a  refuge  solely  for  respectable  old  folk  ;  and  if 
by  mischance  folk  who  are  not  respectable  are  admitted,  they 
must  conceal  the  fact  that  they  are  not  on  a  par  morally  with 
those  around  them,  and  demean  themselves  as  if  they  were.  Other- 
wise they  are  speedily  transferred  to  Mauerbach,  the  old-age  home 
that  is  specially  reserved  for  the  less  worthy  of  the  town's  proteges, 
its  goats  as  apart  from  its  sheep.  All  Viennese,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, who  being  above  sixty  years  of  age  and  in  poverty,  are  too 
feeble  to  live  alone,  and  have  no  relatives  with  whom  they  can  live, 
have  the  right  to  claim  admission  to  an  old-age  home. 

In  addition  to  the  pavilions  in  which  the  old  people  live  there 
are  other  pavilions,  of  course ;    one  in  which  the  administration 
carried  on ;  another  in  which  the  nursing  sisters  live  ;  another  thai 
serves  as  a  laundry  ;  another,  again — and  this  the  most  interestii 
of  all — that  serves  as  a  kitchen  and  restaurant  combined.     T] 
pavilions  are  ranged  on  either  side  of  a  beautiful  church  on  whicl 
money  and  thought  have  been  lavished  without  stint.    So  gorgeoi 


A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND   HOME.  127 

is  it,  indeed,  with  its  purple  and  gold  and  dazzling  white,  its  richly 
stained  windows,  embroidery  and  delicate  tracery,  that  one  would 
be  inclined  to  look  on  it  askance  were  it  not  that  everything  about 
it  that  smacks  of  luxury  was  a  present,  and  did  not  cost  the  rate- 
payers one  penny. 

Before  the  church  and  the  first  row  of  pavilions  there  are  two 
long  terraces,  parallel  with  each  other ;  and  there  such  of  the 
inmates  as  can  walk,  but  are  too  feeble  to  go  further  afield,  totter 
about  from  seat  to  seat.  Below  the  terraces  is  a  large  garden 
where  in  summer  many  of  these  old  people  spend  a  good  deal  of 
their  time.  Not  but  that  they  are  for  the  most  part  free  to  go 
elsewhere  if  they  choose.  From  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  untiJ 
nine  at  night  they  may  betake  themselves  just  where  they  will, 
even  to  Vienna,  always  providing  that  they  have  in  their  pockets 
the  three  pennies  wherewith  to  pay  their  fare,  and  that  they  have 
dressed  themselves  as  neatly  as  the  old  gate-keeper,  whose  standard 
is  a  high  one,  thinks  they  ought  to  be  dressed  when  on  visiting 
bent.  Some  among  them,  it  is  true,  are  not  allowed  to  go  beyond 
the  garden — those,  for  instance,  whose  names  are  on  the  doctor's 
special  list,  and  those  who,  as  the  Director  has  learnt  by  experi- 
ence, cannot  safely  be  trusted  to  pass  unscathed  through  the 
temptations  of  the  outside  world — who  might,  perhaps,  return  from 
their  excursion  in  a  condition  to  cause  scandal  through  yielding 
good-naturedly  to  the  importunity  of  hospitable  friends.  Even 
these,  however,  although  they  may  not  pay  visits,  may  receive  them, 
every  day,  too,  providing  their  visitors  conduct  themselves  with 
propriety,  and  do  not  attempt  to  smuggle  into  the  institution 
anything  stronger  than  elderberry  syrup.  On  Sunday  afternoons, 
in  summer,  '  at  homes  '  by  the  dozen  are  held  in  the  garden  at 
Lainz ;  and  the  tramcar  that  goes  there  is  thronged  with  men, 
women,  and  children  on  their  way  to  see  '  wie  es  geht  mit  den 
Alten,'  as  they  say.  And  the  poorest  who  go — those  to  whom 
buying  a  tram-ticket  means  leaving  a  dinner  unbought — rarely  go 
empty-handed.  Most  of  them  contrive  to  take  with  them  some 
little  offering — a  new  pipe,  perhaps  a  book,  a  picture,  a  flower, 
just  something  to  prove  to  those  at  Lainz  that,  out  of  sight  though 
they  be  sometimes,  they  are  never  quite  out  of  mind.  And  the 
old  people  thoroughly  enjoy  these  little  attentions  :  it  is  one  of 
the  prettiest  sights  in  Austria,  indeed,  to  see  them  entertaining 
their  friends,  so  beamingly  happy  do  they  look.  Little  wonder 
even  stingy  ratepayers  cannot  find  it  in  their  hearts  to  grudge  the 


128  A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND   HOME. 

money  spent  at  Lainz,  especially  as  they  have  only  to  use  their 
eyes  to  know  that  for  every  penny  spent  a  good  return  is  obtained. 
In  the  married  couples'  homes  each  man  and  wife  have  a  little 
room  of  their  own ;  while  in  the  other  homes  two,  three,  or  more 
of  the  inmates  share  a  room.  These  rooms  are  regarded  as  the 
private  property  of  those  who  are  lodged  there  ;  and  no  one,  except- 
ing the  caretaker,  has  the  right  to  enter  them  without  permission. 
On  every  floor,  however,  there  are  a  large  room  and  a  long  corridor 
which  are  fitted  up  as  parlours,  and  these  are  the  joint  property  of 
all  who  live  on  that  floor.  In  the  room  such  of  the  inmates  as  are 
en  pension  have  their  dinner,  tea,  and  supper  ;  and  in  the  corridor 
they  all  smoke  or  knit,  as  the  case  may  be,  read  their  newspapers 
or  chat.  The  inmates  who  are  not  en  pension  have  their  meals,  as 
a  rule,  at  the  kitchen  restaurant ;  although  they  may,  if  they  choose, 
have  them  elsewhere.  For  Vienna  is  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that 
if  old  people  are  to  be  made  happy  they  must  be  allowed,  so  far  as 
possible,  to  go  their  own  way ;  and  being  determined  that  they 
shall  be  made  happy,  it  insists  on  their  being  allowed  to  go  their 
own  way,  even  to  the  extent  of  buying  their  dinners  where  they 
choose  and  paying  for  them  themselves.  It  provides  them  of 
course  with  the  money  wherewith  to  pay.  It  does  more,  indeed,  for 
not  only  does  it  provide  some  of  them  with  pocket-money,  but  it 
gives  to  all  of  them,  excepting  those  on  the  special  lists,  oppor- 
tunities of  earning  money  for  themselves.  All  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  work  are  provided  with  work,  and  are  paid  for  doing  it. 
Some  help  with  the  house  cleaning ;  others  work  in  the  garden ; 
others,  again,  in  the  kitchen ;  while  many  of  the  old  women  knit,  or 
sew,  or  give  a  helping  hand  with  the  mending.  Their  earnings  are 
of  course  meagre,  as  meagre  as  is  their  strength  :  they  range  from 
Id.  a  day  to  8d.,  the  average  being  only  some  2d.  Still  even  2d. 
a  day  is  enough  to  secure  many  a  little  comfort,  while  the  mere 
fact  of  being  able  to  earn  anything  gives  to  them  a  pleasant  feeling 
of  independence,  and  makes  them  think  they  are  of  use  in  the 
world. 

When  an  old  man — or  an  old  woman — arrives  at  Lainz,  he  is 
allowed,  unless  he  be  on  the  invalid  list,  to  choose  whether  he  will 
have  his  food  provided  for  him,  or  have  a  money  allowance  where- 
with to  provide  it  for  himself.  If  he  decide  to  have  the  food,  every 
morning  at  seven  o'clock  a  roll  with  coffee,  cocoa,  milk,  or  soup  is 
brought  to  him  in  his  own  room.  At  eleven  dinner  is  served,  and 
this  consists  of  soup,  meat,  vegetables,  and  a  sweet.  At  half -past 


A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME.  129 

two  he  has  his  afternoon  tea,  or  rather  coffee,  with  cakes,  and  at 
half-past  five — six  in  summer — he  has  supper,  soup  with  either 
vegetables  or  a  pudding.  He  receives  in  addition  two-fifths  of  a 
penny  a  day  as  pocket-money. 

If  he  decide  to  cater  for  himself  he  may  do  so  either  entirely  or 
in  part.  If  he  provide  all  his  own  meals,  he  receives  an  allowance 
of  5±d.  a  day.  If  he  prefers  to  have  his  breakfast  and  dinner  pro- 
vided for  him,  and  to  buy  his  own  afternoon  coffee  and  supper,  he 
receives  1-fd.  a  day,  while  if  he  provides  only  his  own  supper  he 
receives  l^d.  A  sharp  watch  is  kept  over  the  inmates  who  cater 
for  themselves,  and  if  it  is  found  that  they  spend  their  money 
unwisely — too  much  of  it  on  coffee,  beer,  or  tobacco,  and  too  little 
on  wholesome  food — they  forfeit  their  allowance  and  are  placed  on 
rations.  The  very  feeble  are  always  on  rations,  their  menu  being 
drawn  up  for  them  by  their  doctor. 

The  inmates  who  are  on  full  rations — and  they  are  the  great 
majority — have  all  their  meals,  excepting  breakfast,  sent  in  air- 
tight boxes  direct  from  the  kitchen  to  their  own  parlour.  There 
bheir  meals  are  served  to  them  by  their  own  attendant  and  an 
assistant  from  the  kitchen.  These  officials  have  strict  orders  to 
treat  the  old  people,  not  only  with  kindness,  but  with  deference,  to 
study  their  tastes  and  wishes,  and  to  try  in  all  ways  to  gratify 
them.  And  woe  betide  them  if  they  fail  to  do  so  ;  for  the  fact  is 
sure  to  be  reported  by  some  one  or  other  to  the  Burgomaster,  and 
then  they  are  soon  packed  off.  As  for  those  who  buy  their  own 
food,  they  as  a  rule  go  for  their  meals  to  the  restaurant  attached  to 
the  kitchen  ;  for  it  does  not  take  them  long  to  discover  that  they 
can  obtain  considerably  more  for  their  money  there  than  else- 
where, no  matter  where  the  elsewhere  may  be.  Were  it  other- 
wise they  would  certainly  not  fare  so  extremely  well  as  they  do 
on  their  5|d.  a  day. 

This  Lainz  restaurant  is  a  proof  of  the  wonders  that  may  be 
done  by  a  skilful  economical  caterer  with  the  help  of  a  good  cook. 
It  is  worked  together  with  the  kitchen  by  a  manager  under  the 
close  surveillance  of  the  Director  and  the  doctors,  one  of  whom 
must  taste  the  food  every  day  before  it  is  served.  All  the  materials 
used  are  of  the  best  quality,  and  every  dish  is  carefully  prepared 
and  flavoured  to  a  nicety.  I  have  seen  as  dainty  a  little  luncheon 
served  there  as  one  need  wish  to  eat — served,  too,  at  a  price  that 
made  one  wonder  more  than  ever  what  can  become  of  the  money 
spent  on  food  in  some  of  our  English  workhouses  and  workhouse 

VOL.   XXVIII. — NO.  163,  N.S.  9 


130 


A   PAUPERS'    RESTAURANT   AND    HOME. 


infirmaries.    For,  although  at  the  Lainz  restaurant  the  price  of 
every  dish  is  exactly  what  it  costs — the  cost  of  the  materials  it 
contains,  plus  5  per  cent,  of  that  cost  for  kitchen  expenses — so  low 
are  the  prices  that  these  old  people,  for  whose  benefit  the  place  is 
maintained,  are  able  to  buy  there  as  much  wholesome,  appetising 
food  as  they  can  eat.     Yet  their  allowances  are  only  5£d.  a  day  each, 
it  must  be  remembered,  and  out  of  that  they  have  to  provide  them-j 
selves  with  pocket-money  as  well  as  with  food.     Then  not  only* 
can  they  obtain  good  food  and  plenty  of  it,  in  spite  of  their  havingl 
only  such  a  pittance,  but  they  can  vary  it  from  day  to  day,  if  suchj 
be  their  desire  ;  for  they  have,  as  their  bill  of  fare  shows,  dishes 
innumerable  to  choose  from  in  ordering  their  dinner.    Although  of 
course  every  dish  on  the  list  is  not  provided  every  day,  an  extra- 
ordinarily large  number  of  them  are  always  to  be  had. 

Of  all  the  official  documents  issued  in  Vienna  from  time  to  time^ 
this  Lainz  bill  of  fare  is  one  of  the  most  interesting.  It  is  a  quite 
wonderful  document,  indeed,  in  its  way ;  for  never  was  there  a  bill 
of  fare  containing  such  a  variety  of  dishes  at  such  low  prices.  I 
give  it  verbatim  in  the  hope  that  some  of  our  workhouse  caterers 
may  find  time  to  study  it. 

VIENNA  OLD-AGE   HOME  AT   LAINZ. 


SOUPS. 


Tariff. 


Quantity.    Price. 


Clear  Soup  . 
Vegetable  Soup  . 


i 


pint 


MEAT  DISHES. 

Roast  Veal          .        .     5£  oz. 
Hashed  Veal       . 
Veal  Cutlet         .        .       — 
Roast  Pork         .        .     5£  oz. 
Roast  Beef          .        .         „ 
Roast  Hare         .        .       — 
Broiled  Beef       .        .       — 
Boiled  Ham        .        .     3£  oz. 
Minced  Veal       .        .      4£  07.. 
Beef  Gollasch  with 

Onions  and  Greens          „ 
Veal  Gollasch     . 
Pork  Gollasch     . 
Smoked  Pork      . 
Veal  with  Rice   .        .         — 
Roast  Mutton     .        .         — 
Irish  Stew  ...         — 
Leveret 
Boiled  Beef         .        .4*  oz. 


4*4. 


4d. 


Tariff. 

Quantity. 

IV.-P. 

Salami 

2  ',  Gfi. 

•2  :td. 

Fried  Liver 

— 

2JA. 

Fried  Kidney 

— 

,, 

Brains  with  Egg 

— 

„ 

Boiled  Beef 

2£  07, 

2fy*. 

Boiled  Chitterlings    . 

— 

„ 

Baked    Calf's    Head 

and  Feet  . 

— 

„ 

Baked  Fish 

— 

,, 

Augsburg  Sausages    . 

— 

2d. 

Frankfurt   Sausages 

with  Horseradish   . 

— 

,, 

Pickled  Pork      . 

— 

1  ,'6rf.  i 

Cold  Sausage 

]•;  o/. 

Id. 

Brain  Sausage    . 



Id. 

VEGETABLES. 

Ordinary  Vegetables. 

Portion 

M 

Green  Salad 

,, 

l^d- 

PUDDINGS. 
Ordinary  Puddings    .     Portion      Id. 

Sweets 2d 

Boiled  Puddings        .          . 


A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME. 


131 


SPECIAL  DISHES. 


Tariff. 
Boiled  Eggs  according 

to  the  season 
Omelette  (2  Eggs)      . 
Stewed  Plums  or 

Apples     . 
Butter 
Cheese 

,,  ... 

Curds  .... 
Bread-and-Butter 


Quantity.    Price. 
Each      ?-M. 


5  pint 
foz. 

If " 


2rf. 
Irf. 

^- 


BEVERAGES. 

Tariff.                         Quantity.  Price. 

Tea       ....     |  pint  Id. 
Coffee  (Black  or  with 

Milk)                        .     £  pint  %d. 

Milk     ....'„  £<*• 
Sour  Milk    . 


Bread  . 
Roll 


To  think  of  poor  old  paupers  sitting  in  a  pretty  dining-room,  at 
neatly  laid  little  tables,  pondering  as  to  whether  they  will  have  soup 
or  fish,  veal  cutlet,  roast  hare,  liver,  kidney,  calf's  head,  or  brain 
sausage ;  and  taking  counsel  together  as  to  which  is  the  better  worth 
having,  a  salad,  or  a  sweet,  curds  and  whey,  or  a  cup  of  coffee.  To 
think,  too,  that  all  these  little  luxuries,  in  which  the  Lainz  old  people 
revel,  cost  less  than  the  solid  hunches  of  beef  which  in  certain  of  our 
London  workhouses  the  poor  old  inmates  are  reduced  to  gnawing. 
If  an  old  man  has  soup,  calf's  head,  vegetables,  nodel  pudding,  and 
bread  for  his  dinner,  all  that  it  cost  him  is  3-JTtd. ;  while  if  he  be 
content  to  have  brain  sausage — a  favourite  dish — instead  of  calf's 
head,  it  costs  him  only  2|cZ.  And  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  he 
dines  well,  on  food  that  he  can  eat,  even  though  he  has  not  a  tooth 
in  his  head ;  on  food,  too,  that  is  cooked  by  an  expert,  and  with  a 
nice  consideration  for  his  taste.  Little  wonder  he  goes  about  with  a 
contented  air  and  faces  the  world  cheerily. 

The  portions  of  food  served  at  the  Lainz  restaurant  are  but 
small,  it  is  true :  5J  ounces  of  beef,  mutton,  or  veal — and  that  is 
counted  a  large  portion — does  not  make  much  show  when  lying  on 
a  plate  ;  and  a  great,  strong  navvy  would,  no  doubt,  scoff  at  it  were 
it  offered  to  him  after  a  hard  day's  toil.  But  at  Lainz  there  are  no 
great,  strong  navvies,  no  hard  toilers.  On  the  contrary,  there  are 
only  feeble  old  men  and  women  who,  having  done  their  work  in  life, 
have  joined  the  ranks  of  the  onlookers — a  point  which  must  be  borne 
well  in  mind  in  judging  of  the  supply  of  food  there.  And  for  feeble, 
old  onlookers  even  5J  oz.  of  anything  solid  is  probably  more  than 
they  can  digest ;  for  what  they  require,  so  far  as  food  is  concerned, 
is  quality,  not  quantity.  A  single  ounce  of  something  they  can  eat 
and  enjoy — something  soft  and  savoury — does  them  more  good 
than  a  pound  of  anything  too  hard  for  their  stumps  of  teeth,  and  not 
piquant  enough  for  their  taste.  This  is  a  fact  which  our  workhouse 

9—2 


132  A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND   HOME. 

managers   seem  quite  unable  to  comprehend,  unluckily  alike  for 
workhouse  inmates  and  for  ratepayers. 

There  is  hardly  an  old  woman  in  an  English  workhouse  who 
does  not  receive  twice  as  much  solid  food  every  day  as  she  can 
possibly  eat.  I  have  seen  again  and  again  both  old  men  and  old 
women  leave  on  their  plates  a  good  half  of  the  dinners  dealt  out  to 
them  ;  I  have  seen,  too,  old  women  smuggle  the  whole  of  the  beef 
given  them  into  their  pockets,  in  the  hope,  perhaps,  of  being  able  tol 
eat  it  unseen  later  in  the  day.  More  food  is  wasted  in  many  a  work-1 
house,  in  the  course  of  a  week,  than  at  Lainz  in  the  course  of  a  year. 
Were  there  any  real  waste  at  all  indeed  at  Lainz,  it  would  be  quite 
impossible  either  to  sell  good  food  at  the  price  at  which  it  is  sold 
in  the  restaurant,  or  to  provide  it  for  the  inmates  who  are  on  full 
rations  at  the  cost  at  which  it  is  provided.  For  the  full  cost  of  the 
food  of  these  old  people :  the  cost  of  their  morning  coffee  and  roll ; 
their  dinner  of  soup,  meat,  vegetables,  and  pudding  ;  their  afternoon 
coffee  and  cake ;  and  their  supper  of  soup  and  vegetables  or 
pudding  is  only  6rf.  per  head  a  day. 

To  be  able  to  feed  the  inmates  at  Lainz  so  extremely  well  as  they 
are  fed,  at  so  small  a  cost  as  6d.  a  day  each,  is  certainly  a  triumph 
in  its  way,  one  of  which  Vienna  has  good  reason  to  be  proud, 
especially  as  it  is  due  solely  to  skilful  organisation  and  good  manage- 
ment. Food  of  the  same  quality  and  quantity  could  hardly  be 
provided  at  double  the  cost  were  it  not  that  the  commissariat  at 
Lainz  is  worked  together  with  the  commissariat  of  all  the  Poor-law 
institutions  in  Vienna ;  were  it  not  also  that  the  working  of  it  is 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  trained  officials,  experts  in  catering  and 
cooking,  who  know  exactly  where  the  cheapest  and  best  materials 
are  to  be  obtained,  and  how  they  can  be  used  most  profitably.  If 
these  old  people  who  dine  well,  nay,  daintily,  every  day  cost  the 
Vienna  ratepayers  less  for  their  food  than  some  of  our  poorly  fed 
workhouse  inmates  cost  us,  it  is  simply  because  their  commissariat 
is  organised  on  strict  business  lines,  and  is  worked  entirely  by 
business  men  ;  whereas  the  commissariat  of  our  workhouses  is  as  a 
rule  not  organised  at  all,  and  is  worked  by  amateurs,  who  may 
perhaps  know  nothing  whatever  about  the  value  of  provisions, 
although  they  have  sometimes,  unluckily  for  ratepayers,  friends  who 
are  provision  merchants.  Were  contracts  given  out  by  the  officials 
in  Vienna  in  the  reckless  fashion  in  which  they  are  sometimes  given 
out  by  Boards  of  Guardians  here,  were  amateurs  left  to  do  the 


A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND   HOME.  133 

catering  there  as  they  are  here,  and  the  first-comer  to  do  the 
cooking,  either  the  old  people's  fare  would  soon  become  more 
meagre,  or  the  ratepayers  would  find  their  burden  waxing  still  more 
heavy.  Provisions,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  are  every  whit  as 
dear  in  Vienna  as  in  London  ;  it  can  therefore  be  owing  only  to  the 
skill  with  which  the  buying  is  done,  and  the  infinite  trouble  that  is 
taken  with  the  cooking,  that  all  these  savoury  little  dishes  are 
provided  at  the  price  at  which  they  are  provided  at  Lainz. 

Vienna  has  in  addition  to  Lainz  five  other  old-age  homes  ;  and 
they,  instead  of  each  being  worked  separately,  as  our  workhouses 
are,  are  all  worked  together  with  Lainz  and  the  other  Poor-law 
institutions,  a  fact  which  in  itself  contributes  in  a  marked  degree  to 
keep  down  not  only  kitchen  expenses,  but  expenses  of  every  kind. 
What  percentage  could  '  Lyons  '  pay,  one  wonders,  were  each  Lyons' 
shop  worked  separately.  Although  each  institution  has,  of  course, 
its  own  staff,  the  staffs  of  all  the  institutions  are  under  the  direction, 
surveillance,  and  control  of  a  section  of  the  Magistrat,  i.e.  the  paid 
expert  officials  whom  the  Municipality  appoint  to  carry  on  for  them 
the  business  of  the  town.  One  of  the  Magistrat,  the  Institutions' 
Director,  is  personally  responsible  to  the  Burgomaster,  and  through 
him  to  the  ratepayers,  for  every  penny  that  is  spent  at  Lainz,  as  at 
all  the  old-age  homes  and  other  institutions  for  the  adult  poor ; 
and  the  manager  of  each  institution  is  responsible  to  him  for  the 
work  of  that  institution.  As  the  Director  goes  about  from  home  to 
home  he  is  able  to  compare  the  expenditure  of  one  with  that  of 
another,  and  thus  to  detect  at  once  if  there  is  waste,  or  if  in  any  way 
things  are  going  wrong.  If  any  of  the  inmates  have  complaints  to 
make  against  the  home  officials,  they  make  them  to  him ;  while  if 
any  either  of  the  inmates  or  the  officials  have  complaints  to  make 
against  him,  they  send  them  to  the  Burgomaster,  through  a  letter- 
box which  he  may  not  touch,  and  which  is  so  placed  that  they  can 
slip  their  letters  into  it  unnoticed.  Once  a  month  the  Director 
holds  a  meeting  at  Lainz  for  the  purpose  of  talking  things  over  with 
the  doctors,  the  manager,  and  the  clergyman,  and  of  listening  to  any 
suggestions  they  may  have  to  make.  Inmates  who  wish  to  come 
and  talk  things  over  with  him  are  free  to  do  so  on  these  occasions, 
and  he  makes  a  point  of  listening  with  attention  to  any  suggestions 
they  may  offer,  and  of  acting  on  them  whenever  he  can. 

The  Magistrat  provide  whatever  is  required  at  Lainz,  boots  and 
shoes  as  well  as  pots  and  pans  and  soap.  As  the  supplies  are 


134  A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME. 

bought  for  all  the  institutions  together,  and  therefore  in  huge 
quantities,  they  are  obtained  of  course  at  a  much  lower  price  than 
they  could  be  obtained  were  they  bought  for  each  institution 
separately.  Besides,  owing  to  the  scale  on  which  they  do  their 
business,  the  Magistrat  are  able  to  provide  each  institution  with 
exactly  what  it  requires  ;  and,  being  experts  in  their  work,  they 
know  exactly  what  it  does  require,  and  what  quantity.  There  is 
practically  no  chance,  therefore,  of  provisions  or  anything  else  being 
either  wasted  or  purloined  as  perquisites.  There  is  no  chance  either 
of  the  drafting  in  of  articles  of  inferior  quality  being  connived  at. 
The  Commission  system,  which  has  wrought  such  havoc  with  rate- 
payers' money  in  some  English  unions,  could  not  exist  at  Lainz,  as 
the  officials  who  work  the  home  have  no  voice  in  deciding  where  its 
supplies  shall  come  from — they  do  not  as  a  rule  even  know  where 
they  do  come  from. 

The  full  cost  per  head  at  Lainz  is  Is.  5d.  a  day  ;  and  of  this,  Qd. 
covers,  as  we  have  seen,  the  cost  of  food,  while  5d.  pays  the  rent, i.e.  the 
interest  on  the  money  spent  on  building  and  furnishing  the  institution. 
The  remaining  6d.  goes  in  buying  clothes  and  other  necessaries  for 
the  inmates,  in  heating  and  lighting  the  institution,  and  keeping  it 
up  generally,  in  defraying  the  laundry  expenses,  and  in  paying  the 
salaries  of  the  officials  and  servants,  and  the  grant  to  the  Nursing 
Sisters  who  are  attached  to  the  hospital  and  infirmary  pavilions. 
Fivepence  per  head  for  rent  is  of  course  a  heavy  charge,  one  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  6d.  for  food,  and  the  other  Qd.  for  everything 
else.  The  blame  for  this,  however,  does  not  rest  in  the  Director  or 
his  officials  ;  homes  that  would  have  served  their  purpose  equally 
well  might  have  been  built  at  two-thirds  of  the  cost  of  Lainz,  had 
not  Vienna  allowed  its  love  of  sumptuous  mansions  to  get  the  better 
of  its  economy.  If  on  the  one  hand  the  charge  for  housing  be  high, 
on  the  other,  the  charge  for  administration  is  extremely  low.  The 
full  expenditure  at  Lainz  the  year  I  was  there  was  82,250L  The 
expenditure  on  provisions  was  25,571?.,  on  lighting  and  heating 
6,489L,  on  clothes,  bed  linen,  &c.,  4,174Z.,  while  on  administration, 
i.e.  salaries  of  officials,  wages,  and  rations  of  servants,  exclusive  of 
the  grant  to  the  Nursing  Sisters,  it  was  6,007Z.,  or  only  7J  per  cent. 
of  the  whole  expenditure.  Thus  this  huge  institution,  where  there 
were  then  some  3,330  old  people,  most  of  whom  were  in  feeble 
health,  living  in  great  comfort,  is  administered  at  a  less  cost  than 
many  a  third-rate  English  workhouse.  Of  the  money  spent  on 


A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME  135 

indoor  relief  in  London,  64  per  cent,  goes  in  defraying  the  cost  of 
administration. 

Administration  at  Lainz  would  undoubtedly  be  a  much  heavier 
charge  than  it  is,  were  it  not  that,  as  all  the  inmates  are  respectable, 
or  at  any  rate  demean  themselves  as  if  they  were,  there  is  no 
necessity  for  officials  to  maintain  order  among  them.  There  is  only 
one  attendant  on  each  floor  ;  and  he,  or  she,  must,  besides  taking 
care  of  the  old  people,  keep  all  the  rooms  on  the  floor  clean  with  such 
help  as  they  choose  to  give  him.  Inmates  requiring  special  nursing 
are  lodged  in  the  hospital  or  the  infirmary  pavilion,  where  they  are 
taken  charge  of  by  the  Sisters. 

There  are  old-age  homes  in  Austria,  where  the  cost  per  head  is 
lower  than  at  Lainz,  where  it  ranges  from  Is.  to  Is.  2d.  a  day ;  but 
there  is  no  home,  so  far  as  I  know,  where  a  better  return  is  obtained 
for  the  money  as  a  whole  that  is  spent  there.  For  at  Lainz  the 
old  people  are  certainly  well  cared  for  in  all  ways  ;  not  only  are 
they  well  fed  and  well  clothed,  but  they  are  well  watched  over  and 
kept  out  of  harm's  way  when  in  health,  and  are  nursed  both  skil- 
fully and  tenderly  when  ill.  What  is  more  important  still,  perhaps, 
they  are  humoured  and  much  made  of,  their  prejudices  are 
respected,  and  heed  is  paid  to  their  individual  likes  and  dislikes  and 
wishes.  All  this  entails  much  trouble  of  course  on  the  officials, 
much  taking  of  thought ;  but  it  entails  no  expense  on  the  rate- 
payers. Is.  5d.  per  head  a  day  is  not  too  high  a  price  to  pay,  surely, 
for  securing  peace  and  comfort  in  their  latter  days  for  worthy  old 
men  and  women  who  are  resting  only  because  they  no  longer  have 
the  strength  to  work.  The  most  worthless  of  old  paupers  in  a  London 
Union  costs  his  fellows  some  2s.  a  day,  unless  he  chance  to  be  in 
the  infirmary  ward,  in  which  case  he  costs  them  considerably  more. 

We  should  be  the  gainers  not  the  losers  even  financially,  it  must 
be  noted,  were  we  to  act  on  the  advice  given  both  in  the  Majority 
Report  and  the  Minority  of  the  Poor  Law  Royal  Commission,  and 
transfer  all  the  decent  old  folk,  who  are  now  living  miserably  in 
workhouses,  to  old-age  homes,  where  they  would  have  the  chance  at 
any  rate  of  living  happily.  We  might  even,  without  being  one 
penny  the  poorer,  organise  in  every  home  a  restaurant  as  at  Lainz, 
and  thus  secure  for  the  inmates  the  never-failing  satisfaction  of 
ordering  their  own  dinners.  And  what  a  difference  these  homes,  if 
we  had  them,  would  make  to  the  respectable  poor.  As  things  are, 
even  old-age  pensioners,  when  too  feeble  to  live  alone,  must,  unless 


136  A   PAUPERS'   RESTAURANT   AND    HOME. 

they  have  relatives  with  whom  they  can  live,  go  to  the  workhouse, 
where  life  is  for  them  a  burden  almost  too  heavy  to  be  borne.  And 
among  the  class  to  which  old-age  pensioners  belong,  it  is  the  many, 
not  the  few,  who  are  '  alone-standing.'  I  once  took  a  census  o!  the 
inmates  of  the  Kensington  Workhouse  who  were  above  sixty-five 
years  old.  There  were  685  of  them,  and  out  of  the  528  whom  I 
questioned  on  the  subject,  only  nine  had  relations  with  whom  they 
could  have  lived  had  they  each  had  a  pension  of  5s.  a  week. 

EDITH  SELLERS. 


137 


MADE  ABSOLUTE. 

THERE  is  something  peculiarly  depressing  about  official  furniture. 
However  much  the  Office  of  Works  may  spend  on  the  new  furniture 
of  a  room  it  remains  the  same  solemn,  matter  of  fact,  unsympathetic 
wood  and  leather  that  has  been  superseded.  I  think  one  of  the 
main  reasons  why  we  are  governed  with  so  little  imagination  and 
insight  is  that  the  work  of  governing  has  to  be  done  under  the  chilly 
and  austere  shadows  of  such  unlovely  mahogany  and  oak.  T 
should  like  to  meet  the  early  Victorian  Plymouth  Brother  who 
designs  the  bookcases  and  cupboards  of  the  Office  of  Works  and 
put  it  to  him  as  a  man  and  an  ordinary  brother  whether  Judges 
and  Commissioners  and  Referees  and  Masters  and  Secretaries  and 
permanent  officials  generally  do  not  want  to  be  cheered  through 
their  daily  task  by  something  a  little  more  humane  than  his  official 
upholstery.  But  his  defence  would  be  sound  and  honoured  by 
precedent.  He  would  point  out  that  just  as  an  official  law  or  rule 
is  not  made  to  meet  any  particular  or  individual  case,  but  rather 
to  cause  the  greatest  inconvenience  to  the  greatest  number,  so 
official  furniture  should  be  issued  from  the  Office  of  Works  upon  the 
same  principle,  and  an  official  armchair,  for  instance,  should  always 
contain  so  much  stuffing  to  so  many  yards  of  leather  and  this 
should  be  made  up  at  that  exact  angle  which  it  has  long  been 
officially  known  prevents  any  human  being  from  resting  in  it  with 
any  sense  of  comfort.  It  would  never  do  to  allow  an  official 
person  to  have  chairs  and  furniture  to  his  own  liking  ;  you  might 
as  well  let  him  use  his  own  ideas  in  the  official  affairs  he  has  to 
conduct.  Official  furniture  is  in  a  moral  as  well  as  a  physical  sense 
the  foundation  of  our  Civil  Service.  Entrap  into  your  official  room 
the  most  ardent  young  Civil  servant  fresh  from  the  University,  full 
of  ideas  and  ideals  ;  three  years  servitude  with  Office  of  Works 
furniture,  and  his  ideas  have  moulted  away,  leaving  him  a  mere 
featherless  permanent  official. 

Indeed,  it  is  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  the  Office  of  Works 
that  after  long  years  of  life  amid  these  surroundings  the  victims 
grow  used  to  them,  seem  even  to  admire  and  glory  in  them. 


138  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

Mr.  Quickenden,  Mr.  Justice  Heron's  clerk,  looked  on  the  Judge's 
room  at  the  Law  Courts  in  the  Strand  very  much  as  a  visitor  from 
Burnley  regards  his  room  at  a  big  West  End  hotel.  Mr.  Quickenden 
was  a  Westminster  Hall  clerk,  and  Mr.  Justice  Heron  was  a  West- 
minster Hall  Judge.  Both  regarded  the  little  hutches  that  leaned 
up  against  the  great  Hall  of  Westminster  as  the  last  word  in  Court 
architecture.  Both  feared  that  the  abolition  of  red  curtains  and 
hangings,  coupled  with  the  coming  of  the  Judicature  Act,  was  what 
Tennyson  foresaw  when  he  wrote  of  '  red  ruin  and  the  breaking  up 
of  laws.'  Mr.  Quickenden,  as  he  walked  out  of  the  Middle  Temple 
Lane  to  see  how  the  buildings  were  getting  on  in  the  Strand,  used 
to  shake  his  head  at  the  spires  and  tracery  and  gargoyles,  fearing 
the  worst.  But  when  the  move  was  actually  made,  and  he  had 
settled  down  in  the  Judge's  room  he  was  obliged  to  admit  that  in 
considering  the  revolutionary  spirit  that  was  abroad  the  furniture 
of  the  room  left  very  little  to  be  desired.  The  chairs,  and  par- 
ticularly the  arm-chairs,  were  of  the  correct  esoteric  official  pattern. 
True,  there  were  flamboyant  symptoms  about  the  bookcases,  but 
these  were  kept  down  by  the  weight  and  cumbrous  nature  of  their 
cornices  and  the  familiar  dulness  of  their  contents.  And  when  you 
got  past  the  furniture  to  the  white  metal  inkstand,  the  black 
leather  paper-case,  the  warning  calendar  with  its  big,  black  official 
figures,  saluting  you  every  morning  with  a  reminder  that  it  has 
finished  another  day  of  you — when  you  got  among  these  accessories 
of  depression,  you  felt  that  let  the  great  architect  build  what  palace 
he  pleases,  there  is  a  genius  in  the  Office  of  Works  that  can  assert 
itself  even  in  the  fire-irons,  if  this  should  become  necessary,  and 
stamp  out  by  means  of  a  notice  board  any  pleasaunce  of  perspec- 
tive that  the  artist  has  vainly  imagined.  There  was  only  one  thing 
in  the  room  that  Mr.  Quickenden  disapproved  of.  It  was  a  pencil 
drawing  of  a  woman's  head  which  hung  over  the  mantelpiece. 
Underneath  it  ticked  the  harsh  official  clock,  as  if  protesting  against 
its  presence,  and  Mr.  Quickenden,  when  alone,  stood  with  his  back 
to  the  mantelpiece — but  he  knew  it  was  there.  It  was  a  portrait 
of  the  late  Mrs.  Heron,  who  died  twenty  years  ago.  It  was  drawn 
by  that  great  artist  K.D.,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Victorian  era, 
when  the  pencil  was  a  mighty  weapon  in  the  armoury  of  art,  and 
even  artists  knew  how  to  draw  with  it.  A  sweet  girl's  face,  with 
large  bright  eyes,  dainty  features  and  a  neck  that  seemed  the  longer 
because  the  hair  was  drawn  back  and  rested  heavily  upon  it,  as 
was  the  simple  fashion  of  that  day.  Mr.  Quickenden's  dislike  of  it 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  139 

was  righteous,  for  every  line  of  it  was  out  of  drawing  with  the 
surroundings  in  which  he  felt  alive  and  at  home. 

One  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  there  is  a  drawback  to 
this  system  of  official  furniture.  For  with  many  individuals  it 
exercises  such  an  overpowering  effect  that  the  man  begins  to  think 
himself  as  stubborn  and  eternal  as  the  desk,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
separate  them.  If  you  walk  into  some  legal  or  government  office 
you  will  find  a  permanently  old  gentleman  at  a  desk  that  was 
middle-aged  when  it  left  the  carpenter's  shop,  and  will  be 
middle-aged  at  the  Day  of  Judgment.  The  clerk  has  got  so 
rabbeted  into  the  desk,  so  to  speak,  that  it  is  hard  to  say  where 
the  carpenter's  work  leaves  off  and  the  Creator's  work  begins. 
He  has  long  ago  ceased  to  recognise  that  whilst  the  desk 
before  him  remains  eternally  middle-aged  he  has  sacrificed  on 
its  altar  his  youth,  his  brains,  his  energy,  and  now,  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  feels  that  ripe  experience  makes  him 
of  the  greatest  value  to  the  State  and  the  office,  is  the  moment 
when  the  outside  world  has  recognised  that  as  far  as  the  human 
element  is  concerned  his  room  wants  '  beautifying,'  or  as  they  say 
in  the  South,  '  doing  up.' 

Mr.  Quickenden,  after  fourteen  years  of  the  office  of  Judge's 
clerk,  could  certainly  not  imagine  a  legal  system  continuing  in 
England  in  which  Sir  George  Heron  and  his  clerk  had  no  part.  It 
is  true  that  Mr.  Quickenden  had  little  if  any  imagination.  He  had 
lived  so  long  at  the  Temple  and  Westminster  that  the  idea  that  the 
Temple  and  Westminster  had  existed  without  him  in  the  past,  or 
could  do  so  in  the  future,  was  not  possible  to  him.  The  removal  to 
the  Strand  was  a  shock  to  him,  but  he  had  got  over  it.  He  had 
found  that  all  his  companions  had  emigrated  with  him  like 
a  swarm  of  bees.  That  made  it  more  homely.  And  in  the 
Judge's  room,  on  the  mantelpiece  next  the  official  clock,  was 
that  solid  carafe  of  water  with  a  thick  tumbler  upside  down  over 
the  neck  of  it,  emblem  of  the  substance  and  purity  of  British 
government. 

Mr.  Quickenden  for  once  in  his  life  drank  out  of  it,  and  imme- 
diately felt  less  inclined  to  fly  back  to  his  old  haunts  at  Westminster, 
as  they  say  a  cat  does  when  you  place  him  in  a  new  home  and 
have  buttered  his  toes.  And  now,  after  several  months  of  residence 
in  the  new  Courts,  he  had  found  that  officialism  in  the  Strand 
was  quite  as  official  and  sedate  and  proper  and  respectable  as  it 
had  been  at  Westminster.  He  was  settling  comfortably  in  his 


140  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

surroundings,  ticking  away  his  days  as  regularly  as  the  official 
clock  itself,  when  suddenly  a  strange  cloud  appeared  on  his  horizon 
and  he  was  troubled.  He  was  inclined  to  doubt  whether  a  thing  of 
this  kind  could  have  happened  at  Westminster. 

He  stood  at  the  window  so  that  he  might  have  the  best  light  for 
his  work.  He  was  mending  a  quill  pen  with  a  penknife.  Prob- 
ably he  was  one  of  the  few  surviving  clerks  capable  of  the  feat, 
though  it  was  a  commonplace  in  the  old  Westminster  days.  Mr. 
Justice  Heron  would  use  nothing  but  quills,  and  the  goose  quill  for 
choice.  There  is  a  filed  correspondence  between  himself  and  some 
modern  clerk  in  the  Office  of  Works  who  lowered  the  quality  of  his 
quill  supply.  What  the  Office  sought  to  save  in  quills  Sir  George 
made  them  spend  in  ink  and  paper,  not  to  mention  man's  time, 
and  on  appeal  to  the  Cabinet  his  quills  were  restored  to  him.  Mr. 
Quickenden,  as  he  mended  the  pen,  let  his  mind  cast  back  to  his 
early  career.  He  remembered  his  first  clerkship  with  that  notable 
Admiralty  practitioner,  Dr.  Bumbote,  and  then  his  promotion  to 
Halliwell  the  pleader,  and  from  him  to  his  favourite  pupil,  George 
Heron,  who  made  such  a  wonderful  career  for  himself  on  the 
Western  Circuit,  not  so  much  by  his  brilliance  as  a  speaker  as  on 
account  of  his  enormous  capacity  for  work.  Mr.  Quickenden 
thought  of  all  they  had  been  to  each  other.  A  perfectly  just, 
courteous  and  considerate  master  served  honestly  through  long 
years  by  a  punctual  and  faithful  clerk.  How  could  such  a  com- 
bination come  to  an  end  ?  Mr.  Quickenden  regarded  it  and  spoke 
of  it  as  the  poet  speaks  of  the  '  everlasting  hills,'  forgetting  that 
apart  altogether  from  avalanches  and  earthquakes  there  is  that 
continuous  daily  detritus  going  on  that  should  remind  Quickendens 
and  poets  that  both  men  and  hills  are  quite  the  reverse  of  ever- 
lasting. Mr.  Quickenden  had  had  his  warning  too.  In  his 
Admiralty  days  he  had  lived  at  Greenwich,  and  constantly  used 
the  penny  steamers,  not  only  for  his  morning  and  evening  journey, 
but  between  Westminster  and  the  Temple.  These  seemed  a  part 
of  his  life  as  everlasting  as  the  Thames  itself,  but  suddenly  they 
were  gone.  After  he  had  perforce  to  give  up  this  seafaring  life 
he  got  married  and  settled  at  Clapham.  His  wife  lived  but  a,  few 
years,  and  left  him  with  an  only  daughter,  a  child  of  considerable 
beauty.  This  girl  grew  into  his  life,  and  seemed  as  real  a  part  of  it 
as  the  law  and  Sir  George  Heron  himself.  He  pictured  to  himself 
the  long  evening  of  his  days  ministered  to  by  her  charming  presence. 
But  like  many  latter-day  ladies  she  had  ideas  of  her  own,  and 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  141 

ministering  in  seclusion  at  Clapham  to  her  excellent  father  was 
not  one  of  them. 

She  had  suddenly,  and  without  seven  days  or  any  other  formal 
notice,  in  writing  or  otherwise,  gone  on  the  stage.  She  had  done 
well  there,  too.  To-day  she  was  a  leading  lady  in  the  provinces. 
The  Judge's  clerk  objected  to  his  daughter  being  on  the  stage. 
The  daughter  objected  to  her  father  being  a  clerk,  even  a  Judge's 
clerk.  True  it  is  that  the  points  of  view  of  a  father  and  daughter 
are  too  often  joined  by  lines  of  thought  ending  in  an  obtuse  angle. 
In  this  case,  with  admirable  self-restraint,  they  cancelled  in  silence 
each  other's  disadvantages. 

Mr.  Quickenden  finished  the  pen  and  laid  it  down  in  the  pen- 
tray.  He  took  out  of  his  pocket  a  copy  of  a  newspaper  and  glanced 
at  it  in  a  disturbed  manner.  It  was  a  journal  called  '  The  Magpie.' 
Mr.  Quickenden  had  never  seen  it  before,  and  would  not  have  been 
seen  with  it  now  but  that  Hustler,  the  Master  of  the  Rolls'  clerk, 
had  said  to  him  in  the  train  that  morning,  '  Sorry  to  see  the 
"  Magpie  "  has  taken  up  your  governor,  but  it  was  sure  to  come.' 

There  was  a  column  in  that  amusing  but  outspoken  journal 
headed  '  What  the  "  Magpie  "  wants  to  know.'  It  was  surmounted 
by  a  clever  woodcut — the  *  Magpie '  was  nothing  if  not  artistic — of  a 
very  disreputable  looking  bird,  with  his  head  on  one  side,  squinting 
at  imaginary  skeletons  in  imaginary  cupboards.  Mr.  Quickenden 
knew  enough  of  the  paper  to  make  straight  for  this  column.  There 
at  the  very  head  of  it,  with  the  beak  of  the  obscene  bird  pointing  at 
it  in  derision,  was  the  following  :  '  What  we  want  to  know  is  whether 
our  brother  bird  is  going  to  hop  off  his  perch  or  be  knocked  off.' 

Now  this  could  only  refer  to  Mr.  Justice  Heron,  for  Mr.  Justice 
Swallow  was  not  appointed  until  the  year  after.  Further,  in 
some  anecdotal  paragraphs  occurred  this  story  :  '  On  a  recent 
assize  in  Lancashire  Sir  George  Heron  was  unable  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  a  witness,  who  said  the  prisoner  had  threatened  to 
knock  him  off  his  (adjective)  peark.  "  What  is  a  peark,  Mr.  Snell  ?  " 
asked  his  Lordship,  The  learned  Q.C.  was  very  ready  with  his 
reply.  "  A  peark,  my  Lord,  is  a  high  place  on  which  a  man  elevates 
himself  above  his  fellows — a  bench,  my  Lord,  for  instance."  ;  And 
then  the  *  Magpie '  croaked  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  the  cryptic 
words,  '  But  why  be  knocked  off  ;  why  not  walk  off  ?  ' 

I  do  not  think  this  in  itself  would  have  disturbed  the  faithful 
Quickenden  so  much,  for  he  knew,  as  everyone  knew,  that  the 
proprietor  of  the  '  Magpie  '  and  the  chairman  of  the  directors  of 


142  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

the  Poor  Man's  Pension  Society  were  one  and  the  same  person, 
and  it  had  fallen  to  Mr.  Justice  Heron  to  preside  at  the  trial  of  a 
case  in  which  a  poor  man  had  tried  to  recover  his  savings  from 
the  Society,  only  to  find  that  the  constitution  of  the  Society  was 
such  that  the  Society  stuck  to  the  pensions  and  the  man  who  sub- 
scribed continued  to  be  poor.  It  was  all  legal  enough,  so  the  Court 
of  Appeal  thought,  but  Mr.  Justice  Heron  had  thought  otherwise, 
and  by  his  summing  up  had  tried  to  show  that  the  law  was  not 
powerless  in  the  presence  of  an  admitted  injustice.  This  had  cost 
the  directors  of  the  Pension  Society  annoyance,  and  perhaps  some 
opprobrium,  and  they  were  naturally  dissatisfied  with  a  Judge 
whose  ignorance  of  law,  they  said,  was  the  cause  of  undeserved 
costs.  Mr.  Quickenden  knew,  too,  that  in  many  other  papers  for 
the  last  month  there  had  been  hints  that  a  certain  Judge  dozed  on 
the  Bench,  that  on  one  occasion  he  gave  an  elaborate  judgment 
using  the  word  plaintiff  throughout  instead  of  defendant,  and 
there  had  been  a  grossly  exaggerated  story  of  some  one  trying  the 
wrong  prisoner  on  the  wrong  indictment  at  Warwick  Assizes.  All 
these  things  Mr.  Quickenden  had  seen  and  accepted  as  coming 
from  the  Society's  emissaries  with  a  proper  amount  of  discount. 
But  now  came  a  new  trouble.  At  the  bottom  of  every  page  of  the 
4  Magpie,'  in  capital  letters,  was  asked  the  following  question  : 
'  What  happened  to  the  learned  Judge  when  he  left  the  Court  on 
June  15  ?  ' 

Now  June  15  was  the  day  he  had  summed  up  in  the  pension 
ease,  and  Mr.  Quickenden  knew  what  had  happened,  but  he  had  no 
idea  that  anyone  else  knew,  except  Sir  Randall  Cleave,  the  great 
physician.  Sir  George  was  at  home  at  Dorset  Square  after  that 
with  a  chill — the  general  name  for  all  official  ailments,  big  or 
little — and  since  then  there  had  been  the  Midland  Circuit  and  the 
Long  Vacation  had  supervened,  and  now  we  were  in  November. 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  Mr.  Quickenden  thrust  the 
paper  deep  into  the  pocket  of  his  frock  coat,  and  stood  short  and 
squat,  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  on  the  defensive. 

It  was  only  Mr.  Brice,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice's  clerk,  as  old  a 
friend  of  Quickenden's  as  the  Chief  was  of  Sir  George's.  Brice 
noticed  his  trouble,  and  guessing  something  of  what  had  happened 
walked  to  the  table  and  laid  a  note  from  his  master  upon  it  before 
he  spoke,  that  Quickenden  might  have  time  to  calm  himself. 

'  Ah,  Sir  George,'  he  said  with  a  sigh — clerks  had  a  playful 
custom  of  calling  each  other  by  their  master's  names  in  those 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  143 

spacious  days — *  so  you've  seen  all  about  it  ?      Well,  it  makes  my 
task  easier.' 

Mr.  Brice  was  a  big  man,  with  a  kindly,  large"  featured,  pink  and 
white  face,  and  ample  white,  smooth,  glossy  hair  of  which  he  was 
very  proud.  He  was  the  Father  of  all  the  clerks,  and  the  mere 
sight  of  him  and  his  kindly  smile  made  Quickenden  feel  less  indig- 
nant with  the  offending  bird.  He  walked  away  from  the  fire, 
took  the  paper  from  his  pocket,  and  threw  it  on  the  table. 

'  But  really,  Chief,'  he  replied,  '  ought  they  not  to  be  locked 
up  ?  Isn't  it  libel  ?  Isn't  it  contempt  of  Court  ?  ' 

'  My  dear  Sir  George,'  said  Mr.  Brice,  parting  his  frock  coat 
with  his  arms,  as  he  took  his  friend's  place  on  the  hearthrug,  '  I 
cannot  but  think  that  if  the  common  journalist  is  to  be  allowed 
to  say  just  what  he  thinks  about  her  Majesty's  judges,  the  ship 
of  state  is  steering  for  the  rocks  of  anarchy.'  The  fatherly  tone 
in  which  the  sentiment  was  expressed  seemed  to  soothe  Mr. 
Quickenden. 

'  At  the  same  time,'  continued  Mr.  Brice,  '  we  must  look  facts  in 
the  face.  This  thing  is  all  over  the  Temple.  It  touches  us  as 
nearly  as  it  touches  our  governors,  and  we  must  grapple  with  it.' 

Mr.  Quickenden  looked  at  Mr.  Brice  inquiringly.  '  What  do 
you  want  me  to  do  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  Quickenden,'  said  the  other  impressively,  shaking  a  fat  fore- 
finger at  him,  '  I  want  you  to  be  straight  with  me.  You  and  I 
have  been  clerks  together  for  nearly  forty  years.  I've  made  a 
Lord  Chief  Justice  of  my  man  and  you've  made  a  Queen's  Bench 
Judge  of  your  man.' 

'  But  don't  forget,'  interrupted  Quickenden. 

'  I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say — they  were  both  good  men 
to  start  with.  But  we  did  it,  man.  It's  done  in  the  early  days. 
Lord  !  what  we  used  to  drink  on  Circuit  in  the  old  days  to  get  them 
undesirable  clients  in  undesirable  cases/ 

The  old  man  laughed  at  the  thought.  Quickenden  tried  to 
look  as  though  he  did  not  remember  the  circumstances. 

'  After  all,'  he  said,  '  everything  must  have  its  beginning.' 

'  And  the  beginning  of  a  judge  is  a  barrister's  clerk  who  knows 
his  business.' 

Mr.  Quickenden  acknowledged  the  compliment  with  a  bow  and 
returned  it  by  reminding  Mr.  Brice  that  all  intelligent  persons  had 
in  early  days  prophesied  he  would  be  Chief  in  the  long  run. 

'  I  don't  care  to  have  it  put  that  way,'  said  Mr.  Brice  warding 


144  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

off  the  compliment  with  the  palm  of  his  hand.  '  The  governor 
has  his  points  ;  I  may  have  made  the  most  of  him,  but  I  always 
prefer  to  say  that  we  did  it.' 

'  It's  like  you,'  murmured  Mr.  Quickenden  admiringly,  '  it's 
like  you.' 

'  And  now  to  business.  You've  read  the  "  Magpie  "  ?  '  Mr. 
Brice  pointed  to  it  with  a  finger  of  scorn. 

*  It's  a  scandalous  lying  rag,'  burst  out  Mr.  Quickenden. 

'  It's  a  newspaper,'  replied  the  other  drily,  '  and  it  has  to  pay 
its  way.' 

'  It  accuses  the  Judge '  burst  out  the  angry  Quickenden. 

'  Tut-tut,  man,  it  merely  echoes  what  everyone  is  chattering 
about  in  the  Law  Courts  and  the  Temple.  Blobbs,  at  the  corner 
there,  is  sold  out  of  "  Magpies." 

'  Then  let  Blobbs  buy  in,'  replied  Mr.  Quickenden  in  the  sulks. 

'  My  dear  Quickenden,'  said  Brice  sternly,  dropping  the  more 
familiar  nickname,  '  I  am  your  friend,  but  I  am  not  a  fool.  I  came 
to  help  you  as  you  would  come  to  help  me.  In  our  profession  we 
have  to  stand  the  racket  of  our  governors'  failings.  Let  us  look 
facts  in  the  face.' 

'  What  facts,  Brice  ?  '  asked  Mr.  Quickenden  in  a  tone  that 
accepted  the  challenge. 

'  Do  you  deny,'  asked  Mr.  Brice  softly,  '  that  Mr.  Justice  Heron 
gave  judgment  in  Snooks  v.  Eoberts  using  the  word  plaintiff  in- 
instead  of  defendant  for  two  hours,  and  giving  judgment  for  the 
defendant  when  he  meant  the  plaintiff  ?  ' 

'  A  mere  slip,'  replied  Mr.  Quickenden. 

'  Hm  !  The  plaintiff  did  not  think  so.  But  how  about  trying 
the  wrong  prisoner  on  the  wrong  indictment  at  Warwick  Assizes  ?  ' 

'  I  was  out  of  Court  at  the  time,'  said  Mr.  Quickenden  and 
hung  his  head  in  shame. 

'  My  dear  fellow,'  said  Brice  in  his  softest  voice,  laying  a  fatherly 
hand  upon  his  shoulder,  '  I  know  it.  Not  one  of  us  blames  you, 
but  the  thing  happened  and  other  things  have  happened.  The 
"  Magpie  "  asks,  and  everyone  is  asking,  "  What  happened  to  the 
learned  Judge  when  he  left  the  Court  on  June  15  ?"  What  is  the 
answer  to  that  riddle  ?  ' 

'  He  caught  a  chill,'  grumbled  Mr.  Quickenden  and  moved 
away  from  Mr.  Brice's  fatherly  interest  without  looking  him  in 
the  face. 

'  A  chill  might  do  for  a  Cabinet  Minister,'  said  Mr.  Brice  shaking 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  145 

his  head  contemptuously,  '  but  it's  too  thin  for  a  judge  of  the  High 
Court !  ' 

'  Sir  Randall  Cleave  called  it  a  chill,'  said  Mr.  Quickenden 
evasively. 

'  Sir  Eandall  Cleave  is  physician  by  appointment  to  the  royal 
household.  What  do  you  call  it,  my  friend  ?  ' 

Mr.  Quickenden  looked  up  at  his  friend  and  merely  shook  his 
head  and  stared  at  him.  His  face  betrayed  nothing.  A  poet 
would  have  likened  it  to  alabaster,  an  ordinary  man  would  have 
called  it  a  waxen  mask,  a  vulgar  little  boy  would  have  hazarded 
'  putty  faced,'  but  all  would  have  agreed  that  the  precise  hue 
implied  a  desire  to  stand  alone  with  his  secret.  Mr.  Brice  appealed 
to  him  as  a  clerk  and  a  brother,  in  his  own  interest  and  that  of  his 
race,  to  unburden  his  secret  to  him,  but  Mr.  Quickenden  preserved 
a  frozen  silence. 

'  Unless  you  tell  me  what  happened  on  June  15  how  can  I 
spread  the  right  reply  about  the  Temple  ?  ' 

'  You  can't,'  said  Mr.  Quickenden  simply. 

'  Then  what's  to  be  done  ?  I  came  here  to  help  you.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  ?  '  asked  Mr.  Brice  eagerly. 

'  I'm  going  to  stick  to  the  governor,'  said  Mr.  Quickenden. 

'  It's  as  bad  as  that,  is  it  ?  '  replied  Mr.  Brice  full  of  sympathy. 
4  Well,  give  your  governor  the  Chief's  note.  You  know  I  came  to 
do  what  I  could.' 

'  I  know  it,'  said  the  other. 

They  shook  hands  in  silent  friendship  and  Mr.  Brice  passed 
softly  out  of  the  room. 

Mr.  Quickenden  took  up  the  wretched  '  Magpie '  and  thrust 
it  into  the  fire,  watching  its  blackening  and  burning  with  a  smile 
of  pleasure.  He  felt  strong  now  to  face  the  storm  that  was  coming. 
After  all,  the  accidents  of  life  that  are  thrust  upon  us  are  easy  to 
bear  in  comparison  with  those  that  we  bring  on  ourselves  by  our 
own  wrong-doing.  With  the  exception  of  the  absence  from  Court 
at  Warwick  Assizes,  Mr.  Quickenden's  conscience  was  clear.  This 
thing  that  had  befallen  them  was  not  of  his  doing,  and  he  felt 
fearless. 

And  now  Sir  George  himself  arrived.  So  upright  and  genial, 
so  handsome  and  fresh-looking  in  spite  of  his  years,  with  such 
a  bright  light  in  his  eye,  and  so  cheery  a  ring  in  his  voice,  that  his 
very  presence  put  to  flight  all  the  forebodings  that '  Magpies '  and 
other  ill-omened  ones  had  aroused  in  Mr.  Quickenden's  soul. 

VOL.    XXVIII. — XO.  163,  N.S.  10 


146  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

His  coat  off,  the  Chief's  note  was  opened  and  answered,  the 
reply  being  that  as  he,  Sir  George,  sat  at  10.30,  he  would  come  in 
at  the  adjournment  unless  it  was  a  very  urgent  matter,  when  the 
Chief  could  send  for  him  from  the  bench.    Mr.  Quickenden  was 
sent  off  with  the  note,  and  whilst  he  was  gone  Sir  George  with 
characteristic  energy  began  to  put  on  the  panoply  of  justice  before!] 
a  long  mirror.     As  he  raised  his  head  to  tie  the  strings  of  his  bandsBj 
his  eye  caught  the  pencil  portrait  over  the  mantelpiece  and  hisl 
fingers  fell  to  his  side.    He  sat  down  hurriedly  in  the  chair  by  hisl 
table  and  turned  his  back  to  the  picture. 

'  Twenty  years  to-day,'  he  muttered,  '  twenty  years  to-day. 
And  it  hits  me  as  it  did  nineteen  years  ago.  I  made  up  my  mind 
this  morning  that  I  wouldn't  think  of  it  until  the  work  was  over. 
I  begin  to  think  Cleave  is  right.  It's  time  I  gave  up.  But  that's 
absurd  when  a  man  has  so  much  work  to  do  ' — he  sighed  heavily— 
'  Ah,  and  who  is  left  to  do  it  ?  ' 

He  smiled  sadly  as  he  thought  of  his  brother  judges,  and,  ii 
turning  his  chair  round,  faced  the  picture  bravely.  It  recalled 
even  older  days  to  his  mind.  The  very  beginning  of  his  work  at 
the  Bar.  A  little  house  at  Slough  with  a  garden  and  old-fashioned 
flowers  and  a  battered  green  watering-pot.  He  began  to  worry 
about  the  green  watering-pot  and  examined  it  carefully  and 
wondered  whether  he  could  afford  a  new  one,  and  the  face  in  the 
picture,  which  had  given  itself  a  lithe,  graceful  body  and  dressed 
itself  in  a  dainty  crinoline,  was  at  his  side  hanging  on  his  arm, 
laughing  at  his  grave  looks  and  prophesying  for  him  days  to  come 
when  he  should  be  a  Lord  Chancellor  and  could  have  half  a  dozen 
watering-carts  if  he  wished.  But  he  continued  grave  and  econo- 
mical and  worried  about  the  watering-can  and  the  figure  shrank 
from  his  side  and  the  face  went  back  into  the  frame  over  the 
mantelpiece.  And  when  Mr.  Quickenden  returned  there  sat  the 
judge  in  his  shirtsleeves,  his  bands  untied,  his  face  drawn  and 
haggard,  and  his  eyes  staring  at  the  portrait  as  he  muttered  some- 
thing about  costs  and  a  watering-pot. 

It  needed  Mr.  Quickenden's  cold  touch  on  his  hand  to  arouse  | 
him,   and   he   put  on  his   robes   mechanically  as  if   dazed  with 
shock. 

He  was  arranging  his  wig  before  the  mirror  when  he  turned  i 
round  to  his  clerk  with  all  his  old  alacrity  saying,  '  By  the  by, 
Quickenden,  tell  me  again,  exactly  as  it  occurred,  what  happened  ' 
on  June  15  ?  ' 


MADE    ABSOLUTE.  147 

This  echo  of  the  '  Magpie's  '  words  startled  even  the  impassive 
Quickenden. 

'  But  surely,  my  lord,'  he  stammered,  '  Sir  Randall  said  very 
particularly  that  we  were  to  forget  all  about  it — not  to  dwell  on  it, 
in  fact.' 

'  Perhaps  he  did,  Quickenden,  and  you  are  right  to  remind 
me  of  what  he  said,  but  just  at  the  moment  I  have  made  up  my 
mind  to  remember  all  about  it,  that  is  if  I  can.  You  told  me  once, 
or  rather  you  told  Cleave,  I  was  too  ill  to  follow  it ;  tell  me  again.' 

The  judge  sat  at  his  table  trifling  with  a  quill  pen  and  listening 
intently  to  his  clerk's  statement  as  though  it  was  important 
evidence  in  a  case  he  was  trying.  Mr.  Quickenden  stood  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  table,  his  fingers  touching  the  leather,  and 
spoke  in  the  peculiar  inaudible  voice  that  a  nervous  witness 
always  uses  when  he  is  asked  to  speak  up  and  let  everyone  hear 
him. 

'  If  you  remember,  my  lord,'  murmured  Quickenden,  '  you  did 
not  adjourn  that  day.  It  was  very  warm,  and  you  had  no  lunch.' 

'  No  lunch,'  repeated  the  judge  thoughtfully  ;  '  do  speak  up, 
Quickenden.' 

'  And  it  must  have  been  nearly  six  o'clock  when  you  finished 
summing  up.' 

'  In  the  pension  case  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  my  lord.  And  you  sat  here  and  drank  a  cup  of  tea  but 
never  spoke  to  me,  and  then  the  jury  came  back  and  you  went 
into  Court,  and  on  your  return  to  this  room  you  felt  faint.' 

'  Did  I  faint  ?  ' 

'  No,  my  lord.  After  you  had  taken  off  your  robes  you  said 
you  wanted  some  fresh  air  and  would  walk  part  of  the  way  home. 
I  wanted  to  call  you  a  cab,  but  you  shook  your  head,  and,  putting 
me  aside,  went  out  of  the  room.' 

'  Why  did  you  follow  me,  Quickenden  ?  ' 

'  I  can't  say,  my  lord  ;   you  seemed  strange  and  tired — 

'  Let  us  call  it  instinct  or  commonsense  ;  they  are  much  the 
same  things.' 

'  I  think  I  thought  of  persuading  your  lordship  to  take  a  cab, 
but  when  you  left  the  building  you  turned  up  Fleet  Street  and 
walked  at  a  rapid  pace  eastward  round  St.  Paul's,  and  turned  up 
by  the  Post  Office.  It  was  here  I  came  up  to  you  and  spoke  to 
you,  but  you  did  not  seem  to  remember  me.  You  said  something 
about  the  Institution.' 

10—2 


148  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

'  Did  I  ?  The  old  Aldersgate  Institution — I  used  to  attend 
a  debating  club  there.  How  many  years  ago,  I  wonder.' 

'  I  called  a  cab,  my  lord,  then,  and  you  came  with  me  to  Dorset 
Square.  You  never  spoke  a  word  to  me  in  the  cab.  When  you 
were  at  home  I  went  at  once  for  Sir  Randall  Cleave.  That  is  all, 
my  lord.' 

The  judge  laid  down  his  pen  with  a  pleasant  laugh.    He  was 
himself  again.     The  cloud  had  passed  away,  and  he  was  as  ready 
and  fit  for  work  as  ever  he  had  been.     He  summed  it  up  strongly! 
in  his  own  favour. 

'  A  very  clear  statement,  Quickenden,  of  a  very  commonplace 
affair.    I  was  fatigued  and  tired  in  mind  and  body.     I  had  been 
burning  the  candle  at  both  ends,  and  I  must  have  let  my  mind 
run  on  younger  days  and  imagined  for  the  moment  I  was  going 
down  to  one  of  the  old  debates  at  Aldersgate.     One  talks  of  day- 
dreams, I  must  have  experienced  a  day-dream.     Cleave  rather 
frightened  me.     He  would  keep  talking  about  mental  wear  and 
tear,  and  about  rest  being  as  essential  for  the  mind  as  the  body.  | 
At  last  I  got  quite  angry  with  him  and  asked  him  point-blank  if 
he  meant  to  threaten  me  with  insanity.     He  laughed — at  least,! 
he  didn't  laugh  actually,  of  course — but  there  was  an  end  of  the  I 
matter.    No,  I  must  be  careful,  that  is  all,  there  are  many  good 
years  of  work  in  me  yet.     Eh,  Quickenden  ?  ' 

'  My  lord- 
It  came  with  a  sob,  but  the  judge  continued  his  own  thoughts, 
not  heeding  it. 

'  And  then  I  must  have  my  work.  I  have  nothing  else  to  live 
for.  I  must  finish  in  harness.  And  keep  good  hours  to  the  end, 
too,'  he  continued  cheerily.  '  It  is  half-past  ten,  isn't  it  ?  ' 

'  It  wants  two  minutes,  my  lord.' 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door.  Quickenden  opened  it  and 
ushered  in  the  Attorney-General.  Then  he  withdrew. 

The  Attorney-General  was  not  a  persona  grata  with  Sir  George  i 
Heron.  It  was  not  that  he  disliked  the  man,  but  he  did  not  under- 
stand the  type.  The  Bar  in  Sir  George's  day  belonged  to  big 
handsome  men,  of  fine  stature  and  well-modelled  features.  It 
belonged  to  men  who  could  speak  in  periods  and  end  in  perorations, 
and  if  necessary  drop  Wegg-like  into  Latin  verse,  spoken  in  a  firm 
British  accent.  There  were  traditions  of  honour  and  of  etiquette 
which  took  rank  with  honour,  and  it  was  as  necessary  that  the 
case  should  be  conducted  with  clean  hands  as  that  the  advocate 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  149 

should  conduct  it  with  a  clean-shaven  face.  These  were  the  ideals 
of  Westminster  Hall,  and  to  that  school  belonged  Sir  George 
Heron. 

The  Attorney-General  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  but  he  was 
a  small  built  man  with  a  moustache.  As  Kirwan,  Q.C.,  said  of 
his  appointment,  '  He  might  look  the  Attorney  but  never  the 
General.'  In  his  early  days  he  had  started  a  prosperous  career  by 
a  calm  disregard  of  etiquette  and  a  steady  capacity  for  garnering 
forbidden  fruit.  In  the  beginning  he  was  unpopular  and  slighted. 
Now  he  was  unpopular  and  flattered.  It  made  little  difference 
to  him.  He  was  a  strong  man  made  to  win  and  succeed,  and 
what  others  thought  of  him  mattered  not  at  all. 

The  judge  motioned  him  to  a  chair.  '  What  can  I  do  for  you, 
Mr.  Attorney  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  I  have  a  message  to  you  from  the  Chief  Justice,  also  from  the 
Chancellor.  They  asked  me  to  see  you  first.' 

Sir  George  sat  down  opposite  the  Attorney- General  wondering 
what  it  might  be.  Each  in  his  official  robes  and  sitting  stiffly  in 
an  official  chair  gazed  at  the  other  with  official  curiosity.  Official 
furniture  frowned  down  officially  upon  them.  Only  the  sweet 
pencilled  face  of  Margaret  Heron  gave  a  touch  of  humanity  to  the 
surroundings.  Had  you  been  present  at  the  interview  you  might 
have  taken  it  to  concern  the  drafting  of  interrogatories  or  the 
settlement  of  a  special  case,  and  not  the  opening  of  a  tragedy. 
It  was  a  discussion  between  two  officials  and  not  a  conversation 
between  two  men,  and  that  was  why  it  was  dry  and  cruel  and 
horrible  as  a  feast  where  no  love  is. 

'  I  have  no  time  to  beat  about  the  bush,  Sir  George.' 

'  I  have  no  wish  that  you  should,'  interrupted  the  judge.  '  I  am 
due  in  Court.' 

'  Your  punctuality  is  well  known.'  Sir  George  bowed.  '  Let 
me  ask  you  if  you  have  noticed  of  late  in  several  newspapers,  some 
of  them  newspapers  of  standing,  paragraphs  uncomplimentary  to 
a  member  of  the  Bench  ?  ' 

'  I  have  and  with  regret.  The  habit  of  common  journals 
criticising  her  Majesty's  judges  is  a  departure  from  the  higher 
manners  of  journalism  that  prevailed  in  the  Westminster  days.' 

'  We  move  with  the  times.' 

'  Not  necessarily  forward,'  murmured  Sir  George. 

'  And  bluntly  what  I  have  to  ask  you  is,  what  have  you  to  say 
about  those  paragraphs  ?  '  • 


150  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

'  Why  should  I  say  anything  ?  '  asked  Sir  George  simply.  '  It 
is  not  for  me  to  criticise  my  brother  judges.' 

'  Your  brother  judges  ?  I  don't  understand  you.  To  whom  do 
you  suppose  those  paragraphs  refer  ?  ' 

'  As  we  are  alone,'  replied  Sir  George,  '  I  may  speak  openly. 
They  can  only  refer  to  one.  I  have  had  it  in  my  mind  that  as  a 
senior  judge  it  was  perhaps  for  me  to  approach  him  and  to  speak  in 
a  friendly  way  about  it.  What  do  you  think  ?  ' 

The  Attorney-General  sat  open-mouthed  in  amazement. 

'  You  mean  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  The  Lord  Chief  Justice,'  said  Sir  George  calmly. 

The  first  impulse  of  the  Attorney-General  was  to  throw  back 
his  head  and  laugh  aloud,  but  he  came  from  the  North  of  Ireland, 
and  his  sense  of  business  overcame  his  sense  of  humour. 

'  You  are  mistaken,  Sir  George,'  he  said  curtly  ;  '  they  are 
meant  for  you.' 

'  Me  !  '  gasped  the  judge.  '  Me  !  Do  I  sleep  openly  on  the 
Bench  ?  Do  I  muddle  up  my  cases  ?  ' 

'  As  to  sleeping,  you  know,'  said  the  Attorney-General  soothingly, 
'  you  must  remember  that  the  Lord  Chief  is  an  adept.  He  always 
rests  his  nose  on  his  fingers  and  remains  perfectly  still  after  he  has 
awakened.  Then  he  asks  a  question  about  something  that  has 
happened  a  little  while  ago.  It  is  impossible  to  say  at  any  given 
time  that  the  Chief  really  is  asleep.  But  this  affair  is  not  a  matter 
of  trifles  of  this  kind.' 

'  What  is  it  then  ?  '  asked  Sir  George,  his  handsome  face  white 
and  stern. 

'  There  is  to  be  a  question  in  the  House  to-day.  It  is  openly 
said  that  at  the  time  you  tried  the  pension  case  you  were  mentally 
unfit  to  sit  on  the  Bench.  That  your  illness  afterwards  was  a  brain 
illness.  That  Kandall  Cleave,  your  doctor,  told  you  so,  and  that 
you  have  had  attacks  since.' 

'  And  where  does  this  scandal  come  from  ?  ' 

'  Well,  of  course,  the  "  Magpie  "  has  made  itself  very  promi- 
nent— 

Sir  George  looked  scornfully  at  the  Attorney-General  as  though 
he  had  been  the  offending  bird  himself. 

'  And  I  suppose,'  he  said  contemptuously,  '  this  attack  in  the 
House  is  being  engineered  by  the  same  people  ?  ' 

'  Very  likely,  Sir  George  ;  but  what  I  want  to  know,  and  the 
Chancellor  wants  to  know,  is  that  we  have  your  authority  to  deny 
these  statements.' 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  151 

'  You  have  my  authority  to  assert  nothing  and  to  deny  nothing. 
I  am  due  in  Court,  Mr.  Attorney.' 

'  You  will  see  that  I  was  bound — 

'  You  have  done  your  task  with  great  tact  and  discretion, 
Mr.  Attorney,  if  I  may  say  so.  Convey  my  thanks  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor.  Tell  him  I  am  in  excellent  health,  and  looking  at  the 
weakness  of  the  Bench  to-day,  and  may  1  say  it  without  offence, 
the  not  very  promising  material  at  the  Bar,  I  think  it  my  duty  to 
remain  at  my  post.  Good  morning,  Mr.  Attorney.' 

Sir  George  touched  a  bell.  Mr.  Quickenden  entered,  and  the 
Attorney-General  hurried  away  muttering  to  himself  as  he  bustled 
down  the  corridor,  '  I  wonder  if  conceit  is  another  form  of 
insanity.' 

Poor  Sir  George  stood  with  his  hands  on  the  mantelpiece  gazing 
at  the  pencil  portrait.  Fairer  than  ever  seemed  Margaret's  face  in 
its  clear  leaden  outline.  Flaxen  colour  came  into  the  cunning  lines 
of  the  hair  drawn  straight  back  above  the  ears  in  the  old  simple 
fashion,  blushing  colour  came  into  the  cheeks,  and  the  lips  grew 
cherry  red  and  seemed  almost  to  move  as  he  gazed  at  the  face  with 
tears  in  his  eyes.  What  was  it  that  brought  tears  into  his  eyes  ? 
The  memory  of  that  terrible  morning  twenty  years  ago  or  the 
knowledge  that  what  he  had  listened  to  to-day  was  true,  that  his 
work  on  earth  was  over,  and  he  had  to  face  dreary  years  of  vacant 
lonely  life  with  dwindling  mental  powers  and  no  usefulness  in  his 
days  until  the  release  came — unless  he  released  himself.  But  the 
standards  of  life  that  Sir  George  lived  by  forbade  even  the  thought 
of  it,  and  the  sweet  face  in  the  frame  above  him  denied  the  possi- 
bility of  it.  As  he  stood  there  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  been 
praying  to  a  saint  for  guidance  and  the  holy  image  had  moved  to 
him  and  answered  his  prayer. 

Mr.  Quickenden  paused  for  him  to  turn,  but  as  he  did  not  move 
he  spoke  to  him. 

'  It  is  time  to  go  into  Court,  my  lord.' 

'  Thank  you,  Quickenden.  Thank  you.  I  must  write  a  letter 
first.' 

He  turned  to  the  table  and  wrote  a  few,  short,  clear  words,  which 
he  directed  to  the  Lord  Chief  Justice. 

'  To-morrow,  Quickenden,  you  must  come  to  my  house  about 
ten  o'clock.  Give  this  note  yourself  to  the  Chief's  clerk.  It  is  my 
resignation.' 

'  My  lord  !  '  sobbed  out  Quickenden. 


152  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

'  Open  the  door,  please,'  said  Sir  George  sternly.  '  I  have  one 
day's  work  before  me  yet.' 

Mr.  Quickenden  opened  the  opposite  door,  which  led  into  the 
Court.  He  pushed  back  the  curtains  and  entered  into  Court. 
A  wave  of  leather  atmosphere  floated  into  the  room  with  the 
noise  of  ushers  and  the  calling  of  silence  and  the  rustling  of  robes 
and  the  shuffling  of  feet  of  a  crowded  Court  rising  to  meet  the 
judge. 

'  Strange,'  thought  Sir  George,  '  that  I  am  hearing  these  sounds 
for  the  last  time,'  and  he  paused  on  the  threshold  of  the  Court. 

He  turned  back  to  look  at  his  empty  room,  and  was  surprised  to 
see  the  tall  figure  of  a  handsome  woman  in  a  long  purple  cloak,  with 
the  hood  thrown  over  her  head,  standing  beckoning  slowly  to  him 
to  return. 

'  Who  are  you,  madam  ?  '  he  asked  in  grave  surprise. 

The  figure  seemed  to  speak  to  him,  and  he  repeated  her  words 
to  himself  in  a  tone  of  wonder.  '  A  friend  of  Margaret's  !  A  friend 
of  Margaret's  ! ' 

'  And  you  want  to  speak  with  me  ?  '  he  asked. 

She  raised  her  hand  in  an  action  of  command,  and  he  seemed  to 
hear  a  voice  calling  him  as  of  a  good  mother  speaking  to  a  good 
child.  The  wants  of  the  public  and  the  suitors  faded  away.  There 
was  nothing  now  that  seemed  necessary  to  Sir  George  but  to  attend 
to  the  friend  of  Margaret  and  to  do  what  she  wished.  He  came 
back  into  the  room,  closing  the  door  behind  him,  and  felt  that  he 
had  shut  the  Court  out  of  his  life  for  ever.  He  sat  down  at  his  table 
and  taking  up  his  quill  tapped  it  gently  on  the  table  as  he  gazed  at 
the  calm  handsome  woman  before  him  and  inquired  of  her  what 
she  wanted. 

She  did  not  speak,  but  stood  motionless  at  the  foot  of  the  table, 
with  her  arms  folded  across  her  breast.  The  heavy  folds  of  her 
purple  hood  shrouded  her  face,  but  some  rays  of  light  struggled 
through  the  fabric  and  cast  a  cold  violet  hue  over  her  pale  features. 
Her  face  seemed  of  marble,  smoothly  chiselled,  and  gravely  classical 
in  each  line.  It  was  so  much  a  sculptured  face  that  in  the  uncertain 
November  light  the  eyes  of  it  seemed  closed  and  vacant  as  are  the 
eyes  of  a  marble  figure.  But  in  spite  of  this  the  face  shone  with  the 
calm  dignity  of  eternal  motherhood,  and  the  absent  eyes  seemed 
to  throw  into  the  soul  of  the  man  before  her  rays  of  pity  and  love. 

His  sight  seemed  to  grow  dim,  and  he  shrouded  his  eyes  with  his 
hand  as  he  looked  at  her  curiously. 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  153 

'  And  so  you  knew  Margaret,'  he  said,  after  a  pause.  '  It  seems 
a  very  long  time  ago.' 

The  marble  figure  smiled  sweetly. 

'  I  try  to  remember  her,  too.  I  try  to  see  her  as  she  was  in  the 
pencil  drawing  there  ;  but  of  late  whenever  I  picture  her  she  is 
lying  in  the  little  church  at  Heronsford,  in  the  East  Chapel.  Do 
you  know  the  sculpture  ?  ' 

The  figure  bowed. 

'  A  beautiful  piece.  Call  it  what  you  please  :  "  Rest,"  "  Sleep," 
the  end  of  all  things,  but  not  Margaret ;  not  Margaret ;  and  yet  it 
is  all  I  can  remember  of  her  now.  I'm  glad  you  knew  Margaret. 
But  your  business,  madam,  your  business  ?  I'm  sorry  to  be  in  a 
hurry,  but  they  are  waiting  for  me  in  Court.' 

The  marble  figure  moved  as  if  to  speak. 

'  Stop,  if  you  please,  stop  !  '  cried  the  judge  testily,  '  that  is 
what  the  papers  say.  A  stale  slander.  You  read  it  as  all  the  world 
has  read  it,  but  you  don't  believe  it  ?  You  are  a  friend  of  Margaret. 
You  can't  believe  it.  Do  you  think  she  would  have  believed  it  ?  ' 
he  said  sternly,  pointing  with  outstretched  finger  to  the  portrait. 
"  Not  if  it  had  been  true.  Never  !  And  you  are  her  friend.  Then 
can't  you  see  that  I  must  stick  to  my  post  ?  I'll  write  again  to  the 
Chief.  I  must  show  them  all  they  are  wrong.  There's  another 
case  of  those  pension  fellows — who  is  to  try  that  ?  ' 

There  was  a  pause  as  the  judge  listened  for  her  answer.  No 
word  came,  but  the  judge  replied  as  if  she  had  spoken  his  own 
thoughts.  '  Johnson  !  '  he  laughed  contemptuously.  '  Mr.  Justice 
Johnson  !  My  dear  madam,  consider.  You  don't  know  Johnson. 
Between  ourselves — and  I  speak  to  you  as  I  would  to  Margaret 
herself — why  was  Johnson  made  a  judge  ?  Because  no  con- 
stituency would  elect  him  and  his  party  hadn't  a  safe  seat  when 
the  vacancy  happened.  It  is  because  of  all  these  Johnsons  that 
I  cannot  go.  No,  madam.  Duty  !  Duty  !  And  now  you  must 
excuse  me.  They  are  waiting  for  me  in  Court.' 

But  the  judge  did  not  rise  from  his  chair.  He  sat  back  with  his 
eyes  half  closed  and  seemed  to  forget  the  presence  of  the  visitor. 
She  for  her  part  never  moved,  but  stood  shining  pity  and  love  upon 
him  and  waiting — patiently  waiting. 

Presently  he  stirred  and,  opening  his  eyes,  saw  the  figure  still 
before  him. 

'  Dear  me,  how  forgetful  I  am,'  he  murmured.  '  I  never  asked 
your  name.'  He  smiled  sadly  and  half  apologetically.  '  Or  did 


154  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

I  ask  your  name  and  have  I  forgotten  it  ?  I  forget  everything 
nowadays — everything.' 

The  figure  raised  a  white  hand  as  if  to  bless  him,  and  the  lips 
moved  again,  but  no  sound  came.  The  judge  half  rose  in  his  chair 
as  if  to  look  at  her  face  more  closely,  and  then  sank  back  with  a  sigh 
of  content. 

'  So  you  are  the  Angel  of  Death.  Well,  you  are  welcome.  I 
knew  you  were  coming.  I  understand  now — the  Angel  of  Death — 
And  that  is  how  you  knew  Margaret.' 

There  was  a  long  silence.  The  judge  lay  back  in  his  chair,  his 
eyes  closed  as  if  in  sleep.  Still  the  figure  stood  motionless,  her  arms 
again  crossed  on  her  breast,  waiting — patiently  waiting. 

There  was  no  sound  to  break  the  stillness  of  it  all  but  the  tick 
of  the  official  clock  checking  off  the  official  hours  as  it  had  done  and 
would  continue  to  do  for  countless  official  years.  And  the  several 
pieces  of  official  furniture  looked  on  unmoved  at  the  last  scene  in  the 
drama  of  Sir  George  Heron's  life.  It  was  nothing  to  them  that 
one  more  piece  of  furniture  was  to  be  struck  off  the  official  inventory 
and  a  new  one  of  the  old  pattern  was  to  be  substituted.  It  was 
nothing  to  the  world  outside  for  the  matter  of  that,  for  they  were 
used  to  read  in  the  papers  of  judges  who  died  and  of  new  judges 
who  were  appointed.  Looking  at  it  from  a  sane  point  of  view,  as 
Sir  George  Heron  did  when  he  opened  his  eyes  again,  it  was  really 
almost  a  personal  matter  between  himself  and  the  Angel.  But  as 
it  had  come  before  him  in  the  form  of  an  application  in  chambers 
it  ought  to  be  argued  properly,  and  he  ought  to  hear  it  and  give 
judgment.  He  looked  at  the  figure  before  him,  and  speaking  slowly 
and  deliberately,  said  :  '  You  see,  madam,  these  things  must  be  done 
by  rule.  The  first  point  is,  do  you  object  to  my  hearing  the  case, 
my  own  case  as  it  were  ?  ' 

The  figure  slightly  inclined  her  head. 

'  I  shall  judge  the  matter  fairly.  You  need  not  be  afraid  to 
trust  me. 

He  drew  himself  up  to  the  table  in  his  old  alert  manner,  and  took 
up  the  quill  that  had  fallen  from  his  hand. 

'  Let  us  put  the  matter  fairly  and  squarely  towards  both  of  us,' 
he  said.  '  You  are  in  the  position  of  having  a  rule  nisi  against 
every  man  and  woman  in  the  world,  and  you  come  to  m«  at  your 
own  time  and  say  to  me.  "  Show  cause  why  it  should  not  be  made 
absolute." ' 

The  figure  bowed  assent. 


MADE   ABSOLUTE.  155 

'  Good,'  continued  Sir  George.  '  That  is  a  very  fair  proposition. 
The  best  course  seems  to  be  for  me  to  show  cause  and  then  you  shall 
have  your  reply.  Now  let  me  put  my  position  in  a  few  words.  I 
think  I  can  make  a  clear  and  collected  statement  yet,  in  spite  of 
what  my  enemies  say.  And  first  do  not  think  that  I  am  one  of 
those  that  fear  the  end.  I  have  played  cricket  in  my  time,  and  when 
the  umpire  holds  up  his  hand  I  shall  know  how  to  walk  back  to  the 
pavilion.  Moreover,  I  am  tired  and  want  rest,  and  though  sleep  is 
rest  I  do  not  get  much  sleep  nowadays.  And  1  know  you  can  give 
me  a  sleep  better  than  all  sleep.  So  when  I  show  cause  I  show  it 
not  for  myself  but  for  others.  1  look  across  at  Margaret's  face  and 
say  with  truth  I  had  rather  trust  you  and  go  with  you  than  stay  here 
working.  But  then,  think  what  it  means.  Do  you  know  what  my 
work  has  been  ?  Do  you  know  if  it  has  been  done  well  or  ill  ?  Do 
you  know  how  it  will  be  done  if  I  leave  it  ?  I  see  you  won't  grant 
me  all  this.' 

The  figure  shook  her  head  and  smiled  gently. 

'  You  cannot  make  me  believe,'  said  Sir  George  earnestly,  '  that 
I  am  not  wanted.  Here,  in  these  very  Courts,  at  this  very  time. 
You've  got  to  convince  me  that  I  am  wrong  about  that.  The 
Attorney- General  couldn't.  Come,  what  is  your  reply  ?  ' 

He  sat  in  his  chair  looking  at  the  figure  before  him,  but  no  sound 
came.  Slowly  his  eyelids  sank,  the  quill  dropped  from  his  hand, 
and  he  lay  back  in  the  chair,  and  the  figure  stood  before  him  silently 
shining  pity  and  love  upon  him,  and  waiting — patiently  waiting. 

And  the  reply  that  he  heard  was  after  all  his  own  reply. 

'  Speak  up,  madam ;  please  to  speak  up,'  he  murmured.  '  This 
is  a  bad  Court  for  hearing.  Nothing  to  the  Westminster  Courts. 
Thank  you.  Yes,  I  remember  my  schooldays.  1  remember  when 
I  was  head  of  the  school  and  captain  of  the  eleven.  Well,  perhaps 
I  did  think  there  could  be  no  eleven  without  me.  You  know  what 
boys  are.  And  to  be  honest,  I've  never  seen  an  eight  like  the  one 
we  took  to  Putney.  And  then  at  the  Bar  I  led  the  Circuit  for  a 
time.  That  was  when  Grimble  was  made  a  judge.  No,  I  can't 
honestly  say  I  made  a  better  leader  than  Grimble  ;  but  when  I  left 
they  all  recognised  I  had  upheld  our  old  traditions.  That  is  what 
I  fear.  The  old  things  falling  away  and  no  one  here  to  keep  the 
standard  upright.' 

He  seemed  to  listen  intently,  as  though  the  argument  was 
convincing  him,  capturing  him  body  and  soul. 

Then   he   continued  in   a   weaker  voice,  pausing  from   time 


156  MADE   ABSOLUTE. 

to  time,  and  speaking  with  increasing  effort.  '  Yes.  I  see  your 
point  .  .  .  You  argue  that  there  is  a  little  life  and  a  little 
death  in  each  career  we  pass  through.  Yes.  I  grasp  it. 
...  So  that,  without  knowing  it,  in  each  stage  we  are  being 
trained  for  the  last  day  when  the  last  rule  is  made  absolute. 
.  .  .  And  we  must  leave  the  new  eleven  to  find  its  new  captain.  .  .  . 
You  are  right.  ...  I  have  sat  so  long  here  among  these  books  and 
their  cases  that  I  have  got  to  think  myself  as  necessary  a  piece  of 
furniture  as  the  rest  of  them.  .  .  .  Whereas,  as  you  say  truly,  man 
wears  out  quicker  than  wood  and  leather.  Cleave  was  right.  I 
know  as  well  as  he  knew  and  as  all  my  neighbours  know  .  .  .  Yes 
.  .  .  my  brain  is  going.  .  .  .  Well,  something  must  go  some  day. 
Certainly  .  .  .  Certainly  .  .  .  And  it  isn't  really  sad.  Only  I've 
been  a  coward  over  it.  I  could  not  face  it  at  first.  I  tried  to 
deceive  others  and  was  foolish  enough  not  to  be  honest  with  myself. 
.  .  .  There  is  no  greater  folly  than  that.  .  .  .  Yes  .  .  .  The 
Court  thanks  you  for  your  argument  ...  It  is  unanswerable.  .  .  . 
The  rule  must  be  made  absolute.' 

He  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  at  the  figure  with  a  brave  smile. 
'  One  moment,  madam,  before  I  give  judgment,'  he  said.  '  I  see 
you  were  indeed  a  friend  of  Margaret's.  Will  you  be  my  friend  ?  ' 

The  judge  rose  with  difficulty  from  his  chair  and  stretched  out 
a  hand  to  the  beautiful  figure  before  him.  Gladly  she  placed  her 
cold  hand  in  his,  and  there  was  joy  in  both  their  faces. 

He  fell  back  slowly  in  the  chair. 

'  You  are  entitled  to  judgment,'  he  murmured,  '  the  rule  nisi 
will  be  made  absolute.' 

There  was  a  pause,  and  he  spoke  as  if  he  was  passing  away  into 
sleep. 

'  Judgment.  Yes,  and  the  costs.  ...  No  !  ...  No  !  ... 
I  remember.  .  .  .  The  Angel  of  Death  does  not  ask  for  costs.' 

EDWARD  A.  PARRY. 


157 

THE   OSBORNES.^ 
BY  E.  F.  BENSON. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  stay  in  Venice  had  naturally  curtailed  for  Mrs.  Osborne  the 
weeks  of  her  London  season,  but  she  had  never  intended  to  begin 
entertaining  on  the  scale  required  by  the  prodigious  success  of  the 
fancy-dress  ball  last  year  till  after  Whitsuntide.  Before  leaving 
town  in  May  she  had  sent  out  all  invitations  for  the  larger  functions 
(except  those  which  her  invited  guests  subsequently  asked  for  on 
behalf  of  their  friends,  and  which  she  always  granted),  and  it  was 
clear  that  the  world  in  general  was  going  to  pass  a  good  deal  of  its 
time  at  No.  92.  Indeed,  when  she  went  through  her  engagement 
book  on  her  return  from  Venice  to  Grote,  hospitable  though  she 
was,  and  greatly  enjoying  the  exercise  of  that  admirable  virtue, 
she  was  rather  appalled  at  the  magnitude  of  what  she  had  under- 
taken. She  was  going  to  give  three  balls  (real  balls),  three  concerts, 
two  big  dinner  parties  every  week,  and  a  series  of  week-ends  down 
at  Grote,  while  on  such  other  nights  as  she  was  not  dining  out 
herself  there  were  a  series  of  little  parties.  In  addition  Sheffield 
friends  were  coming  to  stay  with  them  for  the  insides  of  weeks 
to  finish  up  with  one  of  the  Grote  week-ends.  These  visits  she 
looked  forward  to  with  peculiarly  pleasant  anticipations,  for  the 
dear  soul  could  not  but  feel  an  intense  and  secret  gratification  at 
the  thought  of  such  local  celebrities  as  Sir  Thomas  and  the  Prices 
seeing  her  and  Mr.  0.  absolutely  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  and  enter- 
taining princes  and  duchesses  and  what  not  just  as  they  had  enter- 
tained aldermen  and  manufacturers  at  Sheffield.  Also  there  was 
a  secret  that  Mr.  Osborne  had  told  her,  which  filled  her  with  feelings 
that  were  almost  too  solemn  to  be  glee.  The  secret  was  not  to  be 
talked  about  yet,  but  in  private  he  no  longer  called  her  Mrs.  0., 
but  '  my  lady.'  She  hoped  Sir  Thomas  would  be  with  them  when 
the  honours  were  published,  for  secretly  she  still  took  her  bearings, 
so  to  speak,  by  the  stars  as  they  appeared  in  Sheffield.  There 
Sir  Thomas  Ewart,  Bart.,  and  Lady  had  been  the  very  Pole-star  to 
1  Copyright,  1909,  by  E.  F.  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


158  THE   OSBORNES. 

which  quite  important  constellations  reverently  pointed.  But 
now,  as  by  some  new  and  wonderful  telescope,  she  saw  herself  and 
Mr.  0.  high  above  Sir  Thomas.  Why,  even  Per  would  be  the 
Honourable  Per,  and  Sir  Thomas  would  have  to  say,  '  After  you, 
Per,  my  boy.'  She  and  Mr.  0.  had  already  had  more  than  one 
broken  night  in  thinking  of  a  title  which  he  could  submit  for 
approval.  Mrs.  Osborne  was  all  for  something  old  and  territorial. 
'  There's  Hurstmonceaux,  my  dear,'  she  said,  '  that  ruined  old 
castle  which  we  drove  over  to  see  when  you  was  down  at  Hastings 
with  your  attack  of  gout.  I  don't  doubt  you  could  buy  it  for  a 
song,  and  there  you'll  be.' 

'  And  then  next  you'd  be  wanting  me  to  do  up  the  Castle  and 
live  in  it,'  said  he.  '  Besides,  it's  a  regular  stumper  to  say,  and 
French  at  that.  No,  my  dear,  we  must  think  of  something  more 
British  than  that ;  there's  plenty  of  good  names  without  crossing 
the  Channel,  so  to  speak,  for  something  to  call  yourself  by.  But 
it's  puzzling  work,  and  new  to  me,  to  have  to  think  of  christening 
yourself  afresh.' 

'  Lor5,  Mr.  Osborne,  you  don't  mean  to  say  that  you've  got  to 
change  your  Christian  name,  too  ? ' 

'  No,  no,  my  dear.     There's  no  Christian  name  to  bother  about ; 
I  don't  deal  any  more  in  Christian  names — not  officially  anyhow.' 
He  blew  out  the  light. 

'  Good-night,  my  dear,'  he  said.     '  And  God  bless  you.' 
It  was  all  very  well  to  say  '  Good-night,'  but  Mrs.  Osborne  could 
no  more  sleep  than  she  could  think  of  a  name.     After  an  interval 
she  heard  Mr.  Osborne  turn  himself  ponderously  round  in  his  bed, 
and  knew  that  he  was  awake  too. 

'  There's  some  things  called  "  Hundreds,"  '  she  said.  '  I  seem 
to  remember  that  all  England  is  cut  up  into  Hundreds,  which  is 
a  queer  thing  to  think  upon.  It'll  be  worth  while  seeing  in  what 
Hundred  the  East  End  of  Sheffield  lies.' 

'  There's  something  in  that,'  said  Mr.  Osborne,  '  and  it  would 
bring  the  business  into  it.  Lor',  Mrs.  Osborne,  my  lady,  I'm  glad 
I  had  nothing  to  say  to  a  knighthood  five  years  ago.  I'd  have  been 
put  on  the  shelf  for  good  if  I'd  jumped  at  it.  But  not  I !  It's  this 
parliamentary  business  coming  on  top  of  all  I  did  at  Sheffield  that 
has  given  the  extra  turn.  And  I've  been  liberal,  I'm  sure,  to  the 
party.  What  was  the  name  of  the  street  now  where  I  built  the 
church  in  Sheffield  ?  I  declare  it's  gone  out  of  my  head.  Thinking 
of  new  names  drives  the  old  ones  out.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  159 

'  Commercial  Road,  my  dear,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne,  '  for  I  thought 
of  the  name  myself  when  you  was  building  the  street.' 

'  Then  we  ain't  no  further  on  yet.  Grote,  too ;  that's  not  to 
be  thought  of,  as  it's  Lord  AustelPs  second  title.' 

'  After  all,  we  only  take  the  place  on  hire,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne, 
'  and  it  doesn't  bring  the  business  in.' 

'  That's  what  beats  me,'  said  Mr.  Osborne.  '  How  to  bring  the 
business  in  !  Lord  Hardware,  Tinware ;  that  would  be  a  thing  to 
laugh  at.' 

The  matter  was  still  in  debate  on  that  morning  when  Mrs. 
Osborne  went  through  her  engagement  book  down  at  Grote  and 
found  so  heavy  a  programme  in  front  of  her.  And  somehow  to-day 
she  did  not  feel  markedly  exhilarated  by  it.  The  journey  back 
from  Venice  had  tired  her  very  much,  and  though  she  had  felt  sure 
that  a  good  night's  rest  coupled  with  a  day  or  two  of  solid  English 
food  would  set  her  up  again,  she  still  felt  overdone  and  devitalised. 
She  was  disposed  to  attribute  this  in  the  main  to  the  unnutritious 
character  of  Venetian  diet,  where,  if  you  got  a  bit  of  veal  for  your 
dinner,  that  was  as  much  butcher's  meat  as  you  were  likely  to 
see ;  while,  to  make  up,  there  would  be  nothing  more  than  a  slice  of 
some  unknown  fish  and  the  half  of  a  chicken  that  was  no  bigger 
than  a  blackbird.  As  for  a  nice  fillet  of  beef  or  a  choice  leg  of 
lamb,  it  was  a  thing  unheard  of.  Yet  she  had  not  felt  much  inclined 
for  the  fillet  of  beef  when  it  was  accessible  again  ;  it  seemed  to  suit 
her  as  little  as  the  rice  and  macaroni  had  done.  For  the  last  week, 
too,  she  had  had  from  time  to  time  little  attacks  of  internal  pain. 
No  doubt  it  was  of  no  consequence,  but  it  was  a  pain  that  she  did 
not  know  and  could  not  quite  localise. 

Once  or  twice  she  had  thought  of  consulting  a  doctor,  a  thing 
that  Mr.  Osborne  had  urged  on  her  before  the  Venetian  visit,  but 
some  vague  and  curious  fear  prevented  her — the  fear  of  being  told 
that  something  was  seriously  wrong,  and  that  she  would  have  to 
give  up  their  London  programme  which  she  had  planned  so  de- 
lightedly. That  was  a  thing  not  to  be  contemplated ;  the  London 
plans  were,  to  her  mind,  part  of  the  immutable  order  of  things,  and 
it  was  therefore  essentially  important  that  Mr.  Osborne  should  not 
guess  that  she  was  out  of  sorts,  for  she  well  knew,  if  he  had  so  much 
as  a  guess  of  that,  he  would  have  carried  her  off,  by  force  if  neces- 
sary, and  not  let  go  of  her  till  he  had  deposited  her  in  some  eminent 
consulting-room,  with  specialists  dangling  at  the  end  of  the  tele- 


160  THE   OSBORNES. 

phone.  But  she  had  never  been  lacking  in  spirit,  and  it  would  be 
a  singular  thing  if  she  could  not  be  genial  and  hearty  to  all  the 
world  for  a  few  weeks  more. 

But  what  she  doubted  was  her  power  of  getting  through  the 
physical  strain  of  it.  She  knew  how  tiring  the  standing  about  and 
the  receiving  was,  and  every  day  now  she  felt  tired  even  before  the 
fatigues  of  it  had  begun.  If  only  she  had  a  daughter,  who  could 
quite  naturally  take  some  of  this  off  her  hands,  and  let  her  sit  down 
while  the  '  company  '  were  arriving.  And  then  an  idea  struck  her. 

Dora  and  Claude  were  intending  to  occupy  the  flat  in  Mount 
Street  till  the  end  of  the  summer.  After  that  they  would  come 
down  to  Grote,  and  soon,  please  God !  the  flat  in  Mount  Street  would 
be  too  small  for  them  '  and  what  would  be  theirs  ' — this  elegant 
circumlocution  was  exactly  the  phrase  that  passed  through  Mrs. 
Osborne's  mind — and  when  they  returned  to  London  again  in  the 
autumn,  it  would  be  to  a  house  of  their  own  in  Green  Street  with 
place  for  a  nursery.  This,  however,  they  were  only  going  to  take 
at  Michaelmas ;  but  this  very  morning  Dora  had  written  to  her 
mother-in-law  (and  her  innocent  letter  suggested  possibilities  to 
Mrs.  Osborne),  saying  that  Mount  Street  really  seemed  to  be 
hotter  than  Venice,  and  dreadfully  stuffy,  which  Venice  was  not. 
What  if  Dora  and  Claude  would  come  and  live  with  them  in  Park 
Lane  till  the  end  of  July  ?  She  remembered  how  Dora  had  acted 
hostess  down  at  Grote  in  the  winter,  and  they  might  play  the  game 
again.  But  this  time  there  would  be  a  real  object  to  be  served  by 
it ;  Dora  would  help  her  in  the  entertaining,  which  prospectively, 
as  she  planned  it,  had  seemed  so  delightful,  but  now  appeared  so 
difficult.  It  was  an  excellent  idea,  if  only  she  could  compass  it. 

The  large  Indian  gong  had  akeady  boomed  through  the  house, 
announcing  that  lunch  was  ready,  and  next  moment  Mr.  Osborne 
came  into  her '  boudoir,'  announcing  that  he  was  ready  too.  Venetian 
habit  still  lingered  with  him. 

'  Well,  lunch  is  pronto,  my  lady,'  he  said,  '  but  you're  busy  yet, 
and  still  at  the  plan  of  campaign  for  the  summer.  But  in  your 
plan  of  campaign  don't  forget  the  commissariat ;  and  here's  your 
lieutenant  come  to  tell  you  that  my  lady  is  served.  Balls,  concerts, 
dinners  ;  dinners,  balls,  concerts ;  my  lady  is  a  regular  Whiteley  to 
the  elite  :  she  gives  them  all  there's  to  be  had.  You'll  be  pauper- 
ising the  dukes  and  duchesses,  my  dear ;  they'll  be  thinking  of 
nothing  but  the  amusements  you  provide  for  them.' 

Mrs.  Osborne  was  not  without  the  rudiments  of  diplomacy, 


THE   OSBORNES.  1G1 

though,  it  may  be  remarked,  nothing  in  the  least  advanced  in  that 
line  was  necessary  with  her  husband.  Still  it  was  better  that, 
if  possible,  he  should  suggest  Dora  and  Claude  coming  to  them 
than  that  she  should.  She  laughed  dutifully  at  Mr.  O.'s  joke  about 
the  dukes  and  duchesses,  and  proceeded. 

'  I  had  a  note  from  Dora  this  morning,'  she  said,  as  they  sat 
down. 

'  Bless  her  heart,'  said  Mr.  Osborne  parenthetically.  '  For  what 
we  are  going  to  receive,  my  lady.' 

'  Amen,  my  dear.  There's  some  of  that  rice  with  bits  of  chicken 
in  it  as  I  got  the  recipe  of  from  Pietro,  and  I  could  fancy  a  bit 
myself.  Well,  she  wrote  and  said  she  was  very  well,  and  she'd 
seen — she'd  been  to  call  in  Harley  Street.' 

Mr.  Osborne  again  interrupted. 

'  And  was  anything  said  about  September  ?  '  he  asked. 

4  There  was  some  mention  of  September.  And  there  was 
something  else,  too.  Oh  yes,  she  finds  that  pokey  little  flat  in 
Mount  Street  hotter  than  Venice,  she  says.' 

4  Well,  then,  why  don't  she  and  Claude  take  a  cab  round  to 
No.  92,  and  let  the  luggage  follow  ?  '  said  Mr.  Osborne  rather  hotly. 
'  Claude's  not  got  a  grain  of  sense  :  he  should  have  thought  of  it 
long  ago,  if  Dora  feels  it  stuffy  and  hot  there,  and  suggested  their 
installing  themselves  there,  cool  and  comfortable.  Bless  the  boy, 
all  the  same.  But  after  I've  had  my  lunch  I'll  get  one  end  of  the 
telephone  and  him  the  other,  and  see  if  you  don't  hear  the  front 
door  slam  and  them  drive  away  to  Park  Lane,  before  I've  lit  my 
cigar.  That'll  suit  you,  my  lady,  will  it  ?  You'll  like  to  have  them 
dear  children  in  the  house,  I  know.' 

'  Bless  them,  let  them  come,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne, '  and  the  longer 
they  stop  the  better  I  shall  be  pleased.  Dora  will  be  a  help  too  : 
she  will  help  me  with  the  dinners  and  what  not.' 

The  two  were  alone  on  this  their  last  day  at  Grote,  but  all  six 
wasp- coloured  footmen  marshalled  by  Thoresby  formed  a  sort  of 
frieze  round  the  table,  occasionally  changing  a  plate  or  handing 
a  dish.  Generous  though  he  was  with  money,  Mr.  Osborne  had 
very  distinct  notions  about  getting  his  money's  worth  when  he  had 
paid  it,  and  since  the  house  required  six  footmen  he  saw  no  reason 
why  they  should  not  all  wait  at  table,  even  when  only  he  and  Mrs.  0. 
were  having  their  lunch.  Nor  was  the  number  of  dishes  curtailed 
because  they  were  alone  ;  Mr.  Osborne  always  ate  of  them  all,  and 
because  there  was  '  no  company  '  that  was  no  reason  why  he  should 

VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  163,  N.S.  11 


162  THE   OSBORNES. 

go  starved.  It  was  not,  therefore,  for  nearly  an  hour  after  the  time 
they  sat  down  that  he  went  to  the  telephone — so  accurately  depicted 
by  Sabincourt — and  rang  up  Claude. 

He  joined  Mrs.  Osborne  on  the  terrace  a  minute  or  two  afterwards. 

'  Claude's  willing  enough,  and  thank  you,'  he  said,  '  but  he  says 
he  must  speak  to  Dora  first.  So  you'd  better  telephone  to  92, 
my  lady,  and  tell  them  to  make  ready  whatever  rooms  you  think 
right.  Give  them  a  nice  sitting-room,  my  dear,  so  that  they  can 
feel  independent.' 

'  Better  hear  from  Dora  first,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne. 

4  Just  as  you  please ;  but  when  the  girl  says  as  the  flat  in  Mount 
Street  is  hot  and  stuffy,  and  there's  the  coolest  house  in  London 
waiting  for  her  just  round  the  corner,  I  don't  see  there's  much  call 
to  wait.  Well,  my  lady,  I  must  be  off.  There's  a  committee  been 
sitting  in  the  Lords  on  the  Bill  about  the  Employers'  Liability  Act, 
and  I  must  get  all  they've  talked  about  at  my  fingers'  ends.  Who 
knows,  Mrs.  0.,  but  that  I'll  be  able  to  tell  them  a  thing  or  two  in 
that  chamber  before  the  summer's  out  ?  It's  a  strange  thing  to 
me  how  clever  men  such  as  have  taken  degrees  and  fellowships  at 
Oxford  should  have  so  little  common-sense  on  other  matters. 
As  if  there  wasn't  a  difference  between  one  sort  of  risk  and 
another,  and  they  want  to  lump  them  all  on  to  the  employer.  I 
doubt  most  of  them  Liberals  are  either  Socialists  or  afraid  of  the 
Socialists.  But  there  !  the  noble  lords  have  had  a  committee  and 
I  must  see  what's  been  said  and  done.' 

4  Just  to  think  of  it !  And  have  you  got  any  idea  about  your 
new  name  yet  ?  ' 

'  No,  I  daresay  something  will  suggest  itself.  After  all,  I  shall 
smell  as  sweet  by  any  other  name,  hey  ?  ' 

'  Lor',  my  dear,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne  with  a  slight  accent  of 
reproof ;  for  Thoresby  had  come  to  see  if  there  were  any  orders,  and 
must  have  heard. 

The  question,  however,  about  this  move  of  Dora  and  Claude 
to  Park  Lane  was  not  so  foregone  a  conclusion  as  Mr.  Osborne  had 
anticipated.  Claude  had  gone  to  the  telephone  when  he  was  rung 
up,  and  came  back  beaming  to  tell  Dora  of  this  delightful  offer. 

'  Dad  and  the  mater  invite  us  to  go  to  Park  Lane  till  the  end 
of  July,'  he  said.  '  I'm  blowed  if  there  are  many  fathers  who  would 
want  a  son  and  daughter-in-law  in  the  house  all  the  time.  Of 
course  I  said  that  I  must  consult  you  first ;  that  was  only  proper.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  163 

'  Oh,  Claude,'  said  she,  '  of  course  it's  awfully  kind.  But,  but 
do  you  think  so  ?  ' 

'  But  why  not  ?  It's  just  like  the  governor  to  have  guessed 
that  we  should  feel  stuffy  and  cramped  in  the  flat  during  this  hot 
weather.' 

Dora  remembered  her  letter. 

'  I'm  afraid  I  may  be  responsible  for  that,'  she  said.  '  At  least 
I  wrote  to  your  mother  yesterday  saying  it  was  very  hot  and  airless 
here.  Oh  dear,  I  hope  she  won't  think  I  hinted  at  this.' 

'  Not  she.  You  don't  catch  her  imputing  motives,  specially 
when  there  weren't  any.  She's  got  more  to  think  about  than  that. 
I  say,  Dora,  are  you  sure  you  didn't  have  that  in  your  mind  ? 
Awfully  sharp  of  you  if  you  did.' 

Dora  resented  this  ;  indignant  that  he  could  have  supposed  her 
capable  of  it,  and  a  little  of  this  indignation  coloured  her  words. 

'  I'm  afraid  that  I  can't  lay  claim  to  sharpness,'  she  said,  '  be- 
cause the  fact  is  that  if  I  had  thought  such  an  offer  was  possible, 
I  should  have  said  it  was  cool  and  airy  here.' 

Claude's  profile  was  outlined  against  the  hot  hard  blue  of  the 
sky  outside,  and  Dora  noticed  how  perfect  it  was.  But  she  noticed 
it  in  some  detached  sort  of  way ;  it  did  not  seem  to  concern  her. 
At  this  he  turned  round,  and  came  across  the  room  to  her. 

'  What's  the  matter,  dear  ?  '  he  said.  '  Why  is  it  you  don't 
want  to  go  ?  ' 

'  Oh,  Claude,  if  you  don't  see,  you  wouldn't  understand  if  I 
explained,'  she  said.  '  And  I  can't  quite  explain  either.' 

'  Try,'  he  said. 

'  Well,  I  married  you,  do  you  see,  and  you  are  master  of  the 
house,  and  I'm  mistress,  and  it  isn't  quite  the  same  thing  if  we  go 
and  live  with  other  people.  They  are  angelic,  of  course,  to  suggest 
it.  But  oh,  I  wish  people  wouldn't  be  quite  so  kind — or,  rather,  that 
they  would  mix  a  little  tact  with  their  kindness.  They've  made 
it  hard  to  refuse,  telephoning  like  that.  It's — it's  like  a  word-of- 
mbuth  invitation  for  a  month  ahead.  You've  got  to  say  "  Yes."  ' 

Claude  took  up  a  rather  listless  hand  of  hers  that  lay  on  the 
arm  of  her  chair. 

'  Ah,  then  I  do  understand,'  he  said,  '  and  I  love  your  reasons. 
I  guessed  it  before  you  said  it ;  you  want  to  be  alone  with  me. 
Well,  it's  the  same  here.  But  I've  no  doubt  they'll  give  us  a  sitting- 
room  and  all  that.' 

Though  Dora  had  meant  something  very  like  that,  it  sounded 

11—2 


164  THE   OSBORNES. 

rather  dreadful  to  hear  Claude  say  it,  and  say  also  that  he  had 
guessed.  He  oughtn't  to  have  guessed,  although  he  assured  her 
it  was  '  the  same  here.'  There  was  an  unconscious  complacency 
about  his  guessing  that  she  did  not  like.  But  he  went  on  without 
pause. 

'  As  for  its  being  tactless,'  he  said,  '  I  think  you're  rather  hard 
on  the  governor.  When  a  man's  as  kind  as  he  can  be,  and  as 
devoted  as  he  is  to  you,  I  don't  think  you  should  say  that.' 

Claude  stuck  out  his  chin  a  little  over  this,  and  Dora,  though 
she  knew  he  was  right  from  his  point  of  view,  knew  that  she  had 
been  right  too.  Kindness,  even  the  most  sincere,  can  easily  be 
embarrassing  :  it  needs  refining,  like  sugar.  But  that  was  the  sort 
of  thing  that  Claude  could  not  understand  :  the  tact  of  good  nature 
had  been  left  out  of  him  just  as  it  had  been  left  out  of  his  father. 
So  her  reply  was  sincere. 

'  Yes,  dear  ;  it  was  a  pity  I  said  that,'  she  said. 
But  somehow  the  admission  was  bitter  :  the  truth  was  that  it 
was  a  pity  to  say  it,  because  she  ought  to  have  been  more  careful  in 
what  she  said  to  him,  not  because  the  impulse  that  prompted  her 
speech  was  a  mistaken  one.  But  all  that  was  unconjectured  by 
him. 

'  My  darling,'  he  said,  '  you  are  so  sweet  with  me.  If  I  have  to 
criticise  anything  you  do,  you  never  take  it  amiss.  And  now  I'll 
tell  you  another  reason  why  I  think  we  had  better  go,  apart  from 
the  comfort  and  convenience  of  it.  It  is  that  I  don't  think  the  mater 
is  very  strong,  for  all  that  she  eats  so  heartily.  She  gets  very  easily 
tired,  and  she's  laid  down  a  programme  for  the  next  six  weeks 
which  might  well  knock  anybody  out.  Now  it  would  be  awfully 
good  of  you  if  you  would  help  her  with  it.' 
That  appealed  to  Dora  much  more. 

1  Oh,  then,  let's  go,  let's  go,'  she  said.  '  Telephone  at  once. 
No,  I  think  I  will.  I  think  Dad  would  like  me  to.' 

'  You  think  of  everything,'  he  said.  '  I  hoped  you  would  think  of 
that.  He'll  be  so  pleased  at  your  telephoning.  "8003  Lewes," 
you  know.' 

Claude  had  a  meeting  at  Brentwood  that  afternoon  and  had  to 
leave  immediately,  taking  a  cab  to  the  station  and  the  train  from 
there,  so  that  Dora  might  use  the  motor  if  she  wished.  He  felt  that 
this  was  a  perfectly  natural  and  ordinary  thing  to  do,  but  at  the  same 
time  he  had  to  tell  her  he  had  done  it. 

'  It  takes  but  a  very  little  longer,'  he  said  in  answer  to  her 


THE   OSBORNES.  165 

urging  him  to  take  the  motor  himself,  *  and  a  walk  from  the  station 
at  the  other  end  will  do  me  good.  I  wish  I  was  going  to  prowl  about 
with  you  all  afternoon.  But  men  must  work,  you  know.  Though 
when  I  come  back  I  hope  I  shan't  find  that  you've  been  weeping. 
But  you  wouldn't  like  your  "Claudius  Imperator"  to  be  a  drone. 
Good-bye,  my  darling.  I  shall  be  back  in  time  to  dine  and  take  you 
to  the  play.' 

He  lingered  a  moment  still. 

'  If  you  haven't  got  anything  special  to  do,  you  might  go  down 
to  Eichmond  and  have  tea  with  Uncle  Alf,'  he  said.  '  He'd  like  it, 
and  you  haven't  seen  him  for  some  time.' 

'  Yes,  I'll  go  by  all  means,'  she  said. 

'  Thanks,  dear.  You  see,  after  all,  he  gives  us  fifteen  thou. 
a  year.' 

Dora  ordered  the  motor,  and  set  off  on  her  drive  to  Kichmond 
at  once.  The  day  was  exceedingly  hot,  and  the  reverberation  of  the 
sun  from  the  grilling  pavements  struck  like  a  blow  when  she  went 
out.  A  languid  airless  wind  raised  stinging  grit  from  the  wood 
pavements,  and  the  reek  of  the  streets  hung  heavy  in  the  air.  She 
longed  with  an  aching  sense  of  physical  want  for  the  soft,  dustless 
atmosphere  of  Venice,  the  cluck  and  ripple  of  its  green  waterways, 
and  with  no  less  an  ache  and  thirst  of  the  spirit  for  all  that  those 
things  had  once  symbolised  to  her.  Yet  this  last  visit  had  not 
been  the  rapturous  success  of  the  one  before.  Venice  was  there 
unchanged,  with  the  gold  mist  of  romance  that  Claude  had  woven 
for  her  about  it,  but  he,  the  magical  weaver,  or  she,  the  woman  for 
whom  it  had  been  woven,  had  altered  somehow,  and  perhaps  even 
in  the  enchanted  city  a  certain  vague  but  growing  trouble  that  was 
in  her  mind  would  not  be  completely  dissipated.  In  general  out- 
line she  knew  what  it  was,  but  hitherto  she  had  not  focussed  her 
vision  on  it.  Now  she  felt  that  it  had  better  be  examined,  for 
it  cried  out  to  her  from  the  darkness  of  her  mind  where  she  had  been 
at  pains  to  hide  it.  Perhaps  on  examination  it  might  prove  to  be 
imagination  only,  to  have  no  real  existence  except  in  her  own  mind. 
And  the  trouble  was  Claude. 

It  seemed  to  her  ages  ago,  though  in  point  of  fact  it  was  still 
scarcely  twelve  months,  that  she  had  told  May  Franklin  that  some- 
times he  said  things  that  gave  her  a  check.  But  it  seemed  almost 
longer  ago,  though  it  was  only  a  few  weeks,  that  she  had  sat  alone 
one  afternoon,  when  Claude  was  at  Milan  meeting  his  father  and 


166  THE   OSBORNES. 

mother,  and  registered  the  fact  that  he  again  gave  her  checks. 
Between  those  two  occasions  lay  romance,  a  golden  dream,  an 
experience  which,  common  though  it  may  be  in  this  world  of  men 
and  women,  was  none  the  less  marvellous,  miraculous.  He,  his 
love  for  her,  and  her  love  for  him,  had  lifted  life  out  of  the  levels 
on  which  it  had  hitherto  moved,  had  made  of  it  a  winged  and 
iridescent  thing,  which  had  soared  many-coloured  into  sunlight  and 
moonlight.  And  that  marvel,  the  enchantment  of  it,  had  seemed  to 
her  then  to  be  a  thing  indestructible  and  eternal.  While  she  was 
she,  and  while  Claude  was  Claude,  it  could  never  change,  nor  shed 
one  feather  from  its  rainbow-wings.  Often  had  she  whispered  to 
him,  or  he  to  her,  '  It  will  be  like  this  for  ever  ' ;  more  often  had  the 
tense  silence  testified  with  greater  authority  than  any  voice,  even 
his.  In  those  months  whatever  her  senses  perceived  was  glorified  : 
she  looked  at  the  world  through  the  radiance  of  love. 

That  conviction  that  their  romance  would  last  for  ever  was  part 
of  the  divine  madness  of  love  :  she  saw  that  now  clearly  enough. 
She  who  had  believed  that  they,  and  they  alone,  were  different  from 
all  others,  had  not  been  truly  sane  when  she  believed  it :  she  had 
been  living  in  a  world,  real  no  doubt  while  it  existed,  yet  not  only 
capable  of  being  extinguished,  but  doomed  to  extinction.  Once, 
before  their  marriage,  she  had  talked  to  Claude  about  what  she 
called '  the  grey  business  '  of  life,  and  he,  she  remembered,  had  given 
the  grey  business  a  '  facer,'  to  use  his  words,  by  pointing  to  the 
example  of  his  father  and  mother.  That  had  seemed  to  Dora, 
already  ripening  for  romance,  to  fall  very  short  of  the  reply  she 
wanted.  She  had  wanted  lover's  nonsense  which  would  assure  her 
that  for  them  romance  could  never  fade.  But  it  had  faded :  it 
always  faded.  The  question  now  was  concerned  with  what  was 
left.  Did  even  the  consolation  of  Claude's  '  facer  '  remain  to  her  ? 
Had  she,  to  put  her  part  of  it  baldly  and  brutally,  got  as  great  an 
admiration,  respect,  and  affection  for  her  husband  as  Mrs.  Osborne 
had  for  hers  ?  She  knew  she  had  not. 

To-day  she  could  look  undazzled  at  the  materials  out  of  which 
her  romance  had  been  constructed  and  analyse  them.  It  was  made 
of  her  passion  for  beauty.  She  had  fallen  in  love  with  his  good 
looks.  And  she  was  getting  used  to  them  :  she  had  got  used  to 
them.  What  else  was  there  ?  What  was  left  to  learn,  now  she  had 
that  by  heart  ? 

There  was  a  great  deal  left.  So  she  told  herself,  but  without 
emotion.  There  was  his  character  left,  which  was  sterling ;  his 


THE   OSBORNES.  167 

qualities,  which  were  excellent ;  his  kindness,  his  saf  eness,  his — to  go 
to  purely  material  things — his  wealth.  And  his  vulgarity. 

The  word  was  coined  :  her  thought  for  the  first  time  definitely 
allowed  it  to  pass  into  currency,  and  she  had  to  reckon  with  it. 

What  a  topsy-turvy  affair  it  had  been !  How  strikingly 
different  a  disposition  from  that  which  she  had  contemplated  had 
come  about !  She  had  told  herself  that  she  must  for  ever  be  in  love 
with  that  beautiful  face,  that  slim,  active  body,  those  deft  decided 
movements ;  and  she  had  told  herself  that  his  vulgarities  were  things 
of  no  moment,  things  to  which  she  would  swiftly  get  used.  But 
events  had  been  evolved  otherwise.  She  was  used  to  his  beauty  ; 
hi&  vulgarities  were  cumulative  in  their  effect  on  her ;  instead  of 
getting  used  to  them  she  was  daily  more  irritated  by  them  and — more 
ashamed  of  them.  She  had  imagined  even  that  it  would  be  easy  to 
cure  them,  to  eradicate  them.  But  it  proved  to  be  a  task  like  that  of 
emptying  a  spring  with  a  teacup.  She  had  thought  that  they  lay, 
so  to  speak,  like  casual  water  on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  a  mere 
puddle  that  the  sun  would  swiftly  drink  up.  It  was  not  so ;  they 
sprang  from  his  nature,  and  came  welling  up  bubbling  and  plenteous 
and  inexhaustible. 

And  there  was  something  about  them,  so  it  seemed  to  her  now, 
that  tinged  and  made  unpalatable  all  the  good  qualities  in  which  he 
was  so  rich.  You  could  draw  a  gallon  of  pure  fresh  kindness  from 
that  well-spring  which  also  was  inexhaustible,  but  even  before  you 
had  time  to  put  your  lips  to  it,  and  drink  of  it,  some  drop — quite  a 
little  drop — would  trickle  in  from  the  source  of  his  vulgarity  and 
taint  it  all.  It  was  even  worse  than  that ;  there  was  a  permanent 
leak  from  the  one  into  the  other ;  the  kindness  was  tainted  at  the 
source. 

Dora  did  not  indulge  in  these  reflections  from  any  spirit  of  idle 
criticism  or  morbid  dissection.  She  wanted  to  see  how  they  stood, 
how  bad  things  were,  and  what  chance  there  was  of  their  righting 
themselves.  They  were  no  longer  mere  surface  vulgarities  in  him 
(or  so  she  believed)  that  got  on  her  nerves  :  she  no  longer  particu- 
larly minded  whether  he  said  '  handsome  lady  '  or  not ;  what  she 
did  mind  was  the  impulse  that  prompted  him,  for  instance,  to 
suggest  that  she  might  go  down  and  see  Uncle  Alf  because  he  gave 
them  '  fifteen  thou.'  a  year.  She  minded  his  saying  he  had  guessed 
the  reason  why  she  did  not  want  to  establish  herself  in  Park  Lane ; 
namely,  because  she  wanted  to  be  alone  with  him.  She  minded 
the  suggestion  that  she  had  written  to  say  the  flat  was  stuffy,  in 


168  THE   OSBORNES. 

order  to  be  asked  there.  It  was  all  common,  common  ;  he  judged 
her  by  impossible  standards,  standards  that  were  inconceivable. 
And  yet  all  the  time  he  was  good,  he  was  kind,  he  had  all  the 
qualities  that  should  make  her  love  him,  make  her  devotion  an 
imperishable  thing.  As  it  was,  they  had  been  married  scarcely  six 
months,  and  already  she  knew  that  at  times  he  so  got  on  to  her 
nerves  that  she  could  have  screamed.  Already,  as  she  began  to 
look  closely  at  these  things,  she  felt  she  was  glad  they  were  going  to 
Park  Lane  ;  she  was  glad  that  limits  would  be  placed  on  her  being 
alone  with  him. 

It  was  a  little  cooler  out  of  town,  and  Richmond  Park  was  in 
the  full  luxuriance  of  its  summer  beauty.  They  had  entered  by  the 
Roehampton  Gate  ;  she  had  still  half  an  hour  to  spare  before  the 
time  she  had  said  she  would  be  at  Uncle  Alfred's,  and  she  directed 
her  driver  to  turn  up  to  the  left,  past  the  White  Lodge,  and  go  round 
by  Robin  Hood  Gate  and  Kingston  Gate.  A  delicious  smell  of 
greenness  and  coolness  came  from  the  noble  groves  of  trees,  beneath 
the  clear  shade  of  which,  knee-deep  in  the  varnished  green  of  the 
young  bracken,  stood  herds  of  fallow  deer  with  twitching  ears  and 
switching  tails,  warding  off  the  persistence  of  the  flies.  All  the  sweet 
forest  sights  and  sounds  were  there  :  the  air  was  full  of  the  buzz  of 
insects,  and  hidden  birds  called  to  each  other  from  among  the 
branches.  Distantly  on  the  right  she  could  see  gleams  of  water, 
where  the  Pen  Ponds  lay  basking  in  the  sunlight,  and  the  flush  of 
mauve  and  red  from  the  great  rhododendron  thickets  above  them. 
All  the  triumph  of  summer-time  was  there ;  all  the  joy  of  the  ripe- 
ness and  maturity  of  the  year,  of  the  kindled  and  immortal  vitality 
of  the  world.  But  for  herself,  though  every  day  brought  nearer 
to  her  the  miracle  of  motherhood,  it  seemed  as  if  summer  had 
stopped. 

Once  more  she  faced  the  situation  as  she  conceived  it  to  be. 
The  time  of  romance,  those  months  in  the  autumn  were  over  :  the 
red  and  gold  of  the  autumn  were  withered  from  the  trees.  Brief 
had  been  their  glory,  which  should  have  shed  its  light  over  many 
years  yet ;  but,  as  far  as  she  was  concerned,  what  had  made  their 
flame  was  just  the  personal  beauty  of  her  husband.  And  out  oi 
them  should  already  have  sprung  a  deep  and  tender  affection,  the 
friendship  which  is  not  only  the  true  and  noble  sequel  of  love,  but 
is  an  integral  part  of  love  itself,  perhaps  even  love's  heart.  But 
was  it  there  ?  It  seemed  to  her  rather  that  something  bitter  had 
come  out  of  it,  something  in  which  regret  for  the  past  was  mingled 


THE   OSBORNES.  169 

with  the  gall  of  disillusionment.  And  even  regret  had  but  small 
part  in  it ;  those  months  of  gold  seemed  already  unreal  to  her  :  she 
felt  that  she  was  regretting  a  dream.  It  was  the  same  in  little 
things  too,  for  the  little  things  all  took  their  colour  from  what  had 
been  to  her  then  the  one  great  reality.  He  had  referred  to  himself, 
for  instance,  that  very  afternoon  as  '  Claudius  Imperator,'  and  it 
was  with  a  sense  of  unreality  that  she  remembered  the  genesis  of 
that  very  microscopic  joke.  She  had  bought  a  Eoman  coin  in 
Venice  with  that  inscription  on  it,  and  had  given  it  to  him,  saying 
it  was  his  label  in  case  he  was  lost.  To-day  she  could  not  conceive 
doing  such  a  thing :  she  could  not  recapture  the  state  of  mind  in 
which  she  did  it,  the  impulse  even  that  made  such  a  trifle  conceiv- 
able. In  any  case  the  thing  was  one  that  might  be  said  once  and 
then  be  forgotten.  But  Claude  had  the  retentive  Osborne  instinct 
towards  humour.  With  him  it  was  '  Once  a  joke,  always  a  joke,' 
and  from  time  to  time,  as  to-day,  he  brought  out  the  '  Claudius 
Imperator  '  again.  The  Osborne  humour  had  a  heavy  tread — 
a  slow,  heavy,  slouching  rustic  tread — and  a  guffaw  of  a  laugh. 

There  is  a  Spectator  within  each  of  us  who  for  ever  watches  our 
thoughts  and  words,  and  criticises  them.  It  may  be  called  con- 
science, or  guidance,  or  the  devil,  as  the  case  may  be  ;  for  some  folk 
are  gifted  with  a  Spectator  that  is  their  best  self,  others  with  a 
Spectator  which  is  but  a  parody  of  themselves.  Dora's  Spectator 
was  above  the  average ;  he  was  optimistic  anyhow,  and  kindly,  and 
at  this  point  he  came  to  her  aid  with,  so  to  speak,  several  smart  raps 
over  her  knuckles.  Whatever  was  the  truth  of  the  whole  matter — 
if,  indeed,  there  is  any  absolute  truth  to  be  arrived  at  in  the  fluid 
and  ever- varying  adjustments  of  our  relationships  with  others — 
only  one  attitude  is  compatible  with  self-respect ;  namely,  to  find 
out  and  hoard  like  grains  of  gold  all  that  is  fine  and  generous 
and  lovable  in  others,  and  do  our  best  to  find  something  in  ourselves 
•worthy  of  being  matched  with  it.  Instead  of  this,  so  said  Dora's 
Spectator  to  her  now,  she  had,  with  acute  and  avid  eye,  been  pick- 
ing out  all  that  in  Claude  seemed  to  her  to  be  trivial  or  ludicrous 
or  tiresome,  and  been  finding  in  herself,  to  match  it,  intolerance  and 
want  of  charity.  There  had  been  no  difficulty,  so  said  her  Spectator, 
in  laying  hands  on  plenty  of  those. 

She  had  but  one  word  to  say  in  self-defence,  and  the  moment 
it  was  said  she  perceived  that  it  amounted  to  self-accusation.  She 
had  fallen  in  love  with  his  beauty  :  how  could  she  not  despond 


170  THE   OSBORNES. 

when  she  found  that  she  was  in  love  with  it — like  that — no  longer  ? 
It  had  blinded  her  to  all  else  :  she  had  seen  his  vulgarities  but  dimly, 
if  at  all,  even  as  she  had  seen  his  panoply  of  excellent  qualities  but 
dimly.  Now  she  saw  only  the  vulgarities,  or  at  any  rate  she  saw 
them  right  in  the  foreground,  big  and  blinding  ;  while  behind,  in  the 
distance,  so  to  speak,  sat  the  rest  of  him.  Was  it  not  reasonable 
that  her  outlook,  which  must  take  its  colour  from  the  past,  should 
be  pessimistic  ?  And  then  even  that  piece  of  self-defence  was- 
turned  into  self -accusation.  If  that  was  the  case,  the  fault  had 
been  hers  from  the  beginning.  But  that  was  what  she  had  done ; 
she  had  separated  him,  the  man,  into  packets  :  she  had  fallen  in 
love  with  one  packet,  and  now  she  was  spreading  in  front  of  her 
another  that  only  irritated  and  almost  disgusted  her.  She  had  yet 
to  learn  the  true  and  the  wider  outlook,  to  feel  that  fire  of  love  that 
fuses  all  things  together,  and  loves  though  it  can  tenderly  laugh,, 
and  is  gentle  always,  and  rejoices  in  the  weaknesses  and  imper- 
fections and  faults  of  the  beloved,  simply  because  they  are  his. 
For  though  there  are  many  ways  of  love,  the  spirit  that  animates 
them  all  is  just  that ;  they  are  all  swayed  by  one  magical  tune. 
But  that  Dora  did  not  know  yet,  she  had  not  heard  a  note  of  it, 
she  did  not  even  know  the  region  of  the  soul  where  it  made  melody 
all  day  long.  All  that  she  had  learned  in  the  last  few  minutes  was 
that  she  had  with  considerable  acuteness  been  spying  out  causes  for 
complaint,  excuses  for  dissatisfaction.  She  could  do  a  little  better 
than  that. 

By  this  time  she  had  arrived  at  Uncle  Alf's,  and  though  the 
severe  remarks  of  the  Spectator  had  partially  braced  her  again, 
after  the  rather  sloppy  abandonment  of  self-pity  and  dejection  into 
which  her  introspection  had  brought  her,  it  must  be  confessed  that 
there  was  something  about  Uncle  Alf,  caustic  and  malicious  though 
he  was,  that  restored  her  more  efficaciously.  For  out  of  all  the 
weapons  with  which  it  is  fair  to  fight  the  disappointments  and 
despondencies  that  are  incidental  to  human  life,  there  is  none 
sharper  or  more  rapier-like  in  attack  or  defence  than  the  sense  of 
humour.  And  Uncle  Alf  was  well  equipped  there:  not  even  the 
picture-dealers  whom  he  habitually  worsted  would  have  denied 
that  he  had  that.  It  was  lambent  and  ill-natured ;  it  twinkled 
and  stung ;  but  it  had  the  enviable  trick  of  perceiving  what  was 
ludicrous. 

'  And  I  hear  poor  old  Eddie  has  been  out  with  you  and  Claude 


THE   OSBORNES,  171 

in  Venice,  my  dear,'  lie  said ;  '  and  I  can't  say  which  I'm  the  most 
sorry  for — you,  or  him,  or  Claude,  or  Venice.' 

'  Oh,  why  Claude  ? '  asked  she,  for  she  had  not  thought  of  being 
sorry  for  Claude. 

1  Because  you  had  taught  him  probably  to  admire  Tintoret — 
or  say  he  did — and  Eddie  would  want  him  to  admire  the  railway 
station.  He  would  have  to  trim.  A  very  funny  party  you  must 
have  been,  my  dear.' 

Dora  laughed  :  till  this  moment  she  had  thought  of  them  all  as 
a  rather  tragic  party,  and  the  other  aspect  had  not  occurred  to 
her. 

*  Do  you  know,  I  expect  we  were,'  she  said  ;  '  and  all  the  time 
I  took  it  seriously.    I  wonder  if  that  was  a  mistake,  Uncle  Alf .' 

'  To  be  sure  it  was.  There's  many  things  in  this  world  that  will 
depress  you,  and  make  you  good  for  nothing,  if  you  take  them 
seriously,  and  that  cheer  you  up  if  you  don't.' 

This  was  not  exactly  wisdom  out  of  the  mouth  of  babes  and 
sucklings,  since  Uncle  Alf  was  a  very  old  man,  but  it  was  a  sort  of 
elementary  wisdom  which  a  child  might  have  hit  on.  And  she  felt 
that  below  the  surface  of  this  wizened,  crabbed  little  old  man  there 
was  something  that  was  human.  She  had  never  suspected  it  before  : 
in  her  shallowness  she  had  been  content  to  look  upon  him  as  a  mask 
with  a  money-bag.  To  be  sure,  he  was  devoted  to  Claude  :  she  had 
not  even  reckoned  with  what  that  implied,  not  given  him  credit  for 
the  power  of  feeling  affection. 

'  I  believe  you  are  right,'  she  said. 

'  And  when  you're  as  old  as  me,  my  dear,  you  will  know  it,' 
said  he.  *  Lord,  I've  had  a  lot  of  amusement  out  of  life — digging  for 
it,  you  understand,  not  picking  it  up.  Poor  old  Eddie  amuses  me 
more  than  I  can  say.  Why,  his  hair  is  turning  grey  with  success 
and  pleasure.' 

'  Ah,  not  a  word  against  him,'  said  Dora  ;  '  he's  the  kindest  Dad 
that  ever  lived.' 

*  I  daresay ;  but  there  are  things  to  laugh  at  in  poor  old  Eddie, 
thank  God.     He  and  his  Grote,  and  his  Park  Lane,  and  all !     Did 
you  ever  see  such  a  set-out,  my  dear  ?     But  Eddie  in  Venice  must 
have  been  a  shade  finer  yet.     Tell  me  about  it.     He  and  Maria  on 
the  Grand  Canal,  and  you  and  Claude ;  all  in  the  same  gondola, 
I'll  be  bound,  so  as  to  make  a  family  party.     "  This  is  the  way  we 
English  go,."  good  Lord.    I  wouldn't  have  been  your  gondoliers  on 
a  hot  day,  not  even  for  the  entertainment  of  seeing  you  all  like 


172  THE   OSBORNES. 

Noah's  ark.  Your  gondoliers  were  thin  men  that  evening,  my  dear, 
poor  devils !  ' 

Alfred  had  guessed  the  situation  with  the  unerring  eye  of  cynical 
malice,  and  his  words  brought  the  scene  back  to  Dora  with  amazing 
accuracy.  That  day  had  depressed  her  at  the  time  ;  she  had  never 
guessed  how  funny  it  was  ;  and  here  she  was  laughing  at  it  now, 
when  it  was  a  month  old  ! 

Alfred  continued. 

'  Eddie  among  the  pictures  too,'  he  said.  '  A  bull  in  a  china 
shop  would  have  been  more  suitably  housed  !  Why,  I  nearly  came 
out  myself  in  order  to  see  the  fun.  "  What  a  holy  look  there's  about 
that,  Maria,"  he'd  say ;  or  "  My,  I  don't  believe  it  would  go  into  the 
gallery  at  Grote  unless  you  took  the  roof  off."  And  he  wrote  to 
me  yesterday  that  he  had  bought  a  copy  of  that  housemaid  among 
the  clouds  by  Titian — what  a  daub,  my  dear ! — with  a  frame  to 
match ! ' 

It  was  too  much  for  Uncle  Alfred,  and  he  gave  a  series  of  little 
squeaks  on  a  very  high  note,  shaking  his  head. 

'  Eddie's  a  silly  man,'  he  said ;  '  a  very  silly  man  is  poor  old 
Eddie,  and  he  gets  sillier  as  he  gets  older.  What  does  he  want 
with  his  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  and  his  six  powdered  footmen  ? 
What  good  do  they  do  him  ?  As  little  as  my  liniment  does  me. 
Lord,  my  dear,  he  says  something  too  in  his  letter  that  makes 
me  think  they're  going  to  make  a  peer  of  him.  He  hints  it :  ah, 
I  wish  I'd  kept  the  letter  ;  but  it  made  me  feel  sick,  and  I  threw 
it  away.  But  Eddie  a  peer,  my  dear.  And  I  saw  in  a  leader  in 
the  "  Times  "  the  other  day  that  the  Prime  Minister  hadn't  got  a 
sense  of  humour !  I  reckon  they'll  sack  that  leader-writer  if  it's 
true  that  Eddie's  going  to  have  a  peerage  !  Lord  deliver  us  :  Lord 
Saucepan  :  let's  think  of  half  a  dozen  names  and  send  some  picture 
postcards  of  Venice  to  Lord  Saucepan,  care  of  Mr.  Osborne,  Park 
Lane ;  Lord  Lavatory,  Lord  Kitchen-sink.  Fancy  Per  too,  an 
honourable  and  Mrs.  Per.  My  dear,  I  hate  that  woman  worse  than 
poison.  I  should  like  to  smack  her  face.  She  thinks  she's  a  lady, 
and  Maria  thinks  she's  a  lady.  Why,  Maria's  more  of  a  lady  herself 
— and  that's  not  saying  much.  To  see  Mrs.  Per  and  you  talking 
together  about  art  or  acting  would  make  a  cat  laugh.  I  wonder 
at  your  marrying  Claude  when  you  thought  of  his  relations."1 

Dora  smiled  at  him. 

'  But  that's  just  what  I  didn't  do,'  she  said.  '  I  only  thought  of 
Claude.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  173 

'  And  well  you  might.  My  dear,  I  love  that  boy.  He's  got 
into  proper  hands  too  :  you  can  make  a  lot  of  him.  Lord  Toasting- 
fork,  Lord  Egg- whisk,  Lord  Frying-pan.' 

Uncle  Alfred  could  not  get  away  from  inventing  titles  for  '  poor 
old  Eddie,'  and  he  did  it  with  a  malicious  relish  that  was  rather 
instructive  to  Dora.  It  could  not  be  called  kind,  but  it  hurt  nobody ; 
and  his  frank  amusement  at  the  idea  of  the  peerage  was  certainly 
better  than  the  heart-sinkings  with  which  the  prospect  of  the  event 
had  inspired  Dora  when  she  thought  of  the  genial  pomposity  with 
which  it  would  be  received.  Throughout  she  had  been  too  heavy, 
too  ponderous  :  she  had  pulled  long  faces  instead  of  laughing,  had 
seen  the  depressing  side  of  expeditions  like  the  family  party  in  the 
gondola  instead  of  its  humorous  aspect.  That  was  a  hint  worth 
attending  to.  She  had  got  a  sense  of  humour,  so  she  believed, 
yet  somehow  it  had  never  occurred  to  her  to  look  at  those  spoiled 
days  of  Venice  in  a  humorous  light. 

Soon  she  rose  to  go. 

*  Uncle  Alfred,'  she  said,  '  you've  done  me  good,  do  you  know  ? 
It  is  better  to  be  amused  than  depressed,  isn't  it  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  my  dear,  and  I  hope  you'll  laugh  at  me  all  the  way  back 
to  town,  me  and  my  great-coat  on  a  day  like  this,  and  my  goloshes 
to  keep  the  damp  out,  and  a  strip  of  flannel,  I  assure  you,  round  the 
small  of  my  back.  Eh,  I  had  the  lumbago  bad  when  first  I  saw 
you  down  at  Grote,  but  the  sight  of  those  pictures  of  Sabincourt's 
of  Eddie  and  Maria  did  me  more  good  than  a  pint  of  liniment. 
What  a  pair  of  guys  !  Lord  and  Lady  Biscuit-tin.' 

Dora  laughed  again. 

'  How  horrid  of  you  ! '  she  said.  '  Well,  I  must  go.  Claude  and 
I  are  going  to  the  theatre  to-night.  And  we  are  leaving  the  flat 
in  Mount  Street,  Uncle  Alf,  and  are  to  live  in  the  house  in  Park 
Lane  till  the  end  of  the  season.  Wasn't  it  kind  of  Dad  to 
suggest  it  ?  ' 

'  Not  a  bit  of  it.  You'll  help  entertain  Maria's  fine  friends, 
half  of  whom  she  don't  know  by  sight.  Not  but  what  I  envy  you  : 
Maria's  as  good  as  a  play  down  at  Grote,  and  Maria  in  London  must 
be  enough  to  empty  the  music-halls.  She  does  too,  so  they  tell  me. 
She  asks  everybody  in  the  "  London  Directory,"  and  they  all  come. 
Good-bye,  my  dear ;  come  down  again  some  time  and  tell  me  all 
they  do  and  say.  Write  it  down  every  evening,  else  one's  liable  to 
forget  the  plums.' 


174  THE   OSBORNES. 

Dora  had  given  orders  that  their  personal  luggage  should  be 
transferred  from  the  flat  to  No.  92  during  the  afternoon,  and  on 
her  return  she  drove  straight  to  that  house.  Claude  had  already 
arrived,  and  was  sitting  in  the  big  Italian  drawing-room.  He  had 
had  a  most  successful  meeting,  and  was  in  excellent  spirits. 

'  This  is  a  bit  better  than  the  flat,'  he  said.  '  I  went  in  there 
just  now,  and  it  was  like  a  furnace.  But  here  you  wouldn't  know 
it  was  a  hot  day.  It's  a  handsome  apartment :  the  governor 
bought  nothing  but  the  best  when  he  had  it  done.  And  how's 
Uncle  Alf  ?  ' 

'  Very  well,  I  thought,  and  very  amusing,'  said  she.  '  Oh, 
Claude,  he  had  a  great-coat  on,  and  goloshes.  He  is  too  funny  ! ' 

Claude  did  not  reply  for  a  moment. 

'  Darling,  I  hate  criticising  you,'  he  said  at  length,  '  but  I  don't 
think  you  ought  to  laugh  at  Uncle  Alf,  considering  all  he  does  for  us.' 

'  But  he  recommended  me  to,'  said  she.  '  He  said  he  hoped  I 
should  laugh  at  him  all  the  way  back  to  town.  In  fact  we  talked 
about  laughing  at  people,  and  he  said  what  a  good  plan  it  was.' 

Claude  paused  again.     He  felt  strongly  about  this  subject. 

4  Did  he  laugh  at  the  governor  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  Well,  yes,  a  little,'  said  Dora. 

'  I  hope  you  stuck  up  for  him.     I'm  sure  you  did.' 

Dora  gave  a  hopeless  little  sigh  :  she  wondered  if  Uncle  Alfred 
could  have  seen  the  humorous  aspect  of  this  :  personally  she  could 
not. 

'  It  was  no  question  of  sticking  up  for  him,'  she  said.  '  It  was 
aU  chaff,  fun.' 

Claude  got  up,  with  his  chin  a  good  deal  protruded. 

'  Ah,  fun  is  all  very  well  in  its  right  place,'  he  said,  '  and  I'm 
sure  no  one  likes  a  joke  more  than  me.  But  there  are  certain 
things  one  should  hold  exempt  from  one's  fun ' 

Dora  tried  the  humorous  plan  recommended  by  Uncle  Alfred. 

'  Darling,  I  hope  you  don't  consider  yourself  exempt,'  she  said. 
'  I  am  laughing  at  you  now.  You  are  ridiculous,  dear.  You  take 
things  heavily,  and  I  do  too.  We  must  try  not  to.  So  I  hereby 
give  you  leave  to  laugh  at  mother  and  Austell  as  much  as  you  like 
— and  me.' 

'  Dora,  I  am  serious,'  he  said. 

'  I  know  ;  that  is  just  the  trouble,'  she  said,  still  lightly. 

Claude's  face  darkened. 

'  Well,  it's  a  trouble  you  must  learn  to  put  up  with,'  he  said 


THE   OSBORNES.  175 

rather  sharply.  '  I  daresay  I'm  old-fashioned  :  you  may  call  me 
what  you  like.  But  I  ask  you  to  respect  my  father.  I  daresay  he 
and  the  mater  seem  to  you  ridiculous  at  times.  If  they  do,  I  ask 
you  to  keep  your  humorous  observations  to  yourself.  I  hate 
speaking  like  this,  but  I  am  obliged  to.' 

Dora  felt  her  hands  grow  suddenly  cold  and  damp.  She  was 
not  afraid  of  him  exactly,  but  there  was  some  physical  shrinking 
from  him  that  was  rather  like  fear. 

'  I  don't  see  the  obligation,'  she  said. 

'  Perhaps  not.  It  is  sufficient  that  I  do.  Now  let's  have  done. 
We  spoke  on  the  same  subject,  your  attitude  to  my  father,  in 
Venice.  Don't  let  us  speak  of  it  again  !  ' 

'  You  say  your  say,  and  I  am  to  make  no  reply.  Is  that  it  ?  ' 
she  asked. 

'  Yes ;  that  is  it.  I  know  I  am  right.  Come,  Dora.'  But  the 
appeal  had  no  effect,  and  for  the  moment  she  did  not  know  how  to 
apply  Uncle  Alf's  wise  counsels. 

'  And  if  I  know  you  are  wrong  ?  '  she  asked.  '  If  I  tell  you  that 
you  don't  understand  ?  ' 

'  It  will  make  no  difference.  Look  here  :  the  governor  has  done 
lots  for  you.  You've  never  expressed  a  wish  but  what  he  hasn't 
gratified.' 

'  Then  ask  him  if  he  is  satisfied  with  my  attitude  towards  him,' 
said  Dora.  '  See  what  he  says.  Tell  him  that  Uncle  Alfred  has 
laughed  at  him,  and  I  laughed  too.  Tell  him  all.' 

'  I  wouldn't  hurt  him  like  that,'  said  Claude. 

Dora  walked  to  the  window  and  back  again.  She  felt  helpless 
in  a  situation  she  believed  to  be  trivial.  But  she  could  not  laugh 
it  off  :  she  could  think  of  no  light  reply  that  would  act  as  a  dissolvent 
to  it.  And  if  she  could  find  no  light  reply,  only  a  serious  answer  or 
silence  was  possible.  She  chose  the  latter.  If  more  words  were  to 
be  said,  she  wished  that  Claude  should  have  the  responsibility  of 
them.  Eventually  he  took  it. 

'  And  I'm  sure  we've  all  been  good  enough  to  your  people,' 
he  said ;  '  made  them  welcome  at  Grote  for  as  long  as  they  chose, 
and  behaved  friendly.  And  it  was  only  ten  minutes  before  you  came 
in  that  I  wrote  to  Jim,  telling  him  he  could  live  in  the  flat  and 
welcome  till  the  end  of  July.  I  don't  see  what  I  could  do  more.' 

The  logical  reply  was  on  the  tip  of  Dora's  tongue — the  reply 
'  That  did  not  cost  you  anything ' — but  she  let  it  get  no  further. 
Only  she  rebelled  against  the  thought  that  it  was  a  kindness  to  do 


176  THE   OSBORNES. 

something  that  did  not  cost  anything.  He  thought  it  was  kind — 
and  so  in  a  way  it  was — to  give  Jim  the  flat  rent  free.  He  might 
perhaps  have  let  it  for  fifty  pounds.  But  he  did  not  want  fifty 
pounds.  Yet  he  thought  that  it  was  kind  :  it  seemed  to  him  kind. 
It  must  be  taken  at  that :  it  was  no  use  arguing,  going  into  the 
reasons  for  which  it  was  no  real  kindness  at  ah1.  And  he  had 
told  her  that  now,  she  felt  sure,  to  contrast  his  friendliness  to  her 
relations  with  her  ridicule — so  he  would  put  it — of  his.  But  he 
had  done  his  best :  she  was  bound  to  take  it  like  that,  not  point 
out  the  cheapness  of  it. 

'  Claude,  dear,  that  was  nice  of  you,'  she  said,  searching  for 
anything  that  should  magnify  his  kindness.  '  And  Jim  will  be  an 
awful  tenant.  He  will  leave  your  books  about  and  smoke  your 
cigars.  I  hope  you've  locked  them  up.' 

'  Not  a  thing,'  said  he.  '  He  just  steps  in.  He'll  find  a  sovereign 
on  my  dressing-table,  I  believe,  if  he  looks,  and  a  box  of  cigars  in  a 
drawer  of  my  writing-table  which  he's  welcome  to.  One  doesn't 
bother  about  things  like  that.' 

That  was  the  worst :  the  parade  of  generosity  could  not  go 
further  than  saying  that  there  was  no  parade  at  all.  Dora  could 
not  reply  any  more  to  that :  she  could  only  repeat. 

'  It  is  awfully  kind  of  you,'  she  said  again.  '  We  must  go  and 
dress  if  we  are  to  be  in  time  for  the  first  act.' 


(To  be  continued.} 


THE 

CORNHILL    MAGAZINE. 


FEBRUARY  1910. 

CANADIAN  BORN> 

BY  MRS.   HUMPHRY  WARD. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

ON  the  morning  following  his  conversation  with  Anderson  on  the 
Laggan  road,  Delaine  impatiently  awaited  the  arrival  of  the  morning 
mail  from  Laggan.  When  it  came,  he  recognised  Anderson's  hand- 
writing on  one  of  the  envelopes  put  into  his  hand.  Elizabeth, 
having  kept  him  company  at  breakfast,  had  gone  up  to  sit  with 
Philip.  Nevertheless,  he  took  the  precaution  of  carrying  the  letter 
out  of  doors  to  read  it. 

It  ran  as  follows  : 

'  DEAR  MR.  DELAINE, — You  were  rightly  informed,  and  the  man 
you  saw  is  my  father.  I  was  intentionally  deceived  ten  years  ago 
by  a  false  report  of  his  death.  Into  that,  however,  I  need  not  enter. 
If  you  talked  with  him,  as  I  understand  you  did,  for  half  an  hour, 
you  will,  I  think,  have  gathered  that  his  life  has  been  unfortunately 
of  little  advantage  either  to  himself  or  others.  But  that  also  is 
my  personal  affair — and  his.  And  although  in  a  moment  of  caprice, 
and  for  reasons  not  yet  plain  to  me,  he  revealed  himself  to  you,  he 
appears  still  to  wish  to  preserve  the  assumed  name  and  identity 
that  he  set  up  shortly  after  leaving  Manitoba,  seventeen  years  ago. 
As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  am  inclined  to  indulge  him.  But  you 
will,  of  course,  take  your  own  line,  and  will  no  doubt  communicate 
it  to  me.  I  do  not  imagine  that  my  private  affairs  or  my  father's 
can  be  of  any  interest  to  you,  but  perhaps  I  may  say  that  he  is  at 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  164,  N.S.  12 


178  CANADIAN   BORN. 

present  for  a  few  days  in  the  doctor's  hands,  and  that  I  propose  as 
soon  as  his  health  is  re-established  to  arrange  for  his  return  to  the 
States  where  his  home  has  been  for  so  long.  I  am,  of  course, 
ready  to  make  any  arrangements  for  his  benefit  that  seem  wise, 
and  that  he  will  accept.  I  hope  to  come  up  to  Lake  Louise 
to-morrrow,  and  shall  bring  with  me  one  or  two  things  that  Lady 
Merton  asked  me  to  get  for  her.  Next  week  I  hope  she  may  be  able 
and  inclined  to  take  one  or  two  of  the  usual  excursions  from  the 
hotel,  if  Mr.  Gaddesden  goes  on  as  well  as  we  all  expect.  I  could 
easily  make  the  necessary  arrangements  for  ponies,  guides,  &c. 

1  Yours  faithfully, 

'  GEORGE  ANDERSON.' 

'  Upon  my  word,  a  cool  hand  !  a  very  cool  hand  !  '  muttered 
Delaine  in  some  perplexity,  as  he  thrust  the  letter  into  his  pocket, 
and  strolled  on  towards  the  lake.  His  mind  went  back  to  the 
strange  nocturnal  encounter  which  had  led  to  the  development 
of  this  most  annoying  relation  between  himself  and  Anderson. 
He  recalled  the  repulsive  old  man,  his  uneducated  speech,  the  signs 
about  him  of  low  cunning  and  drunken  living,  his  rambling  em- 
bittered charges  against  his  son,  who,  according  to  him,  had  turned 
his  father  out  of  the  Manitoba  farm  in  consequence  of  a  family 
quarrel,  and  had  never  cared  since  to  find  out  whether  he  was  alive 
or  dead.  '  Sorry  to  trouble  you,  sir,  I'm  sure — a  genelman  like 
you  ' — obsequious  old  ruffian  ! — '  but  my  sons  were  always  kittle- 
cattle,  and  George  the  worst  of  'em  all.  If  you  would  be  so  kind, 
sir,  as  to  gie  'im  a  word  o'  preparation — 

Delaine  could  hear  his  own  impatient  reply  :  '  I  have  nothing 
whatever,  sir,  to  do  with  your  business  !  Approach  Mr.  Anderson 
yourself  if  you  have  any  claim  to  make.'  Whereupon  a  half -sly, 
half-threatening  hint  from  the  old  fellow  that  he  might  be  dis 
agreeable  unless  well  handled  ;  that  perhaps  '  the  lady  '  would 
listen  to  him  and  plead  for  him  with  his  son. 

Lady  Merton !  Good  heavens  !  Delaine  had  been  imme- 
diately ready  to  promise  anything  in  order  to  protect  her. 

Yet  even  now  the  situation  was  extremely  annoying  and  im- 
proper. Here  was  this  man,  Anderson,  still  coming  up  to  the  hotel, 
on  the  most  friendly  terms  with  Lady  Merton  and  her  brother, 
managing  for  them,  laying  them  under  obligations,  and  all  the  time, 
unknown  to  Elizabeth,  with  this  drunken  old  scamp  of  a  father 
in  the  background,  who  had  already  half-threatened  to  molest  her, 


CANADIAN   BORN.  179 

and  would  be  quite  capable,  if  thwarted,  of  blackmailing  his  son 
through  his  English  friends  ! 

'  What  can  I  do  ?  '  he  said  to  himself,  in  disgust.  '  I  have  no 
right  whatever  to  betray  this  man's  private  affairs ;  at  the  same 
time  I  should  never  forgive  myself — Mrs.  Gaddesden  would  never 
forgive  me — if  I  were  to  allow  Lady  Merton  to  run  any  risk  of 
some  sordid  scandal  which  might  get  into  the  papers.  Of  course 
this  young  man  ought  to  take  himself  off  !  If  he  had  any  proper 
feeling  whatever  he  would  see  how  altogether  unfitting  it  is  that 
he,  with  his  antecedents,  should  be  associating  in  this  very  friendly 
way  with  such  persons  as  Elizabeth  Merton  and  her  brother  !  ' 

Unfortunately  the  '  association '  had  included  the  rescue  of 
Philip  from  the  water  of  Lake  Louise,  and  the  provision  of  help 
to  Elizabeth,  in  a  strange  country,  which  she  could  have  ill  done 
without.  Philip's  unlucky  tumble  had  been,  certainly,  doubly 
unlucky,  if  it  was  to  be  the  means  of  entangling  his  sister  further 
in  an  intimacy  which  ought  never  to  have  been  begun. 

And  yet  how  to  break  through  this  spider's  web  ?  Delaine  racked 
his  brain,  and  could  think  of  nothing  better  than  delay  and  a 
pusillanimous  waiting  on  Providence.  Who  knew  what  mad  view 
Elizabeth  might  take  of  the  whole  thing,  in  this  overstrained 
sentimental  mood  which  had  possessed  her  throughout  this  Canadian 
journey  ?  The  young  man's  troubles  might  positively  recommend 
him  in  her  eyes  ! 

No !  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  stay  on  as  an  old  friend  and 
watchdog,  responsible,  at  least — if  Elizabeth  would  have  none  of 
his  counsels — to  her  mother  and  kinsfolk  at  home,  who  had  so 
clearly  approved  his  advances  in  the  winter,  and  would  certainly 
blame  Elizabeth,  on  her  return,  for  the  fact  that  his  long  journey 
had  been  fruitless.  He  magnanimously  resolved  that  Lady  Merton 
should  not  be  blamed  if  he  could  help  it,  by  any  one  except  himself. 
And  he  had  no  intention  at  all  of  playing  the  rejected  lover. 
The  proud,  well-born,  fastidious  Englishman  stiffened  as  he  walked. 
It  was  wounding  to  his  self-love  to  stay  where  he  was  ;  since  it  was . 
quite  plain  that  Elizabeth  could  do  without  him,  and  would  not 
regret  his  departure  ;  but  it  was  no  less  wounding  to  be  dismissed, 
as  it  were,  by  Anderson.  He  would  not  be  dismissed  ;  he  would 
hold  his  own.  He  too  would  go  with  them  to  Vancouver ;  and 
not  till  they  were  safely  in  charge  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  at 
Victoria,  would  he  desert  his  post. 

As  to   any  further  communication   to   Elizabeth,   he  realised 

12—2 


180  CANADIAN   BORN. 

that  the  hints  into  which  he  had  been  so  far  betrayed  had  profited 
neither  himself  nor  her.  She  had  resented  them,  and  it  was  most 
unlikely  that  she  would  ask  him  for  any  further  explanations  ;  and 
that  being  so  he  had  better  henceforward  hold  his  peace.  Unless 
of  course  any  further  annoyance  were  threatened. 

The  hotel  cart  going  down  to  Laggan  for  supplies  at  midday 
brought  Anderson  his  answer. 

'DEAR  MR.  ANDERSON, — Your  letter  gave  me  great  concern. 
I  deeply  sympathise  with  your  situation.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
I  must  necessarily  look  at  the  matter  entirely  from  the  point  of 
view  of  my  fellow-travellers.  Lady  Merton  must  not  be  distressed 
or  molested.  So  long,  however,  as  this  is  secured,  I  shall  not  feel 
myself  at  liberty  to  reveal  a  private  matter  which  has  accidentally 
come  to  my  knowledge.  I  understand,  of  course,  that  your  father 
will  not  attempt  any  further  communication  with  me,  and  I  propose 
to  treat  the  interview  as  though  it  had  not  happened. 

'  I  will  give  Lady  Merton  your  message.  It  seems  to  me  doubt- 
ful whether  she  will  be  ready  for  excursions  next  week.  But  you 
are  no  doubt  aware  that  the  hotel  makes  what  are  apparently 
very  excellent  and  complete  arrangements  for  such  things.  I  am 
sure  Lady  Merton  would  be  sorry  to  give  you  avoidable  trouble. 
However,  we  shall  see  you  to-morrow,  and  shall  of  course  be  very 
glad  of  your  counsels. 

'  Yours  faithfully, 
'ARTHUR  MANDEVILLE  DELAINE.' 

Anderson's  fair  skin  flushed  scarlet  as  he  read  this  letter.  He 
thrust  it  into  his  pocket  and  continued  to  pace  up  and  down  in  the 
patch  of  half-cleared  ground  at  the  back  of  the  Ginnells'  house.  He 
perfectly  understood  that  Delaine's  letter  was  meant  to  warn  him 
not  to  be  too  officious  in  Lady  Merton's  service.  '  Don't  suppose 
yourself  indispensable — and  don't  at  any  time  forget  your 
undesirable  antecedents,  and  compromising  situation.  On  th( 
conditions,  I  hold  my  tongue.' 

'  Pompous  ass ! '  Anderson  found  it  a  hard  task  to  keep  his 
pride  in  check.  It  was  of  a  different  variety  from  Delaine's,  but  n< 
a  whit  less  clamorous.  Yet  for  Lady  Merton's  sake  it  was  desii 
able,  perhaps  imperative,  that  he  should  keep  on  civil  terms  wit 
this  member  of  her  party.  A  hot  impulse  swept  through  him 
tell  her  everything,  to  have  done  with  secrecy.  But  he  stifled  it 


CANADIAN   BORN.  181 

What  right  had  he  to  intrude  his  personal  history  upon  her  ?— 
least  of  all  this  ugly  and  unsavoury  development  of  it  ?  Pride 
spoke  again,  and  self-respect.  If  it  humiliated  him  to  feel  himself  in 
Delaine's  power,  he  must  bear  it.  The  only  other  alternatives  were 
either  to  cut  himself  off  at  once  from  his  English  friends — that, 
of  course,  was  what  Delaine  wished — or  to  appeal  to  Lady  Merton's 
sympathy  and  pity.  Well,  he  would  do  neither — and  Delaine 
might  go  hang ! 

Mrs.  Ginnell,  with  her  apron  over  her  head  to  shield  her  from  a 
blazing  sun,  appeared  at  the  corner  of  the  house. 

'  You're  wanted,  sir  ! '    Her  tone  was  sulky. 

*  Anything  wrong  ?  '    Anderson  turned  apprehensively. 

'  Nothing  more  than  'is  temper,  sir.  He  won't  let  yer  rest,  do 
what  you  will  for  'im.5 

Anderson  went  into  the  house.  His  father  was  sitting  up  in  bed. 
Mrs.  Ginnell  had  been  endeavouring  during  the  past  hour  to  make 
her  patient  clean  and  comfortable,  and  to  tidy  his  room  ;  but  had 
been  at  last  obliged  to  desist  owing  to  the  mixture  of  ill-humour  and 
bad  language  with  which  he  assailed  her. 

*  Can  I  do  anything  for  you  ?  '  Anderson  enquired,  standing 
beside  him. 

'  Get  me  out  of  this  blasted  hole  as  soon  as  possible  !  That's 
about  all  you  can  do  !  I've  told  that  woman  to  get  me  my  things, 
and  help  me  into  the  other  room — but  she's  in  your  pay,  I  suppose. 
She  won't  do  anything  I  tell  her,  drat  her ! ' 

'  The  doctor  left  orders  you  were  to  keep  quiet  to-day.' 

McEwen  vowed  he  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  He  had  no 
time  to  be  lolling  in  bed  like  a  fine  lady.  He  had  business  to  do,  and 
must  get  home. 

'  If  you  get  up,  with  this  fever  on  you,  and  the  leg  in  that  state, 
you  will  have  blood-poisoning,'  said  Anderson  quietly,  '  which  will 
either  kill  you  or  detain  you  here  for  weeks.  You  say  you  want  to 
talk  business  with  me.  Well,  here  I  am.  In  an  hour's  time  I  must  go 
to  Calgary  for  an  appointment.  Suppose  you  take  this  opportunity.' 

McEwen  stared  at  his  son.  His  blue  eyes,  frowning  in  their 
wrinkled  sockets,  gave  little  or  no  index,  however,  to  the  mind 
behind  them.  The  straggling  white  locks  falling  round  his 
blotched  and  feverish  face  caught  Anderson's  attention.  Looking 
back  thirty  years  he  could  remember  his  father  vividly — a  handsome 
man,  solidly  built,  with  a  shock  of  fair  hair.  As  a  little  lad  he  had 
been  proud  to  sit  high-perched  beside  him  on  the  waggon  which  in 


182  CANADIAN   BORN. 

summer  drove  them,  every  other  Sunday,  to  a  meeting-house  fifteen 
miles  away.  He  could  see  his  mother  at  the  back  of  the  waggon 
with  the  little  girls,  her  grey  alpaca  dress  and  cotton  gloves,  her 
patient  look.  His  throat  swelled.  Nor  was  the  pang  of  intolerable 
pity  for  his  mother  only.  Deep  in  the  melancholy  of  his  nature 
and  strengthened  by  that  hateful  tie  of  blood  from  which  he  could 
not  escape,  was  a  bitter,  silent  compassion  for  this  outcast  also. 
All  the  machinery  of  life  set  in  motion  and  maintaining  itself  in  the 
clash  of  circumstance  for  seventy  years  to  produce  this,  at  the  end  ! 
Dismal  questionings  ran  through  his  mind.  Ought  he  to  have 
acted  as  he  had  done  seventeen  years  before  ?  How  would  his 
mother  have  judged  him  ?  Was  he  not  in  some  small  degree 
responsible  ? 

Meanwhile  his  father  began  to  talk  fast  and  querulously,  with 
plentiful  oaths  from  time  to  time,  and  using  a  local  miner's  slang 
which  was  not  always  intelligible  to  Anderson.  It  seemed  it  was  a 
question  of  an  old  silver  mine  on  a  mountain-side  in  Idaho,  deserted 
some  ten  years  before  when  the  river  gravels  had  been  exhausted, 
and  now  to  be  reopened,  like  many  others  in  the  same  neighbour- 
hood, with  improved  methods  and  machinery,  tunnelling  instead  of 
washing.  Silver  enough  to  pave  Montreal !  Ten  thousand  dollars 
for  plant,  five  thousand  for  the  claim,  and  the  thing  was  done. 

He  became  incoherently  eloquent,  spoke  of  the  ease  and 
rapidity  with  which  the  thing  could  be  resold  to  a  syndicate 
at  an  enormous  profit,  should  his  '  pardners '  and  he  not  care  to 
develop  it  themselves.  If  George  would  find  the  money — why, 
George  should  make  his  fortune,  like  the  rest,  though  he  had 
behaved  so  scurvily  all  these  years. 

Anderson  watched  the  speaker  intently.  Presently  he  began 
to  put  questions — close,  technical  questions.  His  father's  eyes — 
till  then  eager  and  greedy — began  to  flicker.  Anderson  perceived 
an  unwelcome  surprise — annoyance — bewilderment. 

'  You  knew,  of  course,  that  I  was  a  mining  engineer  ?  '  he  said 
at  last,  pulling  up  in  his  examination. 

'  Well,  I  heard  of  you  that  onst  at  Dawson  City,'  was  the  slow 
reply.  '  I  supposed  you  were  nosin'  round  like  the  rest.' 

'  Why,  I  didn't  go  as  a  mere  prospector  !  I'd  had  my  training 
at  Montreal.'  And  Anderson  resumed  his  questions. 

But  McEwen  presently  took  no  pains  to  answer  them.  He 
grew  indeed  less  and  less  communicative.  The  exact  locality  of  the 
mine,  the  names  of  the  partners,  the  precise  machinery  required, — 


CANADIAN   BORN.  183 

Anderson,  in  the  end,  could  get  at  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 
And  before  many  more  minutes  had  passed  he  had  convinced  himself 
that  he  was  wasting  his  time.  That  there  was  some  swindling  plot 
in  his  father's  mind  he  was  certain  ;  he  was  probably  the  tool  of 
some  shrewder  confederates,  who  had  no  doubt  sent  him  to 
Montreal  after  his  legacy,  and  would  fleece  him  on  his  return. 

'  By  the  way,  Aunt  Sykes'  money,  how  much  was  it  ?  * 
Anderson  asked  him  suddenly.  '  I  suppose  you  could  draw  on 
that  ?  ' 

McEwen  could  not  be  got  to  give  a  plain  answer.  It  wasn't  near 
enough,  anyhow ;  not  near.  The  evasion  seemed  to  Anderson 
purposeless ;  the  mere  shifting  and  doubling  that  comes  of  long 
years  of  dishonest  living.  And  again  the  question  stabbed  his  con- 
sciousness— were  his  children  justified  in  casting  him  so  inexorably 
adrift  ? 

'  Well,  I'd  better  run  down  and  have  a  look,'  he  said  at  last. 
*  If  it's  a  good  thing  I  dare  say  I  can  find  you  the  dollars.' 

'  Eun  down — where  ?  '  asked  McEwen  sharply. 

'  To  the  mine,  of  course.     I  might  spare  the  time  next  week.' 

'  No  need  to  trouble  yourself.  My  pardners  wouldn't  thank  me 
for  betraying  their  secrets.' 

'  Well,  you  couldn't  expect  me  to  provide  the  money  without 
knowing  a  bit  more  about  the  property,  could  you  ? — without  a 
regular  survey  ?  '  said  Anderson,  with  a  laugh. 

'  You  trust  me  with  three  or  four  thousand  dollars,'  said  McEwen 
doggedly — '  because  I'm  your  father,  and  I  give  you  my  word. 
And  if  not,  you  can  let  it  alone.  I  don't  want  any  prying  into  my 
affairs.' 

Anderson  was  silent  a  moment. 

Then  he  raised  his  eyes. 

1  Are  you  sure  it's  all  square  ?  '      The  tone  had  sharpened. 

'  Square  ?  Of  course  it  is.  What  are  you  aiming  at  ? 
You'll  believe  any  villainy  of  your  old  father,  I  suppose,  just  the 
same  as  you  always  used  to.  I've  not  had  your  opportunities, 
George.  I'm  not  a  fine  gentleman — on  the  trail  with  a  parcel  of 
English  swells.  I'm  a  poor  old  broken-down  miner,  who  wants 
to  hole-up  somewhere,  and  get  comfortable  for  his  old  age  ;  and  if 
you  had  a  heart  in  your  body,  you'd  lend  a  helping  hand.  When 
I  saw  you  at  Winnipeg ' — the  tone  became  a  trifle  plaintive  and 
slippery — '  I  ses  to  myself,  George  used  to  be  a  nice  chap,  with  a 
good  heart.  If  there's  anyone  ought  to  help  me  it's  my  own  son. 


184  CANADIAN    BORN 

And  so  I  boarded  that  train.     But  I'm  a  broken  man,  George,  and 
you've  used  me  hard.' 

'  Better  not  talk  like  that,'  interrupted  Anderson  in  a  clear, 
resolute  voice.  '  It  won't  do  any  good.  Look  here,  father  !  Suppose 
you  give  up  this  kind  of  life,  and  settle  down.  I'm  ready  to  give  you 
an  allowance,  and  look  after  you.  Your  health  is  bad.  To  speak 
the  truth,  this  mine  business  sounds  to  me  pretty  shady.  Cut  it  all ! 
I'll  put  you  with  decent  people,  who'll  look  after  you.' 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met ;  Anderson's  insistently  bright, 
McEwen's  wavering  and  frowning.  The  June  sunshine  came  into 
the  small  room  through  a  striped  and  battered  blind,  illuminating 
the  rough  planks  of  which  it  was  built,  the  '  cuts '  from  illustrated 
papers  that  were  pinned  upon  them,  the  scanty  furniture,  and  the 
untidy  bed.  Anderson's  head  and  shoulders  were  in  a  full  mellowed 
light ;  he  held  himself  with  an  unconscious  energy,  answering  to  a 
certain  force  of  feeling  within  ;  a  proud  strength  and  sincerity 
expressed  itself  through  every  detail  of  attitude  and  gesture ;  yet 
perhaps  the  delicacy,  or  rather  sensibility,  mingling  with  the  pride, 
would  have  been  no  less  evident  to  a  seeing  eye.  There  was  High- 
land blood  in  him,  and  a  touch  therefore  of  the  Celtic  responsive- 
ness, the  Celtic  magnetism.  The  old  man  opposite  to  him  in 
shadow,  with  his  back  to  the  light,  had  a  crouching  dangerous  look. 
It  was  as  though  he  recognised  something  in  his  son  for  ever  lost 
to  himself ;  and  repulsed  it,  half  enviously,  half  malignantly. 

But  he  did  not  apparently  resent  Anderson's  proposal.  He  said 
sulkily  '  Oh,  I  dessay  you'd  like  to  put  me  away.  But  I'm  not 
doddering  yet.' 

All  the  same  he  listened  in  silence  to  the  plan  that  Anderson 
developed,  puffing  the  while  at  the  pipe  which  he  had  made  Mrs. 
Ginnell  give  him. 

'  I  shan't  stay  on  this  side,'  he  said,  at  last,  decidedly.  '  There's 
a  thing  or  two  that  might  turn  up  agin  rne — and  fellows  as  'ud 
do  me  a  bad  turn  if  they  come  across  me — dudes,  as  I  used  to 
know  in  Dawson  City.  I  shan't  stay  in  Canada.  You  can  make 
up  your  mind  to  that.  Besides,  the  winter  'ud  kill  me  !  ' 

Anderson  accordingly  proposed  San  Francisco,  or  Los  Angeles. 
Would  his  father  go  for  a  time  to  a  Salvation  Army  colony  near 
Los  Angeles  ?  Anderson  knew  the  chief  officials — capital  men, 
with  no  cant  about  them.  Fruit  farming — a  beautiful  climal 
care  in  sickness — no  drink — as  much  work  or  as  little  as  he  liked- 
and  all  expenses  paid. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  185 

McEwen  laughed  out — a  short  sharp  laugh — at  the  mention  of 
the  Salvation  Army.  But  he  listened  patiently,  and  at  the  end 
even  professed  to  think  there  might  be  something  in  it.  As  to  his 
own  scheme,  he  dropped  all  mention  of  it.  Yet  Anderson  was 
under  no  illusion  ;  there  it  lay  sparkling,  as  it  were,  at  the  back  of 
his  sly  wolfish  eyes. 

'  How  in  blazes  could  you  take  me  down  ?  '  muttered  McEwen — 
'  Thought  you  was  took  up  with  these  English  swells.' 

'  I'm  not  taken  up  with  anything  that  would  prevent  my 
looking  after  you,'  said  Anderson  rising.  '  You  let  Mrs.  Ginnell 
attend  to  you, — get  the  leg  well — and  we'll  see.' 

McEwen  eyed  him — his  good  looks  and  his  dress,  his  gentleman's 
refinement ;  and  the  shaggy  white  brows  of  the  old  miner  drew 
closer  together. 

'  What  did  you  cast  me  off  like  that  for,  George  '?  '  he  asked. 

Anderson  turned  away. 

'  Don't  rake  up  the  past.     Better  not.' 

(  Where  are  my  other  sons,  George  ?  ' 

'  In  Montreal,  doing  well.'  Anderson  gave  the  details  of  their 
appointments  and  salaries. 

'  And  never  a  thought  of  their  old  father,  I'll  be  bound  !  '  said 
McEwen,  at  the  end,  with  slow  vindictiveness. 

'  You  forget  that  it  was  your  own  doing ;  we  believed  you  dead.' 

'  Aye  ! — you  hadn't  left  a  man  much  to  come  home  for  ! — and 
all  for  an  accident ! — a  thing  as  might  ha'  happened  to  any  man.' 

The  speaker's  voice  had  grown  louder.  He  stared  sombrely, 
defiantly  at  his  companion. 

Anderson  stood  with  his  hands  on  his  sides,  looking  through  the 
further  window.  Then  slowly  he  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket  and 
withdrew  from  it  a  large  pocket-book.  Out  of  the  pocket-book 
he  took  a  delicately  made  leather  case,  holding  it  in  his  hand  a 
moment,  and  glancing  uncertainly  at  the  figure  in  the  bed. 

'  What  ha'  you  got  there  ?  '  growled  McEwen. 

Anderson  crossed  the  room.  His  own  face  had  lost  its  colour. 
As  he  reached  his  father,  he  touched  a  spring,  and  held  out  his 
hand  with  the  case  lying  open  within  it. 

It  contained  a  miniature, — of  a  young  woman  in  the  midst  of 
a  group  of  children. 

'  Do  you  remember  that  photograph  that  was  done  of  them — 
in  a  tent, — when  you  took  us  all  into  Winnipeg  for  the  first  agricul- 
tural show  ? '  he  said  hoarsely.  '  I  had  a  copy — that  wasn't  burnt. 


186  CANADIAN   BORN. 

At  Montreal,  there  was  a  French  artist  one  year,  that  did  these 
things.  I  got  him  to  do  this.' 

McEwen  stared  at  the  miniature — the  sweet-faced  Scotch 
woman,  the  bunch  of  children.  Then  with  a  brusque  movement 
he  turned  his  face  to  the  wall,  and  closed  his  eyes. 

Anderson's  lips  opened  once  or  twice  as  though  to  speak.  Some 
imperious  emotion  seemed  to  be  trying  to  force  its  way.  But  he 
could  not  find  words  ;  and  at  last  he  returned  the  miniature  to  his 
pocket,  walked  quietly  to  the  door,  and  went  out  of  the  room. 

The  sound  of  the  closing  door  brought  immense  relief  to  McEwen. 
He  turned  again  in  bed,  and  relit  his  pipe,  shaking  off  the  impres- 
sion left  by  the  miniature  as  quickly  as  possible.  What  business  had 
George  to  upset  him  like  that  ?  He  was  down  enough  on  his  luck 
as  it  was. 

He  smoked  away,  gloomily  thinking  over  the  conversation. 
It  didn't  look  like  getting  any  money  out  of  this  close-fisted  Puri- 
tanical son  of  his.  Survey  indeed !  McEwen  found  himself 
shaken  by  a  kind  of  internal  convulsion  as  he  thought  of  the  revela- 
tions that  would  come  out.  George  was  a  fool. 

In  his  feverish  reverie,  many  lines  of  thought  crossed  and  danced 
in  his  brain  ;  and  every  now  and  then  he  was  tormented  by  the 
craving  for  alcohol.  The  Salvation  Army  proposal  half  amused, 
half  infuriated  him.  He  knew  all  about  their  colonies.  Trust  him  ! 
Your  own  master  for  seventeen  years, — mixed  up  in  a  lot  of  jobs 
it  wouldn't  do  to  go  blabbing  to  the  Mounted  Police — and  then 
to  finish  up  with  those  hymn-singing  fellows  ! — George  was  most 
certainly  a  fool !  Yet  dollars  ought  to  be  screwed  out  of  him— 
somehow. 

Presently,  to  get  rid  of  some  unpleasant  reflections,  the  old  man 
stretched  out  his  hand  for  a  copy  of  the  '  Vancouver  Sentinel '  that 
was  lying  on  the  bed,  and  began  to  read  it  idly.  As  he  did  so,  a 
paragraph  drew  his  attention.  He  gripped  the  paper,  and,  springing 
up  in  bed,  read  it  twice,  peering  into  it,  his  features  quivering 
with  eagerness.  The  passage  described  the  '  hold  up  '  of  a  Union 
Pacific  train,  at  a  point  between  Seattle  and  the  Canadian  border. 
By  the  help  of  masks,  and  a  few  sticks  of  dynamite,  the  thing  had 
been  very  smartly  done — a  whole  train  terrorised,  the  mail  van 
broken  open  and  a  large  '  swag  '  captured.  Billy  Symonds,  the 
notorious  train  robber  from  Montana,  was  suspected,  and  there  was 
a  hue  and  cry  through  the  whole  border  after  him  and  his 


CANADIAN   BORN.  187 

accomplices,  amongst  whom,  so  it  was  said,  was  a  band  from  the 
Canadian  side, — foreign  miners  mixed  up  in  some  of  the  acts  of 
violence  which  had  marked  the  strike  of  the  year  before. 

Bill  Symonds  ! — McEwen  threw  himself  excitedly  from  side  to 
side,  unable  to  keep  still.  He  knew  Symonds — a  chap  and  a  half ! 
Why  didn't  he  come  and  try  it  on  this  side  of  the  line  ?  Heaps  of 
money  going  backwards  and  forwards  over  the  C.P.R. !  All  these 
thousands  of  dollars  paid  out  in  wages  week  by  week  to  these 
construction  camps — must  come  from  somewhere  in  cash — Winnipeg 
or  Montreal.  He  began  to  play  with  the  notion,  elaborating  and 
refining  it ;  till  presently  a  whole  epic  of  attack  and  capture  was 
rushing  through  his  half  crazy  brain. 

He  had  dropped  the  paper,  and  was  staring  abstractedly 
through  the  foot  of  open  window  close  beside  him,  which  the  torn 
blind  did  not  cover.  Outside,  through  the  clearing  with  its  stumps 
of  jack-pine,  ran  a  path,  a  short  cut,  connecting  the  station  at 
Laggan  with  a  section-house  further  up  the  line. 

As  McEwen's  eyes  followed  it,  he  began  to  be  aware  of  a  group 
of  men  emerging  from  the  trees  on  the  Laggan  side,  and  walking 
in  single  file  along  the  path.  Navvies  apparently — carrying 
bundles  and  picks.  The  path  came  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
window,  and  of  the  little  stream  that  supplied  the  house  with 
water. 

Suddenly,  McEwen  sprang  up  in  bed.  The  two  foremost  men 
paused  beside  the  water,  mopped  their  hot  faces,  and  taking 
drinking  cups  out  of  their  pockets  stooped  down  to  the  stream. 
The  old  man  in  the  cabin  bed  watched  them  with  a  fierce  intentness  ; 
and  as  they  straightened  themselves  and  were  about  to  follow 
their  companions  who  were  already  out  of  sight,  he  gave  a  low 
call. 

The  two  started  and  looked  round  them.  Their  hands  went  to 
their  pockets.  McEwen  swung  himself  round  so  as  to  reach  the 
window  better,  and  repeated  his  call — this  time  with  a  different 
inflection.  The  men  exchanged  a  few  hurried  words.  Carefully 
scrutinising  the  house,  they  noticed  a  newspaper  waving  cautiously 
in  an  open  window.  One  of  them  came  forward,  the  other  remained 
by  the  stream  bathing  his  feet  and  ankles  in  the  water. 

No  one  else  was  in  sight.  Mrs.  Ginnell  was  cooking  on  the  other 
side  of  the  house.  Anderson  had  gone  off  to  catch  his  train.  For 
twenty  minutes,  the  man  outside  leant  against  the  window-sash 
apparently  lounging  and  smoking.  Nothing  could  be  seen  from 


188  CANADIAN   BORN. 

the  path,  but  a  battered  blind  flapping  in  the  June  breeze,  and  a 
dark  space  of  room  beyond. 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  days  passed  on.  Philip  in  the  comfortable  hotel  at  Lake 
Louise  was  recovering  steadily,  though  not  rapidly,  from  the 
general  shock  of  his  immersion.  Elizabeth,  while  nursing  him 
tenderly,  could  yet  find  time  to  walk  and  climb,  plunging  spirit 
and  sense  in  the  beauty  of  the  Rockies. 

On  these  excursions  Delaine  generally  accompanied  her  :  and 
she  bore  it  well.  Secretly  she  cherished  some  astonishment  and 
chagrin  that  Anderson  could  apparently  be  with  them  so  little 
on  these  bright  afternoons  among  the  forest  trails  and  upper 
lakes,  although  she  generally  found  that  the  plans  of  the  day 
had  been  suggested  and  organised  by  him,  by  telephone  from 
Laggan,  to  the  kind  and  competent  Scotch  lady  who  was  the 
manager  of  the  hotel.  It  seemed  to  her  that  he  had  promised  his 
company ;  whereas,  as  a  rule,  now  he  withheld  it ;  and  her  pride 
was  put  to  it,  on  her  own  part,  not  to  betray  any  sign  of  discon- 
tent. He  spoke  vaguely  of  '  business,'  and  on  one  occasion,  ap- 
parently, had  gone  off  for  three  days  to  Saskatchewan  on  matters 
connected  with  the  coming  general  election. 

From  the  newspaper,  or  the  talk  of  visitors  in  the  hotel,  or 
the  C.P.R.  officials  who  occasionally  found  their  way  to  Lake 
Louise  to  make  courteous  inquiries  after  the  English  party, 
Elizabeth  became,  indeed,  more  and  more  fully  aware  of  the 
estimation  in  which  Anderson  was  beginning  to  be  held.  He  was 
already  a  personage  in  the  North- West ;  was  said  to  be  sure  of 
success  in  his  contest  at  Donaldminster,  and  of  an  immediate 
Parliamentary  career  at  Ottawa.  These  prophecies  seemed  to 
depend  more  upon  the  man's  character  than  his  actual  achieve- 
ments ;  though,  indeed,  the  story  of  the  great  strike,  as  she 
had  gathered  it  once  or  twice  from  the  lips  of  eye-witnesses,  was 
a  fine  one.  For  weeks  he  had  carried  his  life  in  his  hand  among 
thousands  of  infuriated  navvies  and  miners — since  the  miners  had 
made  common  cause  with  the  railwaymen — with  a  cheerfulness, 
daring,  and  resource  which  in  the  end  had  wrung  success  from  an 
apparently  hopeless  situation  ;  a  success  attended,  when  all  was 
over,  by  an  amazing  effusion  of  good- will  among  both  masters  and 
men,  especially  towards  Anderson  himself,  and  a  general  improi 


CANADIAN   BORN.  189 

ment  in  the  industrial  temper  and  atmosphere  of  the  North- 
West. 

The  recital  of  these  things  stirred  Elizabeth's  pulses.  But  why 
did  she  never  hear  them  from  himself  ?  Surely  he  had  offered  her 
friendship,  and  the  rights  of  friendship.  How  else  could  he  justify 
the  scene  at  Field,  when  he  had  so  brusquely  probed  her  secret 
anxieties  for  Philip  ?  Her  pride  rebelled  when  she  thought  of  it, 
when  she  recalled  her  wet  eyes,  her  outstretched  hand.  Mere 
humiliation ! — in  the  case  of  a  casual  or  indifferent  acquaintance. 
No  ;  on  that  day,  certainly,  he  had  claimed  the  utmost  privileges, 
had  even  strained  the  rights,  of  a  friend,  a  real  friend.  But  his 
behaviour  since  had  almost  revived  her  first  natural  resentment. 

Thoughts  like  these  ran  in  her  mind,  and  occasionally  affected 
her  manner  when  they  did  meet.  Anderson  found  her  more  re- 
served, and  noticed  that  she  did  not  so  often  ask  him  for  small 
services  as  of  old.  He  suffered  under  the  change ;  but  it  was,  he 
knew,  his  own  doing,  and  he  did  not  alter  his  course. 

Whenever  he  did  come,  he  sat  mostly  with  Philip,  over  whom 
he  had  gradually  established  a  remarkable  influence,  not  by  any 
definite  acts  or  speeches,  but  rather  by  the  stoicism  of  his  own 
mode  of  life,  coupled  with  a  proud  or  laughing  contempt  for 
certain  vices  and  self-indulgences  to  which  it  was  evident  that 
he  himself  felt  no  temptation.  As  soon  as  Philip  felt  himself 
sufficiently  at  home  with  the  Canadian  to  begin  to  jibe  at  his 
teetotalism,  Anderson  seldom  took  the  trouble  to  defend  him- 
self; yet  the  passion  of  moral  independence  in  his  nature,  of 
loathing  for  any  habit  that  weakens  and  enslaves  the  will, 
infected  the  English  lad  whether  he  would  or  no.  '  There's  lots 
of  things  he's  stick-stock  mad  on,'  Philip  would  say  impatiently 
to  his  sister.  But  the  madness  told.  And  the  madman  was  all  the 
while  consolingly  rich  in  other,  and,  to  Philip,  more  attractive  kinds 
of  madness — the  follies  of  the  hunter  and  climber,  of  the  man 
who  holds  his  neck  as  dross  in  comparison  with  the  satisfaction 
of  certain  wild  instincts  that  the  Rockies  excite  in  him.  Anderson 
had  enjoyed  his  full  share  of  adventures  with  goat  and  bear.  Such 
things  are  the  'customary  amusements,  it  seemed,  of  a  young  en- 
gineer in  the  Rockies.  Beside  them,  English  covert-shooting  is  a 
sport  for  babes  ;  and  Philip  ceased  to  boast  of  his  own  prowess 
in  that  direction.  He  would  listen,  indeed,  open-mouthed,  to 
Anderson's  yarns,  lyingTon  his  long  chair  on  the  verandah— a 
graceful  languid  figure— with  a  coyote  rug  heaped  about  him.  It 


190  CANADIAN   BORN. 

was  clear  to  Elizabeth  that  Anderson  on  his  side  had  become  very 
fond  of  the  boy.  There  was  no  trouble  he  would  not  take  for  him. 
And  gradually,  silently,  proudly,  she  allowed  him  to  take  less  and 
less  for  herself. 

Once  or  twice  Arthur  Delaine's  clumsy  hints  occurred  to  her. 
Was  there,  indeed,  some  private  matter  weighing  on  the  young 
man's  mind  ?  She  would  not  allow  herself  to  speculate  upon  it ; 
though  she  could  not  help  watching  the  relation  between  the  two 
men  with  some  curiosity.  It  was  polite  enough  ;  but  there  was 
certainly  no  cordiality  in  it ;  and  once  or  twice  she  suspected  a 
hidden  understanding. 

Delaine  meanwhile  felt  a  kind  of  dull  satisfaction  in  the  turn  of 
events.  The  intimacy  between  Anderson  and  Lady  Merton  had 
certainly  been  checked,  or  was  at  least  not  advancing.  Whether 
it  was  due  to  his  own  hints  to  Elizabeth,  or  to  Anderson's  chival- 
rous feeling,  he  did  not  know.  But  he  wrote  every  mail  to  Mrs. 
Gaddesden  discreetly,  yet  not  without  giving  her  some  significant 
information  ;  he  did  whatever  small  services  were  possible  in  the 
case  of  a  man  who  went  about  Canada  as  a  Johnny  Head-in-air, 
with  his  mind  in  another  hemisphere  ;  and  it  was  understood  that 
he  was  to  leave  them  at  Vancouver.  In  the  forced  association  of 
their  walks,  and  rides,  Elizabeth  showed  herself  gay,  kind,  com- 
panionable ;  although  often,  and  generally  for  no  reason  that  he 
could  discover,  something  sharp  and  icy  in  her  would  momentarily 
make  itself  felt,  and  he  would  find  himself  driven  back  within 
bounds  that  he  had  perhaps  been  tempted  to  transgress.  And  the 
result  of  it  all  was  that  he  fell  day  by  day  more  tormentingly  in 
love  with  her.  Those  placid  matrimonial  ambitions  with  which 
he  had  left  England  had  been  all  swept  away  ;  and  as  he  followed 
her — she  on  pony-back,  he  on  foot — along  the  mountain  trails, 
watching  the  lightness  of  her  small  figure  against  the  splendid 
background  of  peak  and  pine,  he  became  a  troubled,  introspective 
person  ;  concentrating  upon  himself  and  his  disagreeable  plight 
the  attention  he  had  hitherto  given  to  a  delightful  outer  world, 
sown  with  the  caches  of  antiquity,  in  order  to  amuse  him. 

Meanwhile  the  situation  in  the  cabin  at  Laggan  appeared  to  be 
steadily  improving.  McEwen  had  abruptly  ceased  to  be  a  rebellious 
and  difficult  patient.  The  doctor's  orders  had  been  obeyed  ;  the 
leg  had  healed  rapidly  ;  and  he  no  longer  threatened  or  cajoled 
Mrs.  Ginnell  on  the  subject  of  liquor.  As  far  as  Anderson  was 
concerned,  he  was  generally  sulky  and  uncommunicative.  But 


CANADIAN   BORN.  191 

Anderson  got  enough  out  of  him  by  degrees  to  be  able  to  form  a 
fairly  complete  idea  of  his  father's  course  of  life  since  the  false 
report  of  his  death  in  the  Yukon.  He  realised  an  existence  on  the 
fringe  of  civilisation,  with  its  strokes  of  luck  neutralised  by  drink, 
and  its  desperate,  and  probably  criminal,  moments.  And  as 
soon  as  his  father  got  well  enough  to  limp  along  the  trails  of  the 
Laggan  valley,  the  son  noticed  incidents  which  appeared  to  show 
that  the  old  man,  while  playing  the  part  of  the  helpless  stranger, 
was  by  no  means  without  acquaintance  among  the  motley  host 
of  workmen  that  were  constantly  passing  through.  The  links 
of  international  trade  unionism  no  doubt  accounted  for  it.  But 
in  McE wen's  case,  the  fraternity  to  which  he  belonged  seemed 
to  apply  only  to  the  looser  and  more  disreputable  elements  among 
the  emigrant  throng. 

But  at  the  same  time  he  had  shown  surprising  docility  in  the 
matter  of  Anderson's  counsels.  All  talk  of  the  Idaho  mine  had 
dropped  between  them,  as  though  by  common  consent.  Anderson 
had  laid  hands  upon  a  young  man,  a  Salvation  Army  officer  in 
Vancouver,  with  whom  his  father  consented  to  lodge  for  the  next 
six  weeks  ;  and  further  arrangements  were  to  be  postponed  till 
the  end  of  that  period.  Anderson  hoped,  indeed,  to  get  his  father 
settled  there  before  Lady  Merton  moved  from  Lake  Louise.  For 
in  a  few  days  now,  the  private  car  was  to  return  from  the  coast, 
in  order  to  take  up  the  English  party. 

McEwen's  unexpected  complaisance  led  to  a  great  softening 
in  Anderson's  feeling  towards  his  father.  All  those  inner  com- 
punctions that  haunt  a  just  and  scrupulous  nature  came  freely 
into  play.  And  his  evangelical  religion — for  he  was  a  devout 
though  liberal-minded  Presbyterian — also  entered  in.  Was  it 
possible  that  he  might  be  the  agent  of  his  father's  redemp- 
tion ?  The  idea,  the  hope,  produced  in  him  occasional  hidden 
exaltations — flights  of  prayer — mystical  memories  of  his  mother — 
which  lightened  what  was  otherwise  a  time  of  bitter  renunciation, 
and  determined  wrestling  with  himself. 

During  the  latter  days  of  this  fortnight,  indeed,  he  could  not 
do  enough  for  his  father.  He  had  made  all  the  Vancouver  arrange- 
ments ;  he  had  supplied  him  amply  with  clothes  and  other  per- 
sonal necessaries  ;  and  he  came  home  early  at  nights  in  order  to 
sit  and  smoke  with  him.  Mrs.  Ginnell,  looking  in  of  an  evening, 
beheld  what  seemed  to  her  a  touching  sight,  though  one  far  beyond 
the  deserts  of  such  creatures  as  McEwen — the  son  reading  the 


192  CANADIAN   BORN. 

newspaper  aloud,  or  playing  dominoes  with  his  father,  or  just 
smoking  and  chatting.  Her  hard  common  sense  as  a  working- 
woman  suggested  to  her  that  Anderson  was  nursing  illusions  ; 
and  she  scornfully  though  silently  hoped  that  the  '  old  rip  '  would 
soon,  one  way  or  another,  be  off  his  shoulders. 

But  the  illusions,  for  the  moment,  were  Anderson's  sustenance. 
His  imagination,  denied  a  more  personal  and  passionate  food, 
gave  itself  with  fire  to  the  redeeming  of  an  outlaw,  and  the  paying 
of  a  spiritual  debt. 

It  was  a  Wednesday.  After  a  couple  of  drizzling  days  the  weather 
was  again  fair.  The  trains  rolling  through  the  pass  began  with 
these  early  days  of  July  to  bring  a  first  crop  of  holiday-makers 
from  Eastern  Canada  and  the  States  ;  the  hotels  were  filling  up. 
On  the  morrow  McEwen  was  to  start  for  Vancouver.  And  a  letter 
from  Philip  Gaddesden,  delivered  at  Laggan  in  the  morning,  had 
bitterly  reproached  Anderson  for  neglecting  them,  and  leaving 
him,  in  particular,  to  be  bored  to  death  by  glaciers  and  tourists. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  Anderson  took  his  way  up  the  mountain 
road  to  Lake  Louise.  He  found  the  English  travellers  established 
among  the  pines  by  the  lake  side,  Philip  half  asleep  in  a  hammock 
strung  between  two  pines,  while  Delaine  was  reading  to  Elizabeth 
from  an  article  in  an  archaeological  review  on  '  Some  Fresh  Light 
on  the  Cippus  of  Palestrina.' 

Lady  Merton  was  embroidering  ;  it  seemed  to  Anderson  that 
she  was  tired  or  depressed.  Delaine's  booming  voice,  and  the  fre- 
quent Latin  passages  interspersed  with  stammering  translations 
of  his  own,  in  which  he  appeared  to  be  interminably  tangled, 
would  be  enough — the  Canadian  thought— to  account  for  a  sub- 
dued demeanour  ;  and  there  was,  moreover,  a  sudden  thunderous 
heat  in  the  afternoon. 

Elizabeth  received  him  a  little  stiffly,  and  Philip  roused  himself 
from  sleep  only  to  complain  '  You've  been  four  mortal  days  without 
coming  near  us  ! ' 

'  I  had  to  go  away.    I  have  been  to  Regina.' 

'  On  politics  ?  '  asked  Delaine. 

'  Yes.     We  had  a  couple  of  meetings  and  a  row.' 

'  Jolly  for  you  ! '  grumbled  Philip.  '  But  we've  had  a  beastly 
time.  Ask  Elizabeth.' 

'  Nothing  but  the  weather  ! '  said  Elizabeth  carelessly.  '  We 
couldn't  even  see  the  mountains.' 


CANADIAN   BORN.  193 

But  why,  as  she  spoke,  should  the  delicate  cheek  change  colour, 
suddenly  and  brightly  ?  The  answering  blood  leapt  in  Anderson. 
She  had  missed  him,  though  she  would  not  show  it. 

Delaine  began  to  question  him  about  Saskatchewan.  The 
Englishman's  forms  of  conversation  were  apt  to  be  tediously 
inquisitive,  and  Anderson  had  often  resented  them.  To-day, 
however,  he  let  himself  be  catechised  patiently  enough,  while  all 
the  time  conscious,  from  head  to  foot,  of  one  person  only — one 
near  and  yet  distant  person. 

Elizabeth  wore  a  dress  of  white  linen,  and  a  broad  hat  of  soft 
blue.  The  combination  of  the  white  and  blue  with  her  brown 
hair,  and  the  pale  refinement  of  her  face,  seemed  to  him  ravishing, 
enchanting.  So  were  the  movements  of  her  hands  at  work,  and 
all  the  devices  of  her  light  self-command ;  more  attractive,  in- 
finitely, to  his  mature  sense  than  the  involuntary  tremor  of 
girlhood. 

'  Hallo !  What  does  Stewart  want  ?  '  said  Philip,  raising 
himself  in  his  hammock.  The  hunter  who  had  been  the  com- 
panion of  his  first  unlucky  attempt  at  fishing  was  coming  towards 
them.  The  boy  sprang  to  the  ground,  and,  vowing  that  he  would 
fish  the  following  morning,  whatever  Elizabeth  might  say,  went  off 
to  consult. 

She  looked  after  him  with  a  smile  and  a  sigh. 

'  Better  give  him  his  head ! '  laughed  Anderson.  Then,  from 
where  he  stood,  he  studied  her  a  moment,  unseen,  except  by 
Delaine,  who  was  sitting  among  the  moss  a  few  yards  away,  and 
had  temporarily  forgotten  the  cippus  of  Palestrina. 

Suddenly  the  Canadian  came  forward. 

'  Have  you  explored  that  path  yet,  over  the  shoulder  ? '  he 
said  to  Lady  Merton,  pointing  to  the  fine  promontory  of  purple 
piny  rock  which  jutted  out  in  front  of  the  glacier  on  the  southern 
side  of  the  lake. 

She  shook  her  head  ;  but  was  it  not  still  too  early  and  too  hot 
to  walk  ?  Anderson  persisted.  The  path  was  in  shade,  and  would 
repay  climbing.  She  hesitated — and  yielded;  making  a  show  of 
asking  Delaine  to  come  with  them.  Delaine  also  hesitated,  and 
refrained  ;  making  a  show  of  preferring  the  '  Archaeological  Keview.' 
He  was  left  to  watch  them  mount  the  first  stretches  of  the  trail ; 
while  Philip  strolled  along  the  lake  with  his  companion  in  the 
slouch  hat  and  leggings,  deep  in  tales  of  bass  and  trout. 

VOL.  XXVIII.-NO.  161,  N.S.  13 


194  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Elizabeth  and  Anderson  climbed  a  long  sloping  ascent  through 
the  pines.  The  air  was  warm  and  scented  ;  the  heat  of  the  sun 
on  the  moistened  earth  was  releasing  all  its  virtues  and  fragrances, 
overpowering  in  the  open  places,  and  stealing  even  through  the 
shadows.  When  the  trees  broke  or  receded,  the  full  splendour  of 
the  glacier  was  upon  them  to  their  left ;  and  then  for  a  space  they 
must  divine  it  as  a  presence  behind  the  actual,  faintly  gleaming 
and  flashing  through  the  serried  ranks  of  the  forest.  There  were 
heaths  and  mosses  under  the  pines;  but  otherwise  for  a  while 
the  path  was  flowerless  ;  and  Elizabeth  discontentedly  remarked 
it.  Anderson  smiled. 

'  Wait  a  little  ! — or  you'll  have  to  apologise  to  the  Eockies.' 

He  looked  down  upon  her,  and  saw  that  her  small  face  had 
bloomed  into  a  vivacity  and  charm  that  startled  him.  Was  it 
only  the  physical  effort  and  pleasure  of  the  climb  ?  As  for  himself, 
it  took  all  the  power  of  a  strong  will  to  check  the  happy  tumult  in 
his  heart. 

Elizabeth  asked  him  of  his  Saskatchewan  journey.  He  described 
to  her  the  growing  town  he  hoped  to  represent — the  rush  of  its  new 
life. 

'  On  one  Sunday  morning  there  was  nothing — the  bare  prairie  ; 
by  the  next ! — so  to  speak  ! — there  was  a  town  all  complete,  with 
a  hotel,  an  elevator,  a  bank,  and  a  church.  That  was  ten  years 
ago.  Then  the  railway  came ;  I  saw  the  first  train  come  in, 
garlanded  and  wreathed  with  flowers.  Now  there  are  eight 
thousand  people.  They  have  reserved  land  for  a  park  along  the 
river,  and  sent  for  a  landscape  gardener  from  England  to  lay  it  out ; 
they  have  made  trees  grow  on  the  prairie  ;  they  have  built  a  high 
school  and  a  concert  hall ;  the  municipality  is  full  of  ambitions  ; 
and  all  round  the  town,  settlers  are  pouring  in.  On  market 
day  you  find  yourself  in  a  crowd  of  men,  talking  cattle  and 
crops,  the  last  thing  in  binders  and  threshers,  as  farmers  do  all 
over  the  world.  But  yet  you  couldn't  match  that  crowd  in  the 
old  world.' 

'  Which  you  don't  know,'  put  in  Elizabeth,  with  her  sly 
smile. 

'  Which  I  don't  know,'  repeated  Anderson  meekly.  '  But  I 
guess.  And  I  am  thinking  of  sayings  of  yours.  Where  in  Europe 
can  you  match  the  sense  of  boundlessness  we  have  here — boundless 
space,  boundless  opportunity  ?  It  often  makes  fools  of  us :  it 
intoxicates,  turus  our  heads.  There  is  a  germ  of  madness  in  this 


CANADIAN   BORN.  195 

North- West.  I  have  seen  men  destroyed  by  it.  But  it  is  Nature 
who  is  the  witch.  She  brews  the  cup.' 

'  All  very  well  for  the  men,'  Elizabeth  said,  musing — '  and  the 
strong  men.  About  the  women  in  this  country  I  can't  make  up 
my  mind.' 

'  You  think  of  the  drudgery,  the  domestic  hardships  ?  ' 

'  There  are  some  ladies  in  the  hotel,  from  British  Columbia. 
They  are  in  easy  circumstances — and  the  daughter  is  dying  of 
overwork  !  The  husband  has  a  large  fruit  farm,  but  they  can  get 
no  service  ;  the  fruit  rots  on  the  ground  ;  and  the  two  women  are 
worn  to  death.' 

4  Aye,'  said  Anderson  gravely.  '  This  country  breeds  life,  but 
it  also  devours  it.' 

'  I  asked  these  two  women — English  women — if  they  wanted 
to  go  home,  and  give  it  up.  They  fell  upon  me  with  scorn.' 

'  And  you  ? ' 

Elizabeth  sighed. 

'  I  admired  them.  But  could  I  imitate  them  ?  I  thought  of 
the  house  at  home  ;  of  the  old  servants  ;  how  it  runs  on  wheels  ; 
how  pretty  and — and  dignified  it  all  is  :  everybody  at  their  post ; 
no  drudgery,  no  disorder.' 

'  It  is  a  dignity  that  costs  you  dear,'  said  Anderson  almost 
roughly,  and  with  a  change  of  countenance.  '  You  sacrifice  to  it 
things  a  thousand  times  more  real,  more  human.' 

'  Do  we  ?  '  said  Elizabeth  ;  and  then,  with  a  drop  in  her  voice  : 
4  Dear,  dear  England ! '  She  had  paused  to  take  breath,  and  as 
she  leant  resting  against  a  tree  he  saw  her  expression  change,  as 
though  a  struggle  passed  through  her. 

The  trees  had  opened  behind  them,  and  they  looked  back  over 
the  lake,  the  hotel,  and  the  wide  Laggan  valley  beyond.  In  all 
that  valley  not  a  sign  of  human  life  but  the  line  of  the  railway. 
Not  a  house,  not  a  village  to  be  seen  ;  and  at  this  distance  the 
forest  appeared  continuous,  till  it  died  against  the  rock  and  snow 
of  the  higher  peaks. 

For  the  first  time,  Elizabeth  was  home-sick  ;  for  the  first  time, 
she  shrank  from  a  raw,  untamed  land  where  the  House  of  Life  is 
only  now  rearing  its  walls  and  its  roof-timbers,  and  all  its  warm 
furnishings,  its  ornaments  and  hangings  are  still  to  add.  She 
thought  of  the  English  landscapes,  of  the  woods  and  uplands  round 
her  Cumberland  home  ;  of  the  old  church,  the  embowered  cottages, 
the  lichened  farms  ;  the  generations  of  lives  that  have  died  into 

13—2 


196  CANADIAN    BORN. 

the  soil,  like  the  summer  leaves  of  the  trees  ;  of  the  ghosts  to  be 
felt  in  the  air — ghosts  of  squire  and  labourer  and  farmer,  alive 
still  in  the  men  and  women  of  the  present,  as  they  too  will  live  in 
the  unborn.  Her  heart  went  out  to  England  ;  fled  back  to  it  over 
the  seas,  as  though  renewing,  in  penitence,  an  allegiance  that  had 
wavered.  And  Anderson  divined  it,  in  the  yearning  of  her  just- 
parted  lips,  in  the  quivering,  restrained  sweetness  of  her  look. 

His  own  heart  sank.  They  resumed  their  walk,  and  presently 
the  path  grew  steeper.  Some  of  it  was  rough  hewn  in  the  rock, 
and  encumbered  by  roots  of  trees.  Anderson  held  out  a  helping 
hand  ;  her  fingers  slipped  willingly  into  it ;  her  light  weight  hung 
upon  him,  and  every  step  was  to  him  a  mingled  delight  and 
bitterness. 

'  Hard  work  ! '  he  said  presently,  with  his  encouraging  smile  ; 
'  but  you'll  be  paid.' 

The  pines  grew  closer,  and  then  suddenly  lightened.  A  few 
more  steps,  and  Elizabeth  gave  a  cry  of  pleasure.  They  were  on 
the  edge  of  an  alpine  meadow,  encircled  by  dense  forest,  and  sloping 
down  beneath  their  feet  to  a  lake  that  lay  half  in  black  shadow, 
half  blazing  in  the  afternoon  sun.  Beyond  was  a  tossed  wilderness  of 
peaks  to  west  and  south.  Light  masses  of  cumulus  cloud  were 
rushing  over  the  sky,  and  driving  waves  of  blue  and  purple  colour 
across  the  mountain  masses  and  the  forest  slopes.  Golden  was 
the  sinking  light  and  the  sunlit  half  of  the  lake  ;  golden  the  western 
faces  and  edges  of  the  mountain  world ;  while  beyond  the  valley, 
where  ran  the  white  smoke  of  a  train,  there  hung  in  the  northern 
sky  a  dream-world  of  undiscovered  snows,  range,  it  seemed,  beyond 
range,  remote,  ethereal ;  a  Valhalla  of  the  old  gods  of  this  vast  land, 
where  one  might  guess  them  still  throned  at  bay,  majestic, 
inviolate. 

But  it  was  the  flowers  that  held  Elizabeth  mute.  Anderson  had 
brought  her  to  a  wild  garden  of  incredible  beauty.  Scarlet  and 
blue,  purple  and  pearl  and  opal,  rose-pink  and  lavender-grey— 
the  flower-field  ran  about  her,  as  though  Persephone  herself  had 
just  risen  from  the  shadow  of  this  nameless  northern  lake,  and  the 
new  earth  had  broken  into  eager  flame  at  her  feet.  Painters'  brush, 
harebell,  speedwell,  golden-brown  gaillardias,  silvery  hawkweed, 
columbines  yellow  and  blue,  heaths,  and  lush  grasses, — Elizabeth 
sank  down  among  them  in  speechless  joy.  Anderson  gathered 
handfuls  of  columbine  and  vetch,  of  harebell  and  heath,  and  filled 
her  lap  with  them,  till  she  gently  stopped  him. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  197 

'  No  !     Let  me  only  look  !  ' 

And  with  her  hands  round  her  knees  she  sat  motionless  and  still. 
Anderson  threw  himself  down  beside  her.  Fragrance,  colour, 
warmth  ;  the  stir  of  an  endless  self-sufficient  life  ;  the  fruitfulness 
and  bounty  of  the  earth  :  these  things  wove  their  ancient  spells 
about  them.  Every  little  rush  of  the  breeze  seemed  an  invitation 
and  a  caress. 

Presently  she  thanked  him  for  having  brought  her  there,  and 
said  something  of  remembering  it  in^England. 

'  As  one  who  will  never  see  it  again  ?  '  He  turned  and  faced  her, 
smiling.  But  behind  his  frank,  pleasant  look  there  was  something 
from  which  she  shrank. 

'  I  shall  hardly  see  it,  again,'  she  said,  hesitating.  '  Perhaps 
that  makes  it  the  more — the  more  touching.  One  clings  to  it  the 
more — the  impression  ! — because  it  is  so  fugitive — will  be  so  soon 
gone.' 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  then  said  abruptly — 
'  And  the  upshot  of  it  all  is,  that  you  could  not  imagine  living 
in  Canada  ?  ' 
She  started. 

'  I  never  said  so.     Of  course  I  could  imagine  living  in  Canada ! ' 
'  But  you  think,  for  women,  the  life  up  here — in  the  North- 
West — is  too  hard  ?  ' 

She  looked  at  him  timidly. 

'  That's  because  I  look  at  it  from  my  English  point  of  view. 
I  am  afraid  English  life  makes  weaklings  of  us.' 

'  No  ! — not  of  you  !  '  he  said,  almost  scornfully  *  Any  life  that 
seemed  to  you  worth  while  would  find  you  strong  enough  for  it. 
I  am  sure  of  that.' 

Elizabeth  smiled  and  shrugged  her  shoulders.  He  went  on — 
almost  as  though  pleading  with  her. 

'  And  as  to  our  Western  life — which  you  will  soon  have  left  so 
far  behind — it  strains  and  tests  the  women — true  ! — but  it  rewards 
them.  They  have  a  great  place  among  us.  It  is  like  the  women 
of  the  early  races.  We  listen  to  them  in  the  house,  and  on  the 
land  ;  we  depend  on  them  indoors  and  out ;  their  husbands  and 
their  sons  worship  them  ! ' 

Elizabeth  flushed  involuntarily  ;  but  she  met  him  gaily. 
'  In  England  too  !     Come  and  see  !  ' 
'  I  shall  probably  be  in  England  next  spring.' 
Elizabeth  made  a  sudden  movement. 


198  CANADIAN    BORN. 

'  I  thought  you  would  be  in  political  life  here  !  ' 
'  I  have  had  an  offer — an  exciting  and  flattering  offer.     May  I 
tell  you  ?  ' 

He  turned  to  her  eagerly  ;  and  she  smiled  her  sympathy,  her 
curiosity.     Whereupon  he  took  a  letter  from  his  pocket — a  letter 
from  the  Dominion  Prime  Minister,  offering  him  a  mission  of  inquiry 
to  England,  on  some  important  matters  connected  with  labour  and 
emigration.     The  letter  was  remarkable,  addressed  to  a  man  so 
young,  and  on  the  threshold  of  his  political  career. 
Elizabeth  congratulated  him  warmly. 
'  Of  course  you  will  come  and  stay  with  us  ! ' 
It  was  his  turn  to  redden. 

'  You  are  very  kind,'  he  said  formally.  '  As  you  know,  I  shall 
have  everything  to  learn.' 

4 1  will  show  you  our  farms  ! '  cried  Elizabeth,  '  and  all  our  dear 
decrepit  life — our  little  chess-board  of  an  England.' 

'  How  proud  you  are,  you  Englishwomen ! '  he  said,  half 
frowning.  '  You  run  yourselves  down — and  at  bottom  there  is  a 
pride  like  Lucifer's.' 

'  But  it  is  not  my  pride,'  she  said,  hurt,  '  any  more  than 
yours.  We  are  yours — and  you  are  ours.  One  state ! — one 
country.' 

'  No  ! — don't  let  us  sentimentalise.  We  have  our  own  future. 
It  is  not  yours.' 

'  But  you  are  loyal !  '     The  note  was  one  of  pain. 
'  Are  we  ?     Foolish  word  !     Yes,  we  are  loyal,  as  you  are — 
loyal  to  a  common  ideal,  a  common  mission  in  the  world.' 

'  To  blood  also  ! — and  to  history  ?  '     Her  voice  was  almost 
entreating.     What  he  said  seemed  to  jar  with  other  and  earlier 
sayings  of  his,  which  had  stirred  in  her  a  patriotic  pleasure. 
He  smiled  at  her  emotion — her  implied  reproach. 
'  Yes  ! — we  stand  together.     We  march  together.     But  Canada 
will  have  her  own  history  ;  and  you  must  not  try  to  make  it  for 
her.' 

Their  eyes  met ;  in  hers  exaltation,  in  his  a  touch  of  sternness, 
a  moment's  revelation  of  the  Covenanter  in  his  soul. 

Then  as  the  delightful  vision  of  her  among  the  flowers,  in  her 
white  dress,  the  mountains  behind  and  around  her,  imprinted  itself 
on  his  senses,  he  was  conscious  of  a  moment  of  intolerable  pain. 
Between  her  and  him — as  it  were — the  abyss  opened.  The  trembling 
waves  of  colour  in  the  grass,  the  noble  procession  of  the  clouds,  the 


CANADIAN   BORN.  199 

gleaming  of  the  snows,  the  shadow  of  the  valleys — they  were  all 
wiped  out.  He  saw  instead  a  small  unsavoury  room — the  cunning 
eyes  and  coarse  mouth  of  his  father.  He  saw  his  own  future  as  it 
must  now  be  ;  weighted  with  this  burden,  this  secret ;  if  indeed  it 
were  still  to  be  a  secret ;  if  it  were  not  rather  the  wiser  and  the 
manlier  plan  to  have  done  with  secrecy. 

Elizabeth  rose  with  a  little  shiver.  The  wind  had  begun  to  blow 
cold  from  the  north-west. 

'  How  soon  can  we  run  down  ?  I  hope  Mr.  Arthur  will  have 
sent  Philip  indoors.' 

Anderson  left  Lake  Louise  about  eight  o'clock,  and  hurried 
down  the  Laggan  road.  His  mind  was  divided  between  the  bitter- 
sweet of  these  last  hours  with  Elizabeth  Merton,  and  anxieties, 
small  practical  anxieties,  about  his  father.  There  were  arrange- 
ments still  to  make.  He  was  not  himself  going  to  Vancouver. 
McEwen  had  lately  shown  a  strong  and  petulant  wish  to  preserve 
his  incognito,  or  what  was  left  of  it.  He  would  not  have  his  son's 
escort.  George  might  come  and  see  him  at  Vancouver ;  and  that 
would  be  time  enough  to  settle  up  for  the  winter. 

So  Ginnell,  owner  of  the  boarding-house,  a  stalwart  Irishman 
of  six  foot  three,  had  been  appointed  to  see  him  through  his 
journey,  settle  him  with  his  new  protectors,  and  pay  all  necessary 
expenses. 

Anderson  knocked  at  his  father's  door  and  was  allowed  to  enter. 
He  found  McEwen  walking  up  and  down  his  room,  with  the  aid  of  a 
stick,  irritably  pushing  chairs  and  clothes  out  of  his  way.  The  room 
was  in  squalid  disorder,  and  its  inmate  had  a  flushed,  exasperated 
look  that  did  not  escape  Anderson's  notice.  He  thought  it  probable 
that  his  father  was  already  repenting  his  consent  to  go  to  Van- 
couver, and  he  avoided  general  conversation  as  much  as  possible. 
McEwen  complained  of  having  been  left  alone  ;  abused  Mrs.  Ginnell ; 
vowed  she  had  starved  and  ill-treated  him  ;  and  then,  to  Anderson's 
surprise,  broke  out  against  his  son  for  having  refused  to  provide 
him  with  the  money  he  wanted  for  the  mine,  and  so  ruined  his  last 
chance.  Anderson  hardly  replied  ;  but  what  he  did  say  was  as 
soothing  as  possible  ;  and  at  last  the  old  man  flung  himself  on  his 
bed,  excitement  dying  away  in  a  sulky  taciturnity. 

Before  Anderson  left  his  room,  Ginnell  came  in  bringing  his 
accounts  for  certain  small  expenses.  Anderson,  standing  with  his 
back  to  his  father,  took  out  a  pocket-book  full  of  dollar  bills.  At 


200  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Calgary  the  day  before  a  friend  had  repaid  him  a  loan  of  a  thousand 
dollars.  He  gave  Ginnell  a  certain  sum  ;  talked  to  him  in  a  low 
voice  for  a  time,  thinking  his  father  had  dropped  asleep  ;  and  then 
dismissed  him,  putting  the  money  in  his  pocket. 

*  Good-night,  father,'  he  said,  standing  beside  the  bed. 

McEwen  opened  his  eyes. 

'Eh?' 

The  eyes  into  which  Anderson  looked  had  no  sleep  in  them. 
They  were  wild  and  bloodshot,  and  again  Anderson  felt  a  pang  of 
helpless  pity  for  a  dishonoured  and  miserable  old  age. 

'  I'm  sure  you'll  get  on  at  Vancouver,  father,'  he  said  gently. 
'  And  I  shall  be  there  next  week.' 

His  father  growled  some  unintelligible  answer.  As  Anderson 
went  to  the  door  he  again  called  after  him  angrily,  '  You  were  a 
d fool,  George,  not  to  find  those  dibs.' 

'  What,  for  the  mine  ?  '  Anderson  laughed.  '  Oh,  we'll  go 
into  that  again  at  Vancouver.' 

McEwen  made  no  reply,  and  Anderson  left  him. 

Anderson  woke  before  seven.  The  long  evening  had  passed  into 
the  dawn  with  scarcely  any  darkness,  and  the  sun  was  now  high. 
He  sprang  up,  and  dressed  hastily.  Going  into  the  passage  he  saw 
to  his  astonishment  that  while  the  door  of  the  Ginnells'  room  was 
still  closed,  his  father's  was  wide  open.  He  walked  in.  The  room 
and  the  bed  were  empty.  The  contents  of  a  box  carefully  packed 
by  Ginnell — mostly  with  new  clothes — the  night  before,  were  lying 
strewn  about  the  room.  But  McEwen's  old  clothes  were  gone,  his 
gun  and  revolver  also,  his  pipes  and  tobacco. 

Anderson  roused  Ginnell,  and  they  searched  the  house  and  its 
neighbourhood — in  vain.  On  going  back  into  his  own  room 
Anderson  noticed  an  open  drawer.  He  had  placed  his  pocket-book 
there  the  night  before,  but  without  locking  the  drawer.  It  was 
gone,  and  in  its  place  was  a  dirty  scrap  of  paper. 

'  Don't  you  try  chivvying  me,  George,  for  you  won't  get  any 
good  of  it.  You  let  me  alone,  and  I'll  let  you.  You  were  a  dude 
about  that  money,  so  I've  took  some  of  it.  Good-bye.' 

Sick  at  heart,  Anderson  resumed  the  search,  further  afield.  He 
sent  Ginnell  along  the  line  to  make  confidential  inquiries.  He 
telegraphed  to  persons  known  to  him  at  Golden,  Revelstoke, 
Kamloops,  Ashcroft — all  to  no  purpose.  Twenty- four — thirty-six 
hours  passed  and  nothing  had  been  heard  of  the  fugitive. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  201 

He  felt  himself  baffled  and  tricked,  with  certain  deep  instincts 
and  yearnings  wounded  to  the  death.  The  brutal  manner  of  his 
father's  escape — the  robbery — the  letter — had  struck  him  hard. 

When  Friday  night  came,  and  still  no  news,  Anderson  found 
himself  at  the  C.P.R.  hotel  at  Field.  He  was  stupid  with  fatigue 
and  depression.  But  he  had  been  in  telephonic  communication  all 
the  afternoon  with  Delaine  and  Lady  Merton  at  Lake  Louise,  as  to 
their  departure  for  the  Pacific.  They  knew  nothing  and  should 
know  nothing  of  his  own  catastrophe  ;  their  plans  should  not  suffer. 

He  went  out  into  the  summer  night  to  take  breath,  and  commune 
with  himself.  The  night  was  balmy ;  the  stars  glorious.  On  a 
siding  near  the  hotel  stood  the  private  car  which  had  arrived 
that  evening  from  Vancouver,  and  was  to  go  to  Laggan  the 
following  morning  to  fetch  the  English  party.  They  were  to  pick 
him  up,  on  the  return,  at  Field. 

He  had  failed  to  save  his  father,  and  his  honest  effort  had  been 
made  in  vain.  Humiliation  and  disappointment  overshadowed  him. 
Passionately,  his  whole  soul  turned  to  Elizabeth.  He  did  not  yet 
grasp  all  the  bearings  of  what  had  happened.  But  he  began  to 
count  the  hours  to  the  time  when  he  should  see  her. 


(To  be  continued.) 


202 


THE  LATE  PROVOST  OF  ETON. 

IT  was  on  Friday,  September  16,  of  last  year,  that  I  said  good-bye 
to  the  late  Provost  of  Eton  in  his  pleasant  home  lying  beneath  the 
shadow  of  Skiddaw  above  the  still  and  smiling  Lake  of  Derwentwater. 
It  was  less  than  two  months  afterwards,  on  Saturday,  November  6, 
that  I  laid  all  that  was  mortal  of  him  to  rest  in  the  grave  beside  his 
wife  in  the  little  cemetery  at  Eton.  A  few  minutes  earlier  I  had 
watched  the  long  procession  of  the  governing  body  and  the  seventy 
King's  Scholars  and  the  few  intimate  mourners  moving  from  the 
Lodge  through  the  cloisters  and  the  school-yard  ;  I  had  looked  from 
a  seat  just  above  the  place  which  I  had  once  occupied  as  a  boy  in 
his  head-mastership  upon  his  coffin  resting  in  the  chapel  where 
he  had  so  long  worshipped  ;  and  many  memories,  happy  and 
sacred,  crowded  upon  my  mind.  For  I  had  known  him  as  a 
teacher  and  a  friend  ever  since  he  came  to  Eton  in  1868,  and 
to  know  him  so  long  was  to  feel  for  him  a  great  and  ever-growing 
affection. 

How  well  I  can  recall  the  interest  and  excitement  of  the  boys  over 
the  appointment  of  a  new  head-master  !  Dr.  Balston,  who  had 
accepted  the  head-mastership,  it  is  believed,  against  his  own  will 
and  without  any  intention  of  retaining  it  long,  was  in  educational 
matters,  and  especially  in  such  matters  as  affected  Eton,  a  pro- 
nounced Conservative.  He  had  been  bold  enough  to  tell  the  Public 
Schools  Commission  frankly  in  his  evidence  that  he  did  not  think 
Eton  stood  in  much  need  of  reform.  But  public  schools  were  on 
their  trial  in  1868.  Educational  reform  was  in  the  air,  and  Dr. 
Hornby  was  appointed,  so  at  least  the  boys  understood,  to  carry  out 
reforms.  It  is,  I  think,  no  injustice  to  him  to  say  that  he  was  not 
at  all  a  violent  reformer.  He  was  prepared  to  recognise  the  value 
of  modern  languages  and  of  Natural  Science  in  the  curriculum  of 
the  school.  But  he  never  consented  to  sully  the  pure  stream  of 
Etonian  Classicism  by  the  institution  of  a  modern  side.  To  the  end 
of  his  long  life  he  was  a  votary  of  compulsory  Greek  at  the  Univer- 
sities ;  nor  could  he  bring  himself  to  look  upon  any  boy  of  twelve  or 
thirteen  years  who  was  not  something  of  a  Greek  scholar  as  properly 


THE   LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON.  203 

eligible  for  a  scholarship  on  the  foundation  of  Eton.  But  the 
standard  of  reform  at  Eton  was  not  high  in  1868  ;  and  as  the  head- 
mastership  had  long  been  confined  to  Etonians  who  had  been  King's 
scholars  at  Eton,  King's  men  at  Cambridge,  and  afterwards  masters 
at  Eton  itself,  the  advent  of  a  head-master  who  had  not  been  a 
Colleger  or  a  King's  man,  or  even  a  Cambridge  man,  and  who  had 
never  been  a  master  at  Eton,  was  regarded  as  an  ominous  event. 
For  it  is  a  strange  law  of  human  nature  that  public  school  boys, 
though  so  hopeful  and  eager,  are  predominantly  Conservative,  and 
Eton  is,  or  was,  I  suppose,  the  most  Conservative  of  schools. 

However,  Dr.  Hornby  was  not  long  in  winning  his  way.  He 
possessed  many  titles  to  the  admiration  of  the  school  over  which  he 
was  destined  to  preside  for  sixteen  years.  In  appearance  he  was 
the  ideal  of  English  manhood.  He  had  played  at  Lord's  in  the 
Eton  Eleven,  and  had  rowed  in  the  Oxford  Eight.  He  had  been 
a  bold  and  ardent  mountaineer,  who  had  been  one  of  the  first  to 
essay,  in  company  with  Professor  Tyndall,  the  ascent  of  the  Matter- 
horn,  although  not,  I  think,  by  the  route  now  generally  taken.  He 
was  always  a  beautiful  skater  ;  the  boys  used  to  stand  watching  him 
cut  figures  at  Ditton  in  the  frosty  weather ;  and  I  remember  his  telling 
me  that  he  learnt  some  new  figure  after  he  had  completed  his 
seventieth  year.  Then  not  only  was  he  devoted  to  classical 
scholarship,  but  his  scholarship  was  of  a  type  peculiarly  dear  to 
Eton.  He  was  a  believer  in  the  intellectual  discipline  of  Latin  verses. 
In  his  lessons  he  would  dwell  upon  minute  points  of  grammar,  and 
upon  the  exact  significance  of  words,  with  a  precision  which  is  com- 
monly held  to  be  characteristic  of  Cambridge  rather  than  of  Oxford. 
Nor  was  he  only  a  classical  scholar,  although  to  be  only  a  scholar  is 
a  high  and  is  coming,  I  am  afraid,  to  be  a  rare  achievement.  He 
had  given  a  good  deal  of  thought  to  theological  study,  especially 
when  he  was  Principal  of  Bishop  Cosin's  Hall  at  Durham.  His 
lessons  in  Divinity,  and  his  '  Sunday  questions '  as  they  are  called 
at  Eton,  frequently  showed  a  certain  large  reserve  of  knowledge. 
In  him  the  combination  of  physical  and  intellectual  gifts  was  all  but 
perfect. 

It  may  well  be  that  a  pupil,  even  after  the  lapse  of  many  years, 
is  not  the  best  judge  of  the  head-mastership  under  which  he  spent 
his  school  life.  He  is  at  once  too  near  his  head-master  and  too  far 
from  him.  He  can  know  little  of  the  reasons  and  motives  which 
prompted  his  head-master's  action  in  critical  circumstances.  He  is 
swayed  by  a  genuine  reverence  for  one  to  whom  he  looked  up  in  the 


204  THE    LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON. 

impressionable  years  of  his  life  as  an  absolute  and  almost  infallible 
authority.  At  the  most,  if  he  claims  for  himself  the  dangerous 
privilege  of  criticising  his  head-master,  as  a  husband  may  occa- 
sionally criticise  his  wife,  he  resents  and  resists  the  criticism  of 
others. 

The  story  of  Dr.  Hornby's  head-mastership  is  written  in  the 
chronicles  of  Eton.  It  is  a  story  of  quiet  and  successful  progress. 
Possibly  Eton,  in  view  of  its  natural  and  social  advantages,  is  less 
dependent  upon  its  head-master  than  other  schools,  such  as  Harrow 
and  Rugby  ;  certainly  it  has  not  experienced  such  vicissitudes. 
Every  head-master  of  Eton  in  recent  times  has  raised  the  school  to  a 
greater  numerical  prosperity  than  his  predecessors,  and  under  Dr. 
Hornby  the  number  of  boys  stood  higher  than  it  had  ever  stood 
before.  His  pupils,  if  they  reflected  at  all  upon  his  administration, 
could  not  fail  to  be  impressed  by  his  strong  sense  of  duty.  He  was 
always  at  work,  and  always  at  work  for  Eton.  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  once  in  the  early  days  of  his  head-mastership  he  passed  a 
whole  week  without  being  able  to  take  any  exercise.  He  was  not  a 
head-master  who  was  constantly  running  up  and  down  the  country 
to  preach  sermons  or  lecture  parents  upon  their  duties.  Nor  was  he 
a  head-master  who  gave  up,  as  I  am  afraid  some  modern  head- 
masters do,  a  great  part  of  the  teaching  into  other  hands,  that  he 
might  become  an  organiser  or  administrator  of  his  school.  He 
taught  his  Sixth  Form  carefully  and  regularly  ;  it  seldom  happened 
that  he  missed  a  lesson,  and  his  lessons  were  always  well  prepared. 
It  may  be  a  question  whether  a  head-master  does  not  lose  more 
than  he  gains  by  undertaking  so  many  commonplace  duties  as 
devolved  upon  the  head-master  of  Eton  in  Dr.  Hornby's  time.  For 
he  must  have  spent  many  hours  which  he  could  ill  afford  to  lose  in 
calling  '  absences '  ;  but  at  least  he  was  always  in  evidence,  the 
boys  saw  him,  and  they  knew  that  he  worked  hard. 

It  is  possible  that  the  remarkable  courtesy  of  his  manner  may 
have  laid  him  open  to  the  charge  of  being  less  determined  than  a 
head-master  ought  to  be.  Rudeness  is  sometimes  mistaken  for 
strength,  and  suavity  for  weakness.  But  beneath  the  patient  grace 
with  which  he  would  listen  to  representations  and  suggestions  from 
all  sorts  and  conditions  of  people  lay  a  strength,  a  tenacity  of 
purpose,  a  determination  which  at  times  approximated  to  obstinacy. 
Old  Etonians  will  remember  how  firm  he  stood,  whether  rightly  or 
wrongly,  against  a  great  deal  of  external  pressure  in  refusing  the  use 
of  the  school  buildings  or  grounds  for  a  meeting  which  was  to  be 


THE   LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON.  205 

addressed  by  the  American  Evangelists,  Messrs.  Moody  and  Sankey, 
although  he  was  willing  enough  that  the  boys  should  listen  to  them  in 
any  private  room  ;  how  firm,  too,  with  indubitable  right,  in  declining 
to  allow  even  for  a  year  the  continuance  of  the  lavish  expenditure 
on  champagne  which  had  turned,  as  he  thought,  the  final  scene  of 
the  picturesque  ceremony  on  the  Fourth  of  June  into  a  debauch. 
It  is  within  my  own  knowledge  that  on  one  occasion,  when  the  Sixth 
Form,  of  which  I  was  then  a  member,  besought  him  to  mitigate 
a  punishment  inflicted  upon  the  Eight,  he  was  as  immovable  as  he 
was  considerate  in  his  reply. 

Dr.  Hornby's  head-mastership  was  of  course  not  free  from 
failings  or  mistakes.  In  private  conversation,  when  he  was  an  old 
man,  he  would  often  confess  and  regret  that  during  his  last  two  or 
three  years  as  head-master  he  was  tired  out.  The  provostship 
came  to  him  in  1884  as  a  welcome  relief.  But  the  critics  of  his 
administration  are  perhaps  apt  to  forget  that  there  are  more  types 
of  head-mastership  than  one.  Dr.  Hornby  was  as  far  as  possible 
from  aspiring  to  win  the  reputation  of  a  Busby  or  a  Keate.  He 
would,  I  think,  have  disapproved  the  habit  of  judging  all  head- 
masters by  their  conformity  to  the  standard  of  Dr.  Arnold.  He 
did  not  affect  or  attempt  to  govern  boys  by  terror.  He  did  not  aim 
at  purging  his  school  by  the  ruthless  elimination  of  unpromising  or 
intractable  material.  Ready  as  he  was  at  all  times  to  expel  the  con- 
tagious elements  of  evil,  he  would  have  urged  with  his  gentle  per- 
suasiveness that  anybody  can  teach  the  docile  and  responsive  boys, 
but  that  a  schoolmaster  achieves  his  true  success,  wherever  it  is 
possible,  not  in  sending  difficult  boys  away,  but  in  teaching 
them  by  precept  and  still  more  by  example,  by  punishment  and  still 
more  by  encouragement,  to  love  and  so  to  live  a  noble  life.  At  all 
events  he  set  before  his  pupils  in  his  own  person  the  ideal  of  an 
English  Christian  gentleman.  The  Dean  of  Wells,  who  is  himself 
an  old  head-master,  spoke  in  a  letter  to  '  The  Times  '  of  Dr.  Hornby 
as  a  man  whom  every  father  would  wish  his  son  to  resemble.  One 
of  his  old  pupils  wrote  to  me  after  his  death  saying  that  there  had 
been  no  such  perfect  gentleman  since  Colonel  Newcome.  It  was  not 
by  compulsion  but  by  attraction  that  Dr.  Hornby  exercised  his 
influence.  In  his  relation  to  his  boys  he  seldom  used  strong  or 
bitter  language  ;  he  never  used  sarcasm — that  poisoned  weapon  of 
the  schoolmaster's  armoury.  Now  and  again  the  pallor  of  his  face 
or  the  setting  of  his  lips  would  reveal  his  indignation  at  dishonour- 
able conduct.  But  in  general  he  would  show  by  a  quiet  word  or  by 


206  THE   LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON. 

a  gesture  or  a  look  more  expressive  than  words,  and  in  this  way 
would  stamp  upon  the  offender's  mind  the  feeling,  that  a  particular 
action  was  not  worthy  of  an  Eton  boy,  that  it  was  (if  I  may  use 
a  colloquialism)  not  '  good  form.'  It  is  difficult  to  over-estimate  the 
elevating  power  of  an  example  such  as  his  reinforced  by  such  means. 
Many  Etonians  of  Dr.  Hornby's  time,  and  those  especially  who  came 
under  his  immediate  personal  influence,  were  moved  to  seek  the 
things  which  are  pure  and  honest  and  lovely  and  of  good  report, 
because  they  knew  that  in  seeking  them  they  would  fulfil  his  wish 
and  because  in  their  hearts  they  desired  to  be  like  him. 

Dr.  Hornby  was  probably  too  modest  ever  to  ask  himself  what 
was  the  secret  of  his  influence  upon  the  school,  or,  indeed,  whether 
he  exercised  any  great  influence.  The  most  potent  influence  is 
almost  necessarily  unconscious.  It  issues  not  from  calculation, 
but  from  personality.  Yet  it  inspires  faith,  affection,  hero-worship, 
even  religion.  For  such  influence  is  highest  in  the  highest  sphere. 
'  Religionis  summa  est,'  says  Augustine,  '  imitari  quern  colis.' 

Dr.  Hornby  gained  a  certain  strength  from  his  moderation.  It 
may  be  that  he  carried  his  hatred  of  extremes  itself  to  an  extreme 
point.  The  spirit  of  unfairness,  of  exaggeration,  of  partisanship, 
was  altogether  alien  from  his  mind.  Over  the  gateway  of  his  life 
might  have  been  inscribed  the  suggestive  adage  of  Greek  philosophy, 
Mij8sv  dyav.  If  ever  any  Christian  believed,  or  showed  himself 
to  believe,  that  a  virtue  is  according  to  Aristotle's  definition  the 
mean  between  two  vices,  it  was  he.  His  scholarship  was  in  a 
sense  the  reflection  of  his  character.  There  was  in  him  an 
instinctive  dislike  of  all  that  was  tawdry  or  vulgar.  A  pretentious 
piece  of  translation  or  composition  was  sure  to  incur  his  quiet 
rebuke.  He  shrank  with  an  almost  morbid  aversion  from  any 
noisy  display  of  emotion.  His  own  mental  and  spiritual  equilibrium 
was  never  disturbed.  In  the  face  of  misunderstanding  and  mis- 
representation he  maintained  the  appearance  of  an  unruffled  calm. 
His  self-possession,  his  self-restraint  were  never  violated. 

There  comes  back  to  me  the  memory  of  a  scene  which  would 
have  been  trying,  I  think,  to  anybody's  composure  but  his.  It 
happened  once  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  lecturing  in  the  school 
library  at  Eton  upon  Homer  before  an  audience  principally  com- 
posed of  Eton  boys.  In  the  course  of  his  lecture  he  took  occasion 
to  quote  a  passage  of  Virgil ;  but  his  memory  failed  him  when  he 
had  quoted  only  a  line  or  two,  and  after  vainly  trying  to  regain 
the  thread  of  the  quotation  he  suddenly  exclaimed,  '  How  does  it 


THE   LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON.  207 

go  on,  Dr.  Hornby  ?  '  There  was  an  awkward  pause,  for  the 
head-master  no  less  than  the  orator  was  at  fault.  Then  the  some- 
what metallic  voice  of  a  well-known  assistant-master  was  heard 
from  the  back  of  the  room,  supplying  the  quotation.  It  is  possible 
that  the  boys  might  have  been  a  little  pleased  at  the  head-master's 
discomfiture,  if  he  had  allowed  himself  to  look  at  all  discomfited ; 
but  Dr.  Hornby  disarmed  them  by  bowing  his  thanks  with  a  smile 
to  his  zealous  assistant,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  continued  his  lecture. 

The  quiet  humour  which  was  one  of  his  characteristic  endow- 
ments was  a  great  help  to  him  in  dealing  with  boys  ;  it  made  them 
feel  foolish  at  times,  but  never,  I  think,  angry.  I  remember  the 
case  of  a  boy  who  in  writing  a  Latin  declamation  had  saved  himself 
trouble  by  incorporating  in  his  exercise  a  long  passage  of  one  of 
Cicero's  speeches  in  the  hope  that  his  plagiarism  might  escape  the 
head-master's  vigilant  eye.  Dr.  Hornby  did  not  punish  or  censure 
him,  but  when  the  award  of  the  prize  was  announced,  he  simply 
remarked,  '  F.'s  declamation  was  an  excellent  specimen  of  Latinity, 
and  he  would  probably  have  won  the  prize,  if  he  had  not  unfortu- 
nately been  anticipated  in  a  whole  page,  not  only  in  his  ideas  but 
in  his  very  words,  by  a  distinguished  Latin  writer  named  Cicero.' 

It  was  by  the  same  quiet  humour  that  he  once  put  to  shame 
or  to  ridicule  the  fashion  of  wearing  trousers  of  loud  patterns  which 
were  rapidly  coming  into  vogue  among  Eton  boys.  When  he 
wished  to  address  the  boys  collectively,  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
summoning  them  by  special  notice  into  Upper  School.  Nobody 
knew  what  he  would  say  at  such  a  meeting,  or  even  what  was  his 
object  in  calling  it.  The  whole  scene  is  still  vividly  depicted  before 
my  mind.  Some  of  the  chief  offenders,  being  rather  prominent 
boys,  without  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the  head-master's  object, 
had  taken  up  coigns  of  vantage  on  the  window-sills  of  Upper 
School,  their  legs  gaily  habited  in  the  loud  checks  dangling  before 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  assembly.  As  Dr.  Hornby  spoke  his  few 
quiet  words  upon  the  need  of  cultivating  good  taste  in  dress,  he 
gently  indicated  by  a  wave  of  his  hand  the  conspicuous  illustration 
of  the  impropriety  against  which  he  protested.  '  Solvuntur  risu 
tabulae.'  The  rebuke  of  the  offending  boys  was  complete.  The 
head-master  had  won  the  day. 

He  was  always  fond,  when  I  was  at  Harrow,  of  quizzing  me 
about  my  Harrovian  associations.  Many  a  time  have  we  sat 
together  during  the  Eton  and  Harrow  match  at  Lord's  in  the 
Grand  Stand  or  at  the  top  of  the  Pavilion.  Sometimes,  if  the 


208  THE   LATE   PROVOST  OF   ETON. 

match  was  going  against  Eton,  he  would  retire,  or  pretend  that  he 
must  retire,  to  the  Zoological  Gardens  ;  and  I  recollect  how  once 
he  turned  to  me  in  the  hour  of  Harrow's  victory  and  said  laughingly, 
with  reference  to  the  eleven,  '  I  suppose  these  boys  are  all  very 
low  down  in  the  school.'  It  may  be  permitted  me  in  this  connexion 
to  observe  that  he  once  laid  himself  open  to  an  easy  retort.  We 
were  looking  on  at  a  match,  not  the  Eton  and  Harrow  match,  when 
the  Hon.  F.  S.  Jackson  and  Mr.  A.  C.  MacLaren  were  at  the  wickets 
together  ;  the  Provost  remarked  to  me  that  he  thought  they  were 
the  two  finest  bats  in  England,  and  I  could  not  help  making  the 
rejoinder  '  Yes,  sir  ;  and  they  were  both  my  pupils  at  Harrow.' 

It  was  after  Dr.  Hornby  became  Provost  that  he  first  revealed 
to  the  world,  and  perhaps  he  first  realised  himself,  his  singular  gift 
of  light,  felicitous  oratory.  In  my  judgment,  there  was  no  after- 
dinner  speaker  to  a  cultivated  audience  who  could  be  compared 
with  him,  except  the  Master  of  Trinity ;  and  although  the  Master 
has  made  many  more  successful  speeches  than  the  Provost,  I  do 
not  know  that  even  he  has  attained  that  curiously  exquisite  neglige 
air  which  gave  the  Provost's  speeches,  witty  and  delightful  as  they 
were,  the  appearance  of  bubbling  up  by  the  spontaneous  impulse 
of  the  moment  like  springs  of  pure  water  from  the  depth  of  a 
wonderfully  rich  and  happy  spirit. 

Yet  with  all  his  grace  and  cheerfulness  and  humour,  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Provost's  nature  was  a  deep  religious  sincerity.  His 
thoughtful  and  earnest  sermons  and  the  addresses  which  he  often 
gave  in  Lent  before  the  annual  Confirmation  were  heard  with  atten- 
tion by  the  Eton  boys — one  of  the  most  critical  congregations  in 
the  world.  Anybody  whose  privilege  it  was  in  the  hour  of  affliction 
or  desolation  to  receive  a  sympathetic  letter  from  him  learnt  to 
appreciate  what  a  wealth  of  pious  feeling  lay  hidden  in  his  heart. 
He  was  a  devoted  believer  in  the  Church  of  England  ;  he  rejoiced 
in  the  contribution  of  saintly  lives  which  Eton  had  made  and  is 
still  making  to  the  Church.  To  him  the  Christianisation  of  the 
Empire  was  a  vital  interest,  and  he  would  speak  with  admiring 
pride  of  the  three  Etonian  bishops — Selwyn,  Abraham  and  Hobhouse 
— who  founded  the  Church  of  New  Zealand.  Once  at  least  when  he 
was  walking  down  Keate's  Lane  with  a  friend  he  pointed  out  the 
window  of  the  room  in  which  he  used  to  '  mess  '  as  a  boy  with 
John  Coleridge  Patteson,  and  he  added  in  earnest  tones  that  he 
had  never  had  the  heart  to  enter  that  room  of  sacred  memories 
since. 


THE   LATE   PROVOST   OF   ETON.  209 

No  account  of  the  late  Provost's  life  would  be  complete  without 
some  reference  to  his  domestic  life  ;  but  that  is  holy  ground.  It 
must  be  enough  to  tell  that  his  life  was  intensely  happy — too 
happy,  I  had  almost  said,  in  the  estimate  of  some  of  his  friends, 
who  were  tempted  to  feel  that  he  would  have  played  a  greater  or 
a  more  imposing  part  in  public  life  if  he  had  not  been  so  fond  of 
retiring  from  the  dust  and  stress  of  the  world  to  the  calm  serenity 
of  the  home,  where  he  loved  to  spend  his  holidays  with  his  family 
in  the  Lake  country.  Yet  his  happiness  was  not  unclouded.  It 
was  solemnised  and  sanctified  by  bereavement.  His  wife,  who 
had  given  him,  as  he  wrote  to  me  after  her  death,  greater  joy  than 
he  had  ever  deserved,  was  taken  from  him  in  1891.  He  lost  his 
eldest  son  soon  afterwards.  Other  sorrows  too  fell  upon  him  year 
by  year  ;  it  was  seldom  that  he  could  bring  himself  to  speak  of 
them  ;  they  evoked  the  beauty  of  his  Christian  spirit,  but  they 
did  not  embitter — they  did  not  apparently  even  sadden — his 
nature.  Only  he  drew  the  remaining  members  of  his  family  and 
his  friends  a  little  closer  to  his  heart. 

All  classes  of  society  within  and  without  Eton  were  present  at 
his  funeral.  The  representative  of  the  King  followed  his  coffin  to 
the  grave.  The  Eton  watermen  lined  the  pathway  of  the  cemetery 
where  he  was  laid  to  rest.  He  sleeps  under  the  shadow  of  the 
famous  school  which  he  loved  so  well  and  served  so  faithfully. 
There  may  have  been  greater  head-masters  of  Eton,  but  there 
can  be  none  who  was  more  deeply  or  widely  beloved.  He  was  in 
the  eyes  of  all  Etonians,  and  he  will  long  remain  in  their  memories, 
the  ideal  Provost.  And  they  who  knew  him  in  the  two  offices 
which  filled  more  than  forty  years  of  his  long  life  may  well  have 
felt,  as  they  turned  their  steps  slowly  and  sadly  away  from  his 
grave  on  the  clear,  sunny  November  afternoon  of  his  funeral,  that 
they  could  scarcely  hope  to  meet  again  among  their  friends,  while 
life  should  last,  so  true  and  perfect  a  Christian  gentleman  as  James 
John  Hornby. 

J.  E.  C.  WELLDON. 


VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  164,  N.S.  14 


210 


THE  HOWE   0'    THE   MEARNS.1 

LADDIE,  my  lad,  as  ye  gang  at  the  tail  o'  the  plough 

And  the  days  draw  in ; 
When  the  burning  yellow's  awa'  that  was  aince  a-lowe 

On  the  braes  of  whin, 
Do  ye  mind  o'  me  that  bides  in  the  wearyfu'  south 

While  the  rowan  turns, 
And  the  bracken  fades  on  the  knowes  at  the  river's  mouth 

In  the  Howe  o'  the  Mearns  ? 

There  was  nae  twa'  lads  frae  the  Grampians  doun  to  the  Tay 

That  could  best  us  twa'  ; 
At  bothie  or  dance,  or  the  field  on  a  footba'  day 

We  could  sort  them  a'. 
And  at  courting-time,  when  the  stars  keeked  doun  on  the  glen 

Through  a  theek  of  ferns, 
It  was  you  an'  me  got  the  pick  o'  the  basket  then, 

In  the  Howe  o'  the  Mearns. 

London  is  fine,  an'  for  ilk  o'  the  lasses  at  hame 

There'll  be  saxty  here, 
But  the  hairst-time  comes  and  the  spring,  an'  it's  aye  the  same 

Through  the  changefu'  year  ; 
And  the  wheels  ding  on  a'  day  when  I'm  wearying  still 

For  the  sound  o'  burns  ; 
And  they're  thrashing  now  at  the  white  farm  up  on  the  hill 

In  the  Howe  o'  the  Mearns. 

If  I  mind  mysel'  and  deave  for  the  best  o'  my  days 

While  I've  e'en  to  see, 
When  I'm  auld  and  done  wi'  the  fash  of  their  English  ways 

I'll  come  hame  to  dee  ; 
For  the  lad  dreams  aye  o'  the  prize  that  the  man'll  get, 

But  he  lives  and  learns, 
And  it's  far,  far  ayont  him  still — but  it's  further  yet 

To  the  Howe  o'  the  Mearns. 

1  Kincardineshire. 


THE   HOWE   OJ   THE   MEARNS.  211 

Laddie,  my  lad,  when  the  hair  is  white  on  ye're  pow 

And  the  work's  put  past, 
And  ye're  hand's  owre  auld  and  heavy  to  haud  the  plough, 

I'll  win  hame  at  last, 
An'  we'll  bide  our  time  on  the  knowes  where  the  broom  shines  braw 

And  the  whin-flower  burns 
Till  the  last  lang  gloaming  shall  creep  on  us  baith,  and  fa' 

On  the  Howe  o'  the  Mearns. 

VIOLET  JACOB. 


14—2 


212 


AN    ENGLISH   PRISONER    OF    WAR   IN    FRANCE, 

I794-~I795- 


I. 

COMPARATIVELY  few  foreigners  had  the  opportunity  of  living  in  a 
French  provincial  town  during  the  troublous  years  between  the 
Eeign  of  Terror  and  the  First  Consulate. 

My  great-grand-uncle  was  a  prisoner  of  the  French  at  Tarascon 
during  this  interregnum  and  kept  a  careful  journal  which  is  now 
in  my  possession.  From  it  I  have  collected  the  facts  which  form 
this  narrative.  They  may  be  of  interest  to  those  who  know  France 
now,  when  she  gives  foreigners  a  more  cordial  welcome  than  she 
gave  to  the  officers  and  crew  of  the  Acalus  in  1794. 

Charles  Compton  Parish  was  born  in  Dublin  Castle  on  May  Day, 
1771,  his  father  being  at  that  time  chaplain  to  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  Ireland.  Early  in  life  he  joined  the  merchant  service,  and  at 
the  age  of  twenty- three  he  was  already  owner  and  captain  of  a 
vessel,  the  Acalus,  trading  with  the  West  Indies. 

It  was  September,  in  the  year  1794,  and  France  had  but  lately 
sent  Robespierre  to  the  guillotine  and  emancipated  herself  from 
the  Reign  of  Terror.  The  Convention  was  still  sitting,  and  Napoleon 
had  not  yet  appeared  on  the  horizon  to  guide  the  destinies  of 
France.  Trade  was  disorganised  and  the  seas  were  haunted  by 
pirate  ships  and  hostile  men-of-war.  Captain  Parish  had  delivered 
a  cargo  in  London  and  was  returning  to  the  ill-fated  port  of  Messina 
when  his  ship  was  captured  off  the  Spanish  coast  by  six  French 
frigates.  He  himself  was  taken  on  board  the  Minerva  as  a  prisoner 
of  war. 

In  spite  of  the  surprise  of  finding  himself  surrounded  by  a 
French  squadron  (he  had  thought  the  ships  were  Spanish,  and 
consequently  friendly),  he  had  not  omitted  to  collect  some  clothes, 
books,  and  other  necessaries  which  he  was  fortunately  able  to  take 
with  him  on  board  the  French  ship.  But  his  temporary  satisfaction 
did  not  last  long,  for  meeting  an  English  captain  and  fellow- prisoner 
on  board  he  soon  learnt  the  horrible  conditions  which  he  would 
have  to  share  with  the  other  prisoners.  Illness  and  disease,  result- 
ing from  an  utter  want  of  cleanliness,  were  rife  among  the  French 


AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER    OF   WAR    IN   FRANCE.    213 

sailors  and  had  not  unnaturally  spread  among  their  prisoners. 
The  English  captain  had  brought  with  him  some  quantity  of 
personal  belongings,  but  with  the  exception  of  the  one  he  wore 
not  even  a  shirt  remained,  the  res£  of  his  things  having  been  appro- 
priated by  the  ship's  crew. 

It  appeared  that  the  squadron  had  captured  sixteen  English 
vessels,  and  there  were  on  board  the  Minerva  ten  or  twelve  English 
captains  besides  about  forty  seamen.  Hearing  a  dinner-bell  ring, 
Captain  Parish  went  in  search  of  a  meal  himself  and  soon  found 
some  English  mates  and  other  sailors  eating  salt  fish  out  of  wooden 
bowls,  for  the  most  part  with  their  fingers  for  want  of  other  im- 
plements. Finding  no  place  among  them,  Captain  Parish  made 
a  further  search  and  found  one  at  another  mess,  shared  with  the 
French  officers  and  all  the  English  '  captains-that-were,'  and  a 
Scotch  captain  whom  he  had  known  at  Naples  and  Messina.  Here 
he  was  given  a  place,  but,  at  first,  nothing  to  eat  or  drink  except 
a  tumbler  of  wine  offered  him  by  a  compatriot  who  told  him  it 
was  fortune  de  guerre.  He  soon  found  that  a  general  rejoicing 
was  taking  place  to  celebrate  the  capture  of  his  own  ship  the  Aeolus, 
all  the  French  officers  being  present  except  the  captain  (who  dined 
apart),  and  many  Republican  songs  were  sung  after  dinner.  Then 
the  Commodore  sent  for  him,  and  after  showing  him  some  civility, 
ordered  him  to  take  his  things  out  of  the  chest  and  put  them  into 
bags  as  no  chests  were  allowed  on  board.  Captain  Parish  thought 
this  would  mean  that  he  would  never  see  them  again,  and  begged 
for  permission  to  keep  at  least  two  shirts,  but  the  French  captain 
assured  him  that  his  property  would  on  no  account  be  touched, 
though  for  greater  security  he  advised  him  to  entrust  his  things 
to  the  First  Lieutenant  and  to  the  Master  of  Signals.  This 
suggestion  was  joyfully  accepted  by  the  Englishman,  who  little 
realised  how  few  of  his  belongings  he  would  ever  meet  with 
again. 

His  next  care  was  for  his  bed  which  had  been  left  in  the  boat, 
but  on  finding  it  he  soon  discovered  that  it  had  been  plundered 
of  its  contents  ;  rug  and  blankets  were  missing,  but  the  rug  he 
soon  recovered  and  thought  by  another  attempt  to  secure  his 
blankets  also.  This  was  not  so  easy,  and  the  sailor  who  had  taken 
them  informed  him  that  unless  Captain  Parish  wished  to  share 
the  fate  of  his  little  dog  (who  had  followed  him  into  the  boat  and 
had  then  been  thrown  overboard),  he  had  better  sit  still  aft  and 
give  up  his  bedding. 


214    AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE. 

'  I  then  began  to  find  the  difference,'  writes  ex-Captain  Parish  in  his  journal, 
'  between  the  conquered  and  the  conqueror,  and  thought  it  best  to  desist,  com- 
plaint in  these  affairs  being  endless,  for  the  men's  knowledge  of  the  officers  having 
a  share  encourages  them  and  leads  them  to  imagine  that  they,  by  the  same  rule, 
have  a  license  to  do  the  same.' 

The  First  Lieutenant,  who  took  charge  of  Captain  Parish's 
clothes,  showed  him  the  lockers  of  the  cockpit,  giving  him  per- 
mission to  sleep  on  them  in  company  with  Captain  John  Moody, 
a  fellow-prisoner,  and  he  soon  realised  his  good  fortune  on  hearing 
that  all  the  other  prisoners  were  put  to  sleep  on  the  cables  in  the 
hold. 

No  accommodation  of  any  kind  was  made  for  their  washing 
or  dressing,  and  after  an  indifferent  night,  Captain  Parish  drew 
a  bucket  of  salt  water  for  himself  to  wash  his  face  and  hands. 

I  now  thought  (he  writes)  that  I  had  nothing  to  do  but  keep  myself  clean 
and  decent  and  keep  up  my  spirits,  having  patience  till  such  time  as  it  should  be 
my  lot  to  change  for  the  better.  I  was  happy  to  have  liberty  to  go  to  what  part 
of  the  ship  I  liked,  that  I  got  plenty  to  eat,  a  clean  place  to  sleep  in,  and  some  of  the 
officers  seemed  to  have  a  generous  pity  for  us  English  prisoners.  But  this  did 
not  last,  and  we  found  that  as  the  number  of  the  English  prisoners  increased  the 
jealousy  of  the  French  was  aroused  and  their  strictness  redoubled. 

It  was  fortunate  for  my  ancestor  that  he  had  so  great  a  power 
of  raising  his  spirits  under  the  most  depressing  circumstances,  and 
this  probably  carried  him  through  the  ordeals  of  the  next  few 
months.  The  following  day  the  French  frigate  captured  a  Spanish 
brig  laden  with  powder  from  Alicante  and  bound  for  Barcelona, 
and  the  treatment  given  the  Spanish  seamen  and  officers  when 
they  were  brought  on  board,  and  on  many  subsequent  occasions, 
was  such  as  to  make  Captain  Parish  thank  God  for  being  an  English- 
man. On  the  following  day,  finding  his  time  lie  heavy  on  his 
hands,  Captain  Parish  went  to  the  lieutenants'  cabin,  found  his 
bag  (already  appreciably  thinner  than  when  he  had  left  it  there 
two  nights  before),  and  taking  out  his  flute,  began  to  play  upon  it. 

A  young  officer  belonging  to  the  ship  came  down  on  hearing 
the  music,  begged  leave  to  borrow  the  flute,  and  put  his  cabin  at 
the  Englishman's  disposal,  begging  him  to  write  there,  play  the 
flute,  or  do  what  he  pleased  in  it,  and  for  the  moment  the  prospect 
looked  distinctly  brighter. 

But  the  following  day  more  prizes  were  taken,  including  a 
Spanish  brig,  carrying  troops  (these  250  men  were  luckily  not 
transferred  to  the  Minerva),  and  the  Clarence,  an  English  yacht 
going  from  Barcelona  to  Malago  with  thirty  French  emigrants 


AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE.    215 

on  board.  The  vessels  were  taken  by  three  of  the  French  frigates 
under  English  colours,  and  the  decoy  was  not  perceived  till  the 
boats  were  alongside  the  English  ship,  to  the  great  consternation 
of  the  unfortunate  emigres.  Among  these  were  an  old  man, 
upwards  of  ninety  years  of  age,  who  had  in  his  time  been  an  admiral ; 
his  son,  a  marquis  and  formerly  a  naval  captain,  with  his  wife 
and  two  children ;  the  eldest,  a  girl  of  about  sixteen,  died  on 
board  the  Minerva  off  Toulon,  and  was  buried  at  the  Lazaretto. 
The  chaplain  and  two  friars  who  were  with  them  were  imme- 
diately put  in  irons.  The  misery  of  these  fresh  prisoners  and 
the  despair  of  their  servants  caused  considerable  amusement  to 
the  crew  of  the  Minerva,  but  the  great  increase  in  the  number  of 
the  prisoners  meant  an  immediate  decrease  in  their  comfort.  The 
English  prisoners  were  sent  down  to  the  hold  and  put  in  irons  with 
a  sentry  to  guard  them,  and  Captain  Parish  and  Captain  Moody 
were  told,  to  their  intense  disgust,  to  sleep  with  them.  The  hold 
was  not  only  unbearably  hot,  but  so  dirty  that  Captain  Parish  did 
not  even  dare  to  take  his  bed  with  him ;  there  was  no  light,  and 
everybody  had  crowded  in  the  hatchway  to  get  the  best  air,  so 
that  it  was  impossible  to  get  a  berth  without  treading  on  and 
creeping  over  their  legs  and  heads.  Could  they  have  sat  upright 
even  it  would  have  been  bearable,  but  the  coil  of  the  cable  being 
only  about  a  foot  and  a  half  above  the  deck  made  it  about  as 
uncomfortable  a  bed  as  could  well  be  imagined.  Being  neither 
able  to  sit,  stand,  nor  to  lie  down,  their  bones  ached  all  over  until 
the  joyful  moment  came  when  the  English  captains  were  allowed 
again  on  deck  in  the  morning. 

On  December  24  two  more  Spanish  vessels  were  captured,  and 
a  strong  wind  sprang  up  which  materially  increased  the  discomfort 
of  the  women,  whose  quarters  on  the  gun- deck  and  in  the  officers' 
cabins  were  unpleasantly  overcrowded. 

On  Christmas  Day  the  excitement  increased,  and  this  strange 
day  is  best  described  by  an  extract  from  Captain  Parish's  journal : 

It  now  blew  a  strong  gale  and  we  found  the  ship  in  the  morning  under  close- 
reefed  topsails.  She  shipped  an  immense  deal  of  water  and  laboured  much  ;  when 
down  in  the  hold  we  could  at  times  really  feel  the  ship  twist  and  her  long  keel 
bend.  At  noon,  the  gale  freshening,  the  mainsail  was  handed,  and  in  the  evening, 
blowing  extremely  hard,  the  topsails  were  clewed  up,  remaining  in  that  state, 
beating  fit  to  go  to  pieces  and  no  one  willing  to  go  up  to  hand  them,  the  officers 
being  obliged  to  run  about  the  decks  with  their  cutlasses  to  start  the  sailors  up. 
They  were  at  last  in  a  manner  half  made  fast,  and  remained  so  aU  night.  Now 
finding  the  sea  coine  over  the  quarter-deck,  and  being  extremely  cold,  I  went 


216    AN    ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR    IN   FRANCE. 

down  with  my  friend  Moody  into  the  cockpit.  The  French  ladies  were  soon  forced 
down  by  a  sea  which  entered  the  great  cabin  windows.  Our  business  was  to 
quieten  the  children,  who  were  very  much  frightened,  as  best  we  could. 

About  6  o'clock  I  was  much  alarmed  to  see  the  Master-at-Arms  run  down 
crying  out  that  '  the  English  prisoners  had  revolted,'  and  he  immediately  went 
down  into  the  gun-room  for  pistols,  cartouch  boxes,  &c.  Some  of  the  officers  who 
were  in  the  ward-room  immediately  armed  themselves  with  a  brace  of  pistols 
and  a  cutlass  (which  was  always  ready).  Lant horns  were  instantly  all  over  the 
ship,  everybody  was  immediately  armed,  and  everyone  was  in  confusion,  the 
vessel  labouring  and  shipping  water,  and  the  repeated  cries  of  '  The  Traitors ! 
Where  are  they  ? '  were  truly  terrible. 

There  happened  to  be  three  of  us  down  below  aft,  and  we  thought  it  best  to 
sit  still  where  we  were,  as  we  were  sure  it  was  without  provocation  they  had  armed. 
A  young  lieutenant  came  running  down  in  a  great  passion.  I  spoke  to  him,  but 
he  answered  only  by  pointing  his  cutlass  to  my  throat  in  a  furious  manner,  crying 
out,  '  You  Traitors,  away  with  you  ! '  and  drove  us  into  a  cabin,  where  he  shut  us 
up.  We  were  scarcely  there  one  minute  when  he  would  have  us  out  again,  thinking 
us  too  near  the  gun-room,  where  there  was  by  this  time  a  strong  guard.  The  Master 
of  Colours  again  put  us  into  the  cabin,  but  the  young  officer  now  insisted  on  our 
going  on  deck  in  the  midst  of  numbers  of  marines  armed  with  tomahawks  and 
bayonets,  each  seeming  eager  to  have  the  first  drive.  When  we  had  escaped  the 
guard  at  the  gun-room  door,  going  up  the  ladder  we  saw  the  hatchway  surrounded 
by  the  wild  marines,  who  immediately  showed  their  activity  by  flourishing  their 
weapons  of  destruction.  I  was  twice  knocked  down  on  my  passage  up  the  ladder  ; 
my  hat  was  knocked  off,  but  with  the  quick  thought  that  its  strength  and  false 
crown  would  save  a  blow,  I  picked  it  up  again.  We  three  now  found  ourselves  to 
be  the  only  Englishmen  out  of  the  hold,  and  were  again  driven  down  into  the 
ward-room  at  the  points  of  their  swords.  The  great  noise  and  uproar  prevented 
the  officers  a  long  time  from  hearing  one  another,  and  we  were  properly  bothered 
by  contradictory  orders.  I  now  began  to  think  it  was  a  dreadful  Christmas  night, 
and  really  at  that  time  I  could  not  have  insured  my  life  at  one  per  cent.,  for  never 
before  was  I  so  near  my  death,  even  at  the  time  of  falling  overboard  at  sea  in  a 
gale  of  wind  ! 

We  were  at  last  sent  down  into  the  ward-room  with  a  guard  over  us  till  all 
was  quiet  again,  for  which  we  were  very  thankful,  as  we  escaped  running  the 
gauntlet  of  the  gun-room  like  the  rest  of  the  English  captains  and  passengers  and 
mates,  and  I  thought  it  impossible  but  that  some  of  them  must  have  been  killed 
as  they  were  bundled  down  the  hatchway  neck  and  heels,  some  of  them  much 
bruised  ;  but  only  one  was  wounded,  in  the  back,  and  his  life  was  saved  by  a  heavy 
but  lucky  lurch  of  the  ship. 

Upon  inquiry  it  was  found  that  the  report  had  originated  in  some  malicious 
French  sailor  who  had  first  given  the  report.  A  number  of  them  were  drunk  and 
it  was  very  fortunate  that  all  our  sailors  were  down  in  the  hold  and  in  irons,  for 
had  they  been  scattered  about  the  ship  they  would  most  likely  have  armed  them- 
selves and  made  resistance.  As  everybody  shares  the  same  fate  in  the  case  of 
failure  of  such  an  attempt  I  was  now  very  anxious  to  hear  the  whole  of  the  affair, 
but  dared  not  yet  stir  out  of  the  ward-room,  and  found  the  officers  too  busy  to  give 
me  an  answer. 

We  were  fortunate  enough  to  sit  down  to  a  comfortable  supper,  but  the  rest 
of  our  friends  were  not  suffered  to  stir  out  of  the  hold,  having  over  them  a  strong 
guard ;  neither  would  some  of  them  have  stirred  out  for  the  best  supper  ever 
provided. 

If  a  little  time  past  I  was  frightened  and  thought  this  would  have  proved  a 


AN   ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE.    217 

miserable  Christmas  Day  to  me,  I  was  now  more  cheerful  and  merry  and  ate  the 
heartiest  supper  I  ever  had  on  board.  I  am  sure  the  danger  I  had  escaped  helped 
to  heighten  my  joy  and  thankfulness.  It  had  been  a  very  disagreeable  affair,  and 
might  have  been  attended  with  disastrous  consequences. 

I  imagined  that  the  officers  and  men  had  naturally  a  fear  of  so  many  prisoners 
knowing  the  incapacity  of  their  own  crew  in  such  bad  weather,  and  had  given  that 
alarm  to  show  that  they  were  always  ready  and  to  keep  them  in  awe  for  the  future. 

After  supper  I  began  to  dread  the  going  forward  to  bed,  as  I  thought  they 
might  possibly  take  me  for  one  of  those  who  had  escaped  out  of  the  hold,  the 
consequences  of  which  would,  I  knew,  be  worse  than  the  first.  I  told  my  friends 
of  my  determination  to  sleep  again  in  the  ward-room,  and  they  begged  me  not  to 
think  of  such  a  thing  at  that  time,  but  the  Captain  coming  down  I  stept  up  to  him, 
and  begged  him  to  give  me  leave.  I  told  him  how  hurtful  it  was  to  me  who  was 
not  used  to  sleep  on  billets  of  wood  and  water  casks,  and  where  we  were  stowed  so 
thick,  and  that  if  he  should  suspect  anything  in  us  he  might  chain  us  together, 
which  we  would  willingly  suffer  to  sleep  wholesomely.  After  telling  him  I  was 
sorry  that  such  a  disagreeable  report  had  been  raised,  I  assured  him  that  our 
people  were  all  certain  they  were  treated  as  well  as  prisoners  at  that  time  could 
expect,  and  that  they  would  not  be  ungrateful  and  rise  upon  the  French.  He 
gave  us  three  liberty  to  sleep  there,  for  which  leave  we  were  very  thankful,  and  the 
others  were  much  pleased  with  me  for  asking  it. 

The  next  morning  we  were  the  first  up  and  it  was  not  till  after  breakfast  that 
we  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  an  English  face  upon  deck,  but  only  the  masters  and 
mates  were  allowed  that  liberty.  It  still  blew  extremely  hard  from  the  north-west, 
and  the  sea  very  high  and  covered  with  a  white  surf ;  it  had  snowed  and  hailed 
much  all  night,  and  was  prodigiously  cold  for  idle  hands. 

The  Captain  having  now  lost  sight  of  the  five  other  frigates  determined  to 
push  for  Toulon  with  all  possible  speed.  He  carried  an  amazing  press  of  sail  on  the 
ship  this  day,  the  lee  gunwales  seldom  appearing  out  of  water  ;  ten  knots  she  went 
with  her  sails  touching  the  wind.  Towards  evening  we  saw  land  to  the  eastward 
and  soon  got  into  smooth  water ;  in  the  evening  we  shortened  sail  and  tacked  in 
to  the  land. 

The  following  day  the  Minerva  lay  off  Toulon  in  the  company 
of  fourteen  sail  of  the  line  and  seven  frigates,  and  was  kept  there 
twenty  days  in  quarantine.  Many  of  the  sick  were  landed  at  the 
Lazaretto,  which  was  surrounded  by  high  walls  to  isolate  it  from 
the  town,  and  the  only  communication  between  the  people  inside 
and  their  friends  in  the  town  was  held  through  a  double-barred 
gate.  The  whole  place  was  full  of  fever  and  disease,  and  the 
extreme  cold,  which  exceeded  anything  experienced  in  the  south 
of  France  for  twenty  years,  added  to  the  illnesses  on  board  the 
Minerva.  Only  about  twenty  of  her  own  crew,  including  officers, 
remained,  and  the  prisoners  were  kept  hard  at  work  scrubbing  the 
decks  and  putting  her  in  readiness  for  her  next  voyage  with  the 
fleet.  Captain  Moody  was  one  of  the  many  who  fell  ill  with  fever 
and  was  moved  to  the  Lazaretto.  At  first  Captain  Parish  visited 
his  friend  in  hospital,  but  soon  found  that  even  visits  to  such  a 
place  were  most  injurious  to  him,  and  he  was  obliged  to  give  it  up. 


218    AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE. 

It  was  no  uncommon  thing  at  that  time  for  fifty  or  sixty  patients 
to  die  in  one  week  at  each  hospital. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  Acalus  was  brought  in  with 
other  prizes  to  Toulon,  and  Captain  Parish  was  much  mortified  at 
the  sight,  having  secretly  hoped  that  she  might  have  been  recap- 
tured by  the  English  in  the  meanwhile. 

The  days  of  quarantine  were  very  tedious  for  everyone  on 
board  and  especially  for  the  prisoners,  who  had  to  suffer  many 
things  that  were  said  against  their  country.  Most  of  the  French 
officers  had  been  masters  of  merchantmen,  and  had  been  taken 
prisoners  during  the  war  and  carried  to  England,  from  whence  they 
had  succeeded  in  making  their  escape  after  suffering  considerable 
ill-treatment  by  falling  into  bad  hands.  It  was  not  unnatural, 
therefore,  that  they  should  take  every  opportunity  of  impressing 
this  on  their  English  prisoners.  One  of  them  told  Captain  Parish 
that  he  had  been  taken  by  an  English  frigate  and  at  once  sent 
forward  to  mess  and  sleep  with  his  own  seamen,  being  told  by  the 
captain  that '  that  was  liberty  and  equality  and  be  d- — d  to  him.' 

Though  Toulon  itself  was  short  of  food  the  prisoners  on  board 
ship  had  nothing  to  complain  of  with  regard  to  their  meals,  in  fact 
Captain  Parish  was  often  shocked  at  the  amount  of  food,  especially 
bread,  that  was  wasted  on  the  Minerva,  though  the  French  sailors 
ate  far  less  meat  than  the  English  did. 

Before  they  were  allowed  out  of  quarantine  every  person  on 
the  ship  was  sent  on  shore  to  be  '  smoked,'  and  the  prisoners  were 
somewhat  alarmed  for  fear  an  opportunity  might  be  taken  of  the 
fumigating  to  stifle  or  smother  them  in  the  hut  where  the  process 
was  gone  through,  but  though  decidedly  unpleasant  at  the  time 
they  experienced  no  ill-effects  afterwards. 

II. 

After  being  called  over  on  January  28,  all  the  prisoners  left  the 
Minerva  in  two  boats  with  a  lieutenant  in  charge  of  them.  Some 
excitement  prevailed  as  to  whether  the  change  on  shore  would 
better  their  condition  or  the  reverse,  and  the  first  stages  of  their 
journey  were  most  unfavourable.  They  spent  several  hours,  after 
leaving  the  row  boats,  under  the  second  deck  of  an  old  hulk,  in 
pitch  darkness  and  appalling  smells,  in  a  space  some  twenty-two 
feet  square,  there  being  then  about  eighty  prisoners.  From  the 
freezing  cold  outside  the  change  to  stifling  heat  was  very  trying, 


AN   ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE.    219 

and  they  were  soon  obliged  to  take  off  most  of  their  clothes.  Before 
many  hours  were  over  an  officer  appeared  to  conduct  them  all  to 
Tarascon,  where  they  were  to  remain  indefinitely.  The  procession 
was  headed  by  a  band  playing  the  '  Rogue's  March,'  and  first 
visited  a  hospital  which  had  lately  been  converted  into  a  prison. 
Here  the  prisoners  were  again  counted  over,  a  list  made  of  their 
names,  and  then,  the  baggage  having  been  put  into  carts,  they 
were  marched  out  of  the  town,  four  abreast,  in  the  charge  of  a 
captain,  a  lieutenant,  and  twenty-four  soldiers. 

Captain  Parish  was  lucky  enough  to  have  kept  two  bags  of 
clothes  and  a  small  trunk  of  books,  and  was  in  this  respect  better 
of?  than  any  of  his  fellow-prisoners  ;  the  Spanish  ones,  of  whom 
there  were  about  160,  were  far  the  worst  clad,  many  having  scarcely 
more  than  two  linen  shirts  to  keep  out  the  cold  and  being  in  a 
wretched  state  of  health.  The  English  marched  ahead,  following 
the  drum,  and  the  poor  Spaniards  were  soon  unable  to  keep  up 
with  them,  so  the  French  captain,  at  the  first  halt,  changed  the 
order,  placing  the  Spaniards  in  front.  This,  however,  was  so  dis- 
tasteful to  the  Englishmen  that  in  less  than  ten  minutes  the  pro- 
cession was  headed  once  more  by  the  bluejackets.  '  There  is 
something  very  particular,'  Captain  Parish  writes  in  his  journal, 
'  in  the  spirit  of  an  Englishman,  when  in  company  with  foreigners ; 
they  are  determined  to  the  last  to  outdo  them,  let  it  cost  what  it 
will,  and  always  wish  to  maintain  as  well  as  claim  their  superiority  ; 
but  this  spirit  has  also  its  inconvenience  as  they  are  too  apt  to  look 
down  upon  the  rest  with  contempt,  as  if  so  much  beneath  them, 
instead  of  objects  truly  deserving  our  pity  and  assistance.' 

About  four  miles  from  Toulon  they  passed  through  a  village 
where  they  devoutly  hoped  that  a  halt  would  be  made  to  enable 
them  to  have  some  refreshment,  but  not  even  a  drink  of  water  was 
to  be  had  and  they  passed  out  of  the  village  by  a  rougher 
and  more  hilly  road,  arriving  in  the  evening  at  the  little  town 
of  Bouchez.  The  evening  was  very  cold  and  the  melting  snow 
had  made  the  day's  march  additionally  tiring  to  sailors  who 
had  not  been  on  land  for  many  weeks.  It  was  twenty- 
four  hours  since  they  had  had  any  food,  and  yet,  even  when  a 
lodging  had  been  procured  in  a  small  room  with  straw  spread  on 
the  floor  to  serve  for  beds,  they  had  to  wait  till  eleven  o'clock 
before  any  food  was  brought  to  them  :  and  when  it  came  the  allow- 
ance only  consisted  of  one  pound  of  bread  and  four  ounces  of  raw 
beef  to  each  man.  It  was  impossible  to  make  a  fire,  and  Captain 


220     AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE. 

Parish  having  succeeded  in  getting  something  to  drink,  he  soon 
devoured  his  bread  and  raw  beef,  finding  the  next  morning,  to  his 
horror,  that  the  allowance  was  intended  to  last  until  the  following 
evening,  and  that  he  would  get  neither  breakfast  nor  dinner. 

They  were  awakened  at  four  in  the  morning,  and  about  seven 
o'clock  the  Spaniards  were  sent  on  in  advance ;  but  the  Englishmen 
soon  caught  them  up,  and  about  one  o'clock  a  halt  was  made  in  a 
village  called  Tongee  for  dinner.  Here  Captain  Parish  was  fortu- 
nately able  to  buy  some  wine  and  a  few  broiled  fishes,  though  the 
price  asked  was  most  exorbitant,  and  bread  was  unobtainable  for 
love  or  money,  the  inhabitants  being  supplied  with  an  allowance 
for  themselves  and  subjected  to  a  heavy  penalty  if  any  of  it  was 
sold. 

The  prisoners  ate  their  meal  below  the  tree  of  Liberty  which 
was  planted  in  the  middle  of  the  village,  but  the  English  people 
were  subjected  to  a  good  deal  of  insult  from  the  inhabitants,  who 
tried  to  force  them  to  cry  '  Vive  la  Kepublique ! ' 

The  unfortunate  Spaniards,  however,  were  worse  sufferers. 
They  were  given  little  or  no  rest,  as  they  invariably  arrived  long 
after  the  other  prisoners  at  their  destination,  and  were  started  off 
in  front  of  them.  Many  fell  ill  by  the  way,  and  the  carts  were  laden 
with  the  sick  until  there  was  no  room  for  many  who  were  really 
unfit  to  walk. 

Captain  Parish  himself  had  little  to  complain  of,  as  he  was 
young  and  strong  and  could  afford  to  supplement  his  allowance  by 
purchasing  extra  food  ;  but  his  cabin-boy  soon  got  knocked  up, 
and  finding  he  had  fallen  behind,  the  Captain  waited  for  him  until 
he  came  up,  and  then  persuaded  the  sentry  to  make  room  for  the 
boy  on  a  cart.  By  an  hour's  rapid  walking  he  caught  up  with  his 
fellow-captains  behind  the  drum  again,  and  towards  evening  a  halt 
was  made  at  Bicabeza,  once  more  by  the  tree  of  Liberty,  until 
lodgings  were  found  for  them  all.  One  meagre  sheep  had  to  do 
duty  and  feed  sixty  hungry  souls  this  time,  but  a  fire  was  found 
wherewith  to  cook  it,  and  it  soon  disappeared. 

Next  day  the  roads  got  more  hilly,  and  as  they  approached  the 
mountains  the  cold  increased.  Two  large  country  seats,  evidently 
belonging  to  people  of  considerable  importance,  were  passed  on 
the  way,  but  they  were  utterly  deserted  and  more  or  less  destroyed, 
the  gardens  and  grounds  having  been  laid  waste.  On  reaching 
Aix-en-Provence  they  were  taken  to  a  large  building  and  passed 
through  an  iron  gate  to  which  a  box  was  attached  with  the 


AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE.     221 

inscription  '  Tronc  pour  les  pauvres  prisonniers,'  and  they  soon 
found  that  their  lodging  was  the  common  jail. 

They  were  first  taken  through  long  damp  corridors  lined  with 
cells  to  the  prison  yard,  where  the  English,  Spaniards,  and  Cata- 
lonians  were  separated,  the  former  being  given  some  meat,  a  few 
chunks  of  wood,  and  a  copper  vessel  in  which  to  cook  it ;  but  this 
was  not  possible,  as  no  axe  was  provided  with  which  to  cut  the 
wood,  and  they  were  obliged  once  more  to  eat  raw  meat.  At 
nine  o'clock  they  were  taken  into  a  prison  cell,  about  fourteen  feet 
square,  with  no  straw  even  to  sleep  on,  but  chains  in  the  corners 
and  centre  of  the  floor,  which  were  much  worn  with  frequent  use . 
They  were  even  unable  to  lie  on  the  floor  owing  to  their  number, 
and  Captain  Parish  having  succeeded  in  getting  some  wine  for 
himself,  he  and  his  friend  Allan  treated  the  rest  of  the  Englishmen 
to  a  glass  of  rum  all  round,  which  they  thoroughly  enjoyed. 

The  next  morning  they  were  early  on  the  march  again,  but 
two  nights  later,  at  Arcon,  they  slept  again  in  the  jail,  this  time 
in  a  garret  with  a  shattered  roof,  and  at  such  close  quarters  that 
several  quarrels  occurred  between  the  English  and  Spanish 
prisoners.  As  the  English  invariably  arrived  first  at  their  destina- 
tion, they  got  the  pick  of  the  lodgings  and  the  food — such  as  it 
was — to  the  extreme  disgust  of  the  Spaniards. 

The  next  night,  at  St.  Kemy,  was  spent  in  a  church  which  was 
extremely  cold,  and  they  were  all  awakened  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  by  the  scream  of  a  soldier  who  declared  he  had  seen  a  dead 
man  walk  about  in  the  church. 

They  had  now,  after  experiencing  horrible  weather  in  the  hills, 
emerged  into  a  level  country  and  saw,  in  the  distance,  the  town  of 
Tarascon  in  front  of  them.  By  this  time  the  number  of  Spaniards 
was  greatly  diminished,  as  many  as  fourteen  a  day  having  dropped 
on  the  road  from  illness  and  fatigue.  The  food  obtainable  for  such 
as  could  afford  to  pay  for  it  varied  considerably,  and  once  or  twice 
Captain  Parish  succeeded  in  getting  a  tolerable  meal ;  but  all  the 
better  houses  in  the  villages  were  shut  up  and  deserted,  and  the 
churches  converted  into  barns  or  shops  ;  on  some  of  them  was 
written,  '  The  national  magazine  for  forage ' ;  on  others,  '  The 
French  people  acknowledge  the  Supreme  Being  and  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.'  The  tree  of  Liberty,  of  an  amazing  height,  was  placed 
in  every  village,  and  on  the  butchers'  shops,  which  were  not  many, 
was  written  '  Liberte  ou  la  mort.'  The  towns  were  better  peopled 
than  might  have  been  expected,  but  all  who  were  able  carried 


222     AN    ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE. 

arms,  and  Captain  Parish  says  he  never  met  a  man  on  the  road 
who  had  not  the  appearance  of  a  soldier ;  the  people  he  describes 
as  hardy  and  stout,  especially  the  women,  '  though  I  cannot  say,' 
he  adds,  '  that  these  latter  were  either  handsome  in  their  persons 
or  dresses.5 

On  arriving  at  Tarascon  Captain  Parish  met  another  English- 
man, Captain  Edwards,  who  had  been  a  prisoner  at  Tarascon  about 
nine  months,  and  he  soon  learned  from  him  that  the  prisoners  were 
allowed  absolute  liberty  so  long  as  they  passed  muster  in  the 
evening.  This  was  very  welcome  news  to  him,  and  he  began  to 
catechise  his  new  friend  about  the  possibility  of  getting  remit- 
tances, &c.  The  prisoners,  of  whom  hitherto  only  about  ten  were 
Englishmen,  received  an  allowance  of  1J  Ib.  of  bread  and  ten  sols 
a  day,  lodging  being  provided  for  them  in  the  church  belonging 
to  a  convent,  which  had  straw  spread  on  the  floor  for  beds.  Captain 
Edwards,  however,  invited  Captain  Parish  to  share  his  own  rooms 
with  him  until  he  should  find  some  that  suited  him  better,  which 
was  not  an  easy  matter  when  the  whole  place  was  crowded  with 
soldiers  and  prisoners  of  war,  and  the  invitation  was  gratefully 
accepted.  The  arrival  of  his  baggage  not  a  little  surprised  his 
host,  who  had  fully  expected  him  to  possess  nothing  but  the  clothes 
in  which  he  stood. 

Towards  evening  they  went  together  to  the  Commissaire  de 
guerre  to  ask  for  an  increase  of  their  allowance,  as  a  rise  in  the  price 
of  provisions  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  buy  more  than  J  Ib.  of 
meat  with  their  ten  sols.  Meanwhile,  Edwards  showed  the  new- 
comer how  to  make  the  most  of  what  he  had,  advising  him  to 
remain  in  bed  and  sleep  till  11  A.M.,  thus  avoiding  the  expense  of 
breakfast,  and  then  to  sell  the  bread  which  was  allowed  him  and 
buy  potatoes,  which  were  much  cheaper,  with  the  money.  Dinner 
and  supper  for  five  of  them  could  be  got  off  a  sheep's  head,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  day  was  spent  in  cooking  and  marketing. 

On  Sunday,  February  8,  Captain  Parish  wrote  for  money  to  his 
correspondents  at  Genoa,  and  then  went  out  into  the  town  where 
a  fete  day  was  being  celebrated,  and  men  and  women,  all  dressed 
neat  and  clean,  danced  in  long  rows  about  the  town  to  drums  and 
fifes.  This  public  mirth  had  a  very  pleasing  effect ;  in  fact  they 
'  seldom  wanted  for  music  in  any  part  of  the  town.' 

He  had,  unfortunately,  caught  a  chill  by  wearing  a  damp  shirt, 
and  soon  began  to  suffer  from  a  fever.  He  first  tried  to  cure  him- 
self and  then  sent  for  the  doctor,  but  by  February  14  he  was 


AN    ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF  WAR   IN    FRANCE.     223 

very  seriously  ill  and  acting   on   the   advice  of    his   friends  was 
removed  in  a  sedan  chair  to  the  hospital. 

For  three  weeks  he  was  reduced  to  a  state  of  unconsciousness  by 
excessive  bleeding,  combined  with  starvation,  and  when  he  regained 
his  senses  he  found  himself  in  a  corner  of  the  ward  known  as  '  the 
death  bed,'  where  patients  were  put  when  recovery  was  despaired 
of ;  but  a  change  of  weather  and  the  kind  attentions  of  the  head 
nurse  or  matron  of  the  hospital  saved  his  life,  and  he  slowly  re- 
covered his  strength.  Hearing,  about  March  10,  that  there  was 
some  talk  of  an  exchange  of  prisoners,  and  being  much  alarmed 
at  the  idea  that  his  fellow  countrymen  would  leave  Tarascon  before 
he  had  strength  to  travel,  he  determined  to  hasten  his  recovery, 
but  only  brought  on  a  relapse  by  this  sudden  effort,  and  it  was 
not  till  March  31  that  he  was  able  to  leave  the  hospital. 

'  I  was  much  pleased,'  he  writes,  '  to  observe  the  perfect  cleanliness  of  this 
hospital  throughout,  and  the  good  regulations  there  used.  They  seemed  to  spare 
no  expense,  having  everything  of  the  best.  The  sick  eat  and  drink  out  of  pewter 
which  is  scoured  bright  every  day,  and  they  have  the  best  bread  and  finest  beef  in 
the  town  ;  there  is  always  hot  broth  ready  for  the  sick,  and  those  who  are  better 
have  served  them  a  pint  of  good  wine  and  a  pound  of  white  bread.  I,  being  a 
favourite,  had  always  boiled  rice  in  the  morning  for  breakfast,  at  ten  hot  soup  was 
served  out  and  a  ration  of  beef,  and  at  four  again  a  loaf  was  served  out,  with  rice 
or  soup  or  beef.  Prayers  were  read  in  public  three  times  a  day  by  the  nurses  in 
the  respective  wards,  and  clean  linen  of  all  kinds  was  served  out  as  required  ;  but 
I  preferred  wearing  my  own,  excepting  sheets.  The  room  I  was  in  was  a  spacious 
one,  about  100  feet  in  length,  25  in  breadth,  and  24  in  height.  The  bedsteads  were 
all  of  iron,  with  green  serge  curtains  bound  with  red,  the  uniformity  of  which,  with 
the  neat  manner  in  which  they  were  always  kept,  had  a  pleasing  effect.  There 
were  eighteen  beds  in  my  room.  The  doctor  visited  at  8  in  the  morning  and  at 
3  in  the  afternoon ;  the  surgeon  came  half  an  hour  before.  The  hospital  was 
governed  by  four  directors,  and  everybody  seemed  very  attentive  to  their  duty. 
The  head  nurse  was  so  compassionate  and  obliging  in  her  behaviour  that  I  was 
always  happy  to  see  her.' 

It  is  very  comforting  to  think  that  even  in  those  days  all 
hospitals  were  not  managed  like  the  Lazaretto  at  Toulon,  though 
how  in  what  appears  to  have  been  a  public,  if  not  a  Government, 
building  prayers  were  allowed  to  be  read  in  those  intolerant  days 
seems  hard  to  understand. 

The  intolerance  must  have  been  already  decreasing,  for  by  the 
beginning  of  April  an  entry  in  the  Journal  states  that  '  the  people 
had  begun  to  betake  themselves  to  their  former  religion,  and  had  a 
house  in  the  fields  where  they  held  public  Mass,  and  they  also  wore 
their  crucifixes  in  sight,  which  had  been  formerly  hidden.  The 
genteel  people  began  to  venture  out,  which  before  we  had  not  seen  ; 


224    AN    ENGLISH    PRISONER    OF   WAR   IN    FRANCE 

by  some  monsieur  was  used,  but  more  generally  citoyen,'  and  a  few 
days  later  he  writes  that  they  have  been  keeping  holiday  for  three 
days  in  honour  of  Easter,  and  that  the  people  '  were  chiefly  genteelly 
drest.' 

On  leaving  hospital  Captain  Parish  had  taken  some  very 
pleasant  rooms  in  the  most  healthy  part  of  the  town,  where  he  was 
well  cared  for  by  a  tailor  and  his  wife,  who  made  him  most  com- 
fortable in  every  way,  and  frequently  invited  him  to  share  their 
supper.  He  had  learnt  some  French  by  this  time,  and  was  able 
to  hold  conversation  with  his  hosts,  and  by  playing  on  his  flute, 
going  long  country  walks,  and  having  an  occasional  game  of  billiards 
the  time  passed  pleasantly  enough,  though  he  began  gradually  to 
lose  his  companions,  who  were  deserting  one  by  one.  Although  he 
was  now  quite  strong  again,  he  was  unable  to  desert  himself,  as  no 
money  arrived  from  his  correspondents,  and  he  would  not  leave 
the  town  before  paying  his  debts  to  his  landlady  and  washer- 
woman. His  allowance  of  ten  sols  a  day  was  quite  inadequate,  and 
he  made  several  applications  to  the  District  for  an  increase  to  ten 
livres,  to  which  he  believed  he  was  entitled.  He  heard  from  Captain 
Moody,  who  was  a  prisoner  at  Sisteron,  that  their  pay,  which  had 
first  fallen  to  two  livres,  had  now  been  altogether  stopped,  and  they 
were  actually  starving.  So  Captain  Parish  consoles  himself  by 
comparing  his  situation  with  that  of  others,  and  writes  that 
'  fortune's  favours  seem  to  follow  me  every  day  I  rise  ;  happy  fellow 
that  I  am,  God  has  blessed  me  with  a  mind  contented  in  any 
situation  !  ' 

And,  indeed,  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  lucky  vein,  for  the  very  day 
his  washerwoman  came  to  demand  her  arrears  of  payment,  and  he 
had  made  the  rash  promise  that  she  should  be  paid  by  noon,  he  was 
sent  for  by  the  District,  who  informed  him  that  his  allowance  had 
not  only  been  raised  to  ten  livres,  but  that  the  Convention  had  sent 
down  the  balance  of  674  livres  10  sous  which  were  owing  to  him  ;  and 
his  debts,  amounting  to  600  livres,  were  promptly  paid  by  noon  ! 

The  next  day,  being  May  Day,  was  his  birthday,  and  he  cele- 
brated it  by  ordering  a  sumptuous  dinner  at  the  tavern  on  the 
strength  of  his  new  riches.  The  coming  of  the  spring  had  been  a 
great  delight  to  him,  but  though  the  days  were  already  sultry  the 
nights  were  cold  and  chilly,  and  he  was  most  anxious  to  devise  a 
plan  of  escape  attended  by  the  fewest  possible  risks.  On  May  10 
he  heard  from  Captain  Edwards  that  the  latter  had  safely  made  his 
escape  to  Leghorn,  and  was  already  in  command  of  a  fine  ship, 


AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR    IN   FRANCE.     225 

the  Elizabeth,  300  tons  ;  and  receiving  a  letter  from  another  ex- 
prisoner,  who  had  also  succeeded  in  making  his  escape,  Captain 
Parish  determined  to  lose  no  more  time  in  following  their  example. 

His  luggage  was  his  first  care,  and  he  wrote  to  M.  Viale,  his 
correspondent  in  Marseilles,  to  receive  it  for  him  and  send  it  straight 
to  Leghorn.  His  next  step  was  to  obtain  a  forged  passport  from 
the  District  of  Cette,  which  was  a  risky  game,  and,  though  good 
enough  to  blind  a  sailor,  might  in  case  of  detection  have  meant 
losing  his  head.  The  idea  of  recapture,  and  the  confinement  in 
the  tower  which  would  result  from  it,  filled  him  with  horror,  and 
he  was  determined  to  take  every  possible  precaution. 

Before  leaving  he  took  an  affectionate  farewell  of  the  tailor  and 
his  wife,  who  had  done  so  much  for  him  in  Tarascon  ;  and,  on 
receiving  a  deplorable  account  from  Captain  Pypes,  a  friend  of  his 
in  prison  at  Sisteron,  of  their  starving  condition  he  sent  him 
250  francs,  which  was  the  utmost  that  he  could  spare.  Then,  after 
a  farewell  meal  with  him,  Captain  Parish  helped  his  former  chief 
mate,  Phillips,  with  plans  for  his  own  escape  and  arrangements  for 
their  meeting  at  Genoa  or  Leghorn. 

He  had  made  friends  with  a  Sardinian  fellow-prisoner,  and 
offered  to  pay  his  expenses  to  Leghorn  if  he  would  accompany  him 
on  his  escape,  thinking  that  the  Sardinian's  knowledge  of  French 
would  facilitate  his  journey.  The  padrone  of  a  Genoese  boat 
offered,  after  much  bargaining,  to  take  them  both,  and  the  Captain's 
luggage,  to  Genoa  for  sixteen  and  a  half  guineas  (his  original  offer 
having  been  forty),  and  this  was  promptly  accepted  and  the  trunk 
sent  on  board  at  night. 

The  chief  difficulty  was  to  avoid  Aries,  about  nine  miles  below 
Tarascon,  where  the  boats  were  subjected  to  a  strict  search,  and 
obliged  to  obtain  bills  of  health  and  passports  for  every  man  on 
board ;  so  it  was  arranged  that  Captain  Parish  and  the  Sardinian 
should  start  on  foot  and  join  the  boat  below  Aries.  Captain 
Parish  was  forced  to  entrust  his  trunk  to  the  Genoese  beforehand, 
knowing  that  the  chances  were  that  he  would  never  see  either  his 
trunk  or  the  Genoese  captain  again ;  but  on  the  principle  of 
'  Nothing  venture,  nothing  have '  the  risk  was  taken,  and  on  the 
morning  of  May  14  Captain  Parish  left  Tarascon  for  good. 

He  wore  a  blue  jacket  and  white  trousers,  and  had  in  his  pocket 
a  tricolor  cockade — the  smallest  he  could  find,  thinking  that  a 
large  staring  one  would  attract  attention  and  more  quickly  arouse 
suspicion.  When  they  had  gone  about  a  mile  out  of  the  town  he 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  164,  N.S.  15 


226     AN    ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN   FRANCE. 

tacked  it  to  his  hat  with  a  needle  and  thread  specially  brought  for 
the  purpose,  and  then  they  set  out  for  Aries  at  a  brisk  pace  by  the 
less  frequented  road  alongside  the  river. 

At  Aries  the  guide,  a  brother  of  the  Genoese  padrone,  insisted 
on  walking  straight  through  the  town,  saying  there  was  no  other 
road,  and  Captain  Parish  much  disliked  the  necessity  of  passing  by 
so  many  people,  who  seemed  to  have  nothing  better  to  do  than 
stare  at  him  ;  but  his  alarm  was  greatly  increased  when,  in  a  narrow 
street,  they  encountered  a  whole  troop  of  dragoons  going  leisurely 
along  to  water  their  horses.  He  begged  his  guide  to  talk  to  him  in 
French,  and  so  give  him  an  excuse  for  not  looking  at  the  soldiers  ; 
but  the  Genoese  only  made  matters  worse  by  saying  '  Non  paura  ' 
in  a  loud  voice.  They  had  hardly  got  past  the  first  troop  when 
a  second  came  in  sight,  and  by  this  time  Captain  Parish  felt  that 
his  situation  was  hopeless,  and  he  was  hardly  surprised  at  hearing 
one  trooper  remark  to  his  neighbour  that  the  man  was  either  an 
English  prisoner  or  a  Jacobin  deserter  in  disguise ;  but  nothing 
further  occurred,  and  at  last  Aries  was  left  behind.  At  this  point 
the  guide  went  forward  to  look  for  his  brother's  boat,  leaving 
Captain  Parish  to  manage  as  best  he  could,  and  many  were  the. 
opportunities  given  him  of  saying '  Bonjour,  citoyen  '  to  passers-by. 
It  was  some  time  before  the  guide  returned  with  the  news  that  the 
Genoese  boat  had  gone  down  the  river,  and  by  walking  quickly  on 
they  caught  it  up  and  got  safely  on  board  by  half-past  four  in  the 
afternoon. 

Captain  Parish  at  once  took  an  oar  and  shared  in  the  work  of 
the  men  as  well  as  in  the '  comical  food,'  consisting  of  calavances  and 
macaroni  cooked  in  oil  and  salt.  The  meal  was  prepared  and  eaten 
on  the  right  bank  of  the  river. 

At  night  they  made  the  boat  fast  to  the  bank  and  covered  the 
deck  with  a  tent,  under  which  they  slept.  The  wind  continued  to 
blow  from  the  south-east,  and  after  pulling  for  seven  or  eight  miles 
they  were  forced  to  give  up,  and  made  no  further  progress  that  day. 
Their  breakfast  consisted  this  time  of  calavances  and  rice  boiled 
with  oil,  for  a  change.  But  Captain  Parish's  appetite  soon  left  him 
when,  on  the  third  day,  a  contrary  wind  still  prevented  their  leaving 
their  moorings.  He  was  much  alarmed  lest  he  should  be  pursued 
and  recaptured,  and  hid  himself  all  day  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat 
among  coats  and  sails  for  fear  of  detection.  He  was  rendered  most 
unnecessarily  uncomfortable  by  having  made  a  foolish  vow  that  he 
would  not  wash  his  face  and  hands  nor  comb  his  hair  and  shave 


AN   ENGLISH   PRISONER   OF   WAR   IN    FRANCE.     227 

until  he  had  passed  the  coast  of  France,  and  so  every  de]ay  was 
doubly  disagreeable  to  him. 

The  sailors  spent  their  day  in  picking  flowers  in  all  the  neigh- 
bouring gardens,  which  they  offered  to  Captain  Parish  on  their 
return,  but,  '  wishing,'  as  he  says,  '  to  lay  aside  any  appearance  of 
finery,  and  fearing  to  be  seen  with  anything  of  the  kind,  I  did  not 
accept  any.'  With  his  nerves  in  this  condition  it  is  not  surprising 
to  find  how  much  he  suffered  on  the  next  and  most  dangerous  stage 
of  his  journey. 

On  May  17,  towards  evening,  they  approached  the  Tower,  close 
to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  where  a  strict  search  was  made  of  every 
boat  that  passed.  Telling  him  to  beware  not  only  of  the  soldiers  in 
the  Tower,  but  also  of  the  bulls  in  the  field  surrounding  it,  the 
padrone  took  Captain  Parish  on  shore  in  order  that  he  might  go 
round  on  foot  and  rejoin  the  boat  below,  after  the  search  had  been 
made. 

They  were  both  armed  with  sticks,  lest  the  black  bulls  should 
attack  them ;  but  as  the  country  round  the  Tower  was  one  great 
morass  they  found  it  necessary  to  keep  very  close  in  to  the  Tower, 
and  soon  to  throw  away  their  sticks,  fearing  that  the  whiteness  of 
them  would  attract  attention.  They  were  forced  closer  and  closer 
to  the  Tower  by  the  bog,  which  they  were  only  able  to  cross  on  all 
fours.  Captain  Parish  found  that  his  shoes  were  almost  sucked 
off  his  feet,  and  he  put  them  instead  on  his  hands  to  prevent  his 
arms  slipping  in  up  to  the  elbows. 

All  of  a  sudden  a  black  bull  gave  the  alarm  and  a  whole  stampede 
of  the  herd  attracted  the  notice  of  the  sentries,  whose  figures  were 
clearly  visible  on  the  parapet  against  the  sky.  This  time  Captain 
Parish  lay  still  for  half  an  hour  till  all  was  quiet,  and  then  they  both 
advanced  again  with  redoubled  caution.  The  oozing  of  the  mud 
as  they  struggled  through  the  bog  was  constantly  disturbing  the 
cattle,  and  the  stooping  position  which  they  had  to  retain  in  order 
to  escape  observation  from  the  Tower  was  most  exhausting.  Even 
after  passing  the  Tower  great  caution  was  necessary  for  the  next 
mile  until  they  were  clear  of  the  guard-house  beyond,  and  when  at 
last  they  rejoined  the  boat,  after  the  anxieties  of  their  walk  through 
the  deep  mud,  both  men  were  in  a  state  of  physical  and  mental 
exhaustion. 

But  now  the  worst  was  over,  and  in  the  evening  their  boat  was 
abreast  of  Marseilles.  For  a  short  time  a  new  and  worse  peril 
threatened.  Beyond  Toulon  news  reached  them  from  another  boat 

16—2 


228    AN   ENGLISH    PRISONER   OF   WAR    IN    FRANCE. 

of  an  Algerine  cruiser  which  had  the  very  day  before,  in  that  'ocality, 
captured  a  Genoese  boat,  and  had  the  padrone's  boat  not  been 
lucky  enough  to  avoid  her,  Captain  Parish  would  undoubtedly  have 
shared  the  fate  of  the  Genoese  sailors — slavery  for  life.  Several 
times  they  were  pursued  by  privateers  and  had  to  make  a  dash  for 
their  liberty,  and  once  or  twice  Captain  Parish  narrowly  escaped 
detection  while  they  were  cooking  and  eating  their  meal  on  shore. 

On  Friday,  the  22nd,  they  left  the  French  coast  behind  them, 
to  the  great  relief  of  the  ex-prisoner,  who  was  at  last  able,  after  a 
week's  discomfort,  to  shave  and  wash. 

At  a  place  with  a  small  mole,  called  St.  Rheims,  now  well  known 
as  San  Remo,  he  fell  in  with  a  Jacobin  family,  all  wearing  a  tricolor 
cockade,  whom  he  had  met  in  Tarascon,  and  they  mutually  con- 
gratulated each  other  on  their  escape. 

On  the  27th  they  reached  Savona,  and  Captain  Parish,  who 
was  growing  daily  more  impatient  to  reach  his  destination,  set  off 
on  foot  at  eight  in  the  morning  and  reached  Genoa  in  ten  hours. 

Finding  the  English  inn  too  crowded  to  take  him  in,  he  took  a 
boat  (after  drinking  a  glass  of  rum- and- water,  for  which  he  had  been 
jonging  these  last  six  months)  and  rowed  out  to  a  brig  commanded 
by  a  friend  of  his,  Captain  William  Edwards.  His  friends  were 
much  astonished  to  see  him,  as  they  had  last  heard  of  him  at  Tarascon 
during  his  illness.  The  various  acquaintances  he  found  on  board 
made  him  most  welcome.  Captain  Edwards  entertained  him  most 
hospitably,  and  his  relief  to  be  again  among  friends  was  very  great. 
He  stayed  long  enough  to  lodge  a  protest  with  the  English  Consul 
and  to  recover  his  trunk  from  the  Genoese  padrone,  who  turned  up 
on  May  20,  and  was  much  disgusted  when  Captain  Parish  gave  him 
only  twenty  shillings  more  than  the  amount  stipulated. 

It  was  not  till  June  10  that  he  reached  Leghorn  by  sailing  boat 
from  Genoa,  and  great  was  his  delight  at  finding  his  former  fellow- 
prisoner,  Captain  Edwards,  in  command  of  his  own  brig,  the  Eliza- 
beth. He  was  warmly  received  by  him,  and,  as  before  at  Tarascon, 
Captain  Edwards  offered  him  his  house  to  live  in,  as  well  as  his  ship, 
and  their  friendship  was  soon  renewed  under  far  pleasanter  con- 
ditions. 

From  this  time  onwards  Captain  Parish  seems  to  have  had  a  less 
adventurous  life.  His  career  was  a  fairly  prosperous  one  as  captain 
of  the  ships  VAiyle  and  Alfred.  In  1814  he  became  superintendent 
of  the  West  India  Docks,  an  appointment  which  he  held  for  twenty- 
four  years. 

N.  L.  KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH. 


229 


HUMANISTIC  EDUCATION    WITHOUT  LATIN. 
BY  AETHUK  C.  BENSON. 

THE  late  Master  of  Balliol  is  said  to  have  replied,  in  answer  to  a 
youthful  seeker  after  truth,  that  he  never  argued  with  young 
atheists  or  habitual  drunkards.  If  he  had  survived  until  the 
present  day,  he  might  perhaps  have  added  '  or  with  confirmed 
educationists.'  One  does  not  expect  to  convince,  in  writing  about 
education,  one  only  hopes  to  enlist,  or  to  ensnare,  immature  opinion. 
Perhaps  one's  opponents  may  say  that  neither  does  one  intend 
to  be  convinced.  But  I  venture  to  claim  that  if  I  am  to  be  found 
in  the  ranks  of  anti-classicists,  it  is  not  because  I  am  an  opponent 
of  the  classics.  It  would  be,  I  believe,  a  very  grave  intellectual 
catastrophe  if  the  study  of  Greek  and  Latin  by  the  right  persons 
were  to  be  menaced  in  any  way  in  this  country.  It  is  because  I 
am  convinced  that  these  studies  are  not  in  the  least  in  danger  that 
I  venture  to  protest  against  what  I  believe  to  be  another  grave 
intellectual  disaster,  namely,  the  study  of  the  classics  by  the  wrong 
persons,  and  their  continued  preponderance  in  education.  I  hold, 
in  fact,  that  their  compulsory  retention  endangers  their  possibilities 
of  right  use  in  the  future  more  than  anything  else.  Moreover, 
I  have  no  sort  of  animus  against  the  classics.  If  education  could 
extend  over  a  period  of  twenty  years,  from  seven  to  twenty-seven, 
instead  of  about  fifteen  years  from  seven  to  twenty-two,  I  should 
not  feel  as  strongly  as  I  do  about  the  intellectual  tyranny  which 
prevails.  Just  now  the  controversy  is  perhaps  unusually  acute, 
because  the  position  of  Greek  as  a  compulsory  fence  to  the  older 
Universities  is  decidedly  less  secure  than  it  was.  By  a  little-regarded 
piece  of  legislation,  the  University  of  Cambridge  has  made  it  possible 
for  passmen,  when  they  have  once  got  through  the  Little-go,  never  to 
do  another  word  of  Greek  for  their  degree  ;  and  the  farce  of  keeping 
a  subject  compulsory  for  the  entrance  of  passmen  to  a  University, 
without  requiring  it  to  be  studied  after  entrance,  cannot  surely 
be  much  longer  maintained.  But  now  that  the  position  of  Greek 
has  been  rendered  so  insecure  by  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  the 
anxiety  has  spread  to  Latin.  It  will  be  remembered  in  the  Acts  of 


230      HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION   WITHOUT   LATIN. 

the  Apostles,  Herod  put  St.  James  to  death ;  '  and  when  he  saw 
that  it  pleased  the  Jews,  he  proceeded  further  to  take  Peter  also.' 
Peter  is  felt  to  be  in  danger  ! 

The  fact  which  underlies  the  whole  matter  is  the  question 
of  time.  My  own  view  briefly  is  that,  for  a  considerable  number 
of  boys  Latin  is  of  no  use  unless  it  be  studied  very  thoroughly ; 
and  that  to  study  it  thoroughly  demands  more  time  than  can  be 
allotted  to  it  in  the  curriculum.  It  upsets  the  balance  of  studies, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  within  the  last  fifty  years  conditions 
have  changed.  The  introduction  of  modern  studies  into  the  curri- 
culum has  become  inevitable  ;  and  my  belief  is  that  if  those  studies 
are  to  be  pursued  with  any  thoroughness  there  is  not  time  for  Latin 
to  be  studied  too.  I  regard  the  classics  as  a  difficult  special  subject, 
and  I  am  now  not  speaking  of  classical  specialists,  of  boys  with 
literary  and  linguistic  gifts,  for  whom  I  entirely  desire  the  classics 
to  be  retained  ;  but  for  the  ordinary  boy,  conditions,  as  I  said, 
have  changed.  The  primary  objects  of  education  are  two-fold — to 
acquaint  the  young  with  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship,  and  to 
render  them  practically  efficient  in  the  battle  of  life.  An  education 
which  does  not  begin  by  fulfilling  these  requirements  is  simply  not 
an  education  at  all.  One  desires  then  that  boys  should  arrive  afc 
some  comprehension  of  the  conditions  of  modern  life,  and  of  their 
own  place  in  the  world  ;  and  to  do  this  some  knowledge  of  science, 
of  history,  of  geography,  and  of  modern  languages  and  literature 
is  essential ;  they  must  also  be  prepared  to  earn  a  living,  and  to  do 
this  a  real  working  knowledge  of  their  own  language,  of  simple 
mathematics,  and  of  at  least  one  modern  language  is,  to  say  the 
least,  highly  desirable.  This  is  a  heavy  programme,  and  it  is 
certainly  not  at  the  present  time  adequately  carried  out.  More 
time,  and  relief  from  the  pressure  of  too  many  subjects,  are  ad- 
mittedly required.  Eelief  can  only  be  obtained  by  sacrificing  sub- 
jects, unless  we  are  to  rest  content  with  a  mere  smattering.  The 
relief  that  would  be  gained  by  the  frank  sacrifice  of  Latin  would  be 
enormous  ;  and  looking  at  the  amount  of  ground  that  needs  to  be 
covered,  I  cannot  see  that  anything  else  can  be  sacrificed.  There  is 
clearly  not  time  for  everything,  and  if  it  is  a  choice  between  studying 
remote  and  ancient  conditions  of  life,  and  studying  living  and 
breathing  facts  and  problems,  I  frankly  say,  let  the  older  go. 

Now,  to  consider  the  case  more  in  detail,  the  first  reason 
for  which  a  language  ought  to  be  studied  is  for  the  sake  of  its 
literature :  it  seems  to  me  absurd,  on  that  ground,  to  dispense 


HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION   WITHOUT   LATIN.      231 

with  Greek  and  to  retain  Latin.  To  put  it  briefly,  the  Greeks 
set  their  mark  upon  the  world  by  their  words,  the  Komans  by 
their  deeds.  In  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  the  important  thing  is  to 
get  in  touch  with  their  spirit  and  their  ideas,  and  this  can  hardly 
be  done  except  by  a  study  of  their  literature.  But  the  important 
thing  to  study  in  the  case  of  the  Romans  is  their  political  and 
military  organisation,  and  their  effect  on  history ;  and  this  can 
perfectly  well  be  approached  without  studying  their  literature. 
Moreover,  there  is  very  little  Latin  literature  which  is  suitable  for 
the  instruction  of  boys.  Virgil,  of  course,  holds  a  sovereign  station 
among  poets,  but  he  is  a  difficult  writer.  Horace,  with  his  crisp 
maxims,  his  good-humoured  stoicism,  his  gentlemanly  consolations 
for  the  troubles  of  life,  has  a  remarkable  affinity  for  the  British 
mind,  as  the  pages  of  Thackeray  clearly  show;  but  he  cannot 
for  a  moment  be  ranked  among  the  highest.  Catullus  is  perhaps 
the  greatest  genius  among  Latin  writers,  but  the  body  of  his  work 
suitable  for  youthful  perusal  is  small.  Ovid  is  a  master  of  the  art 
of  verse  which  is  literary  rather  than  poetical.  When  we  come  to 
the  prose-writers,  we  are  worse  off  than  ever.  The  charm  of  Livy 
as  a  romantic  writer  is  great,  but  he  is  a  very  difficult  author. 
Caesar  is  terribly  dull.  Cicero  as  an  orator  is  forcible  enough,  but 
literary  culture  cannot  be  fed  on  oratory  ;  and  as  a  philosophical 
writer,  he  is  the  most  relentless  of  twaddlers.  If  Latin  prose  is  to 
be  read  by  boys,  it  must  be  written  by  twentieth-century  English- 
men, and  there  seems  something  artificial  about  that  process.  To 
recapitulate  then,  it  can  hardly  be  held  that,  if  it  is  a  question  of 
literature,  there  is  enough  Latin  literature  of  a  high  order  to  justify 
the  devoting  of  so  much  time  in  the  curriculum  to  the  study  of 
Latin.  The  reason  must  be  sought  elsewhere. 

The  second  claim  that  is  made  for  Latin  is,  that  it  is  so  severely 
logical  and  exact  a  language  in  structure  and  usage,  that  a  training 
in  Latin  is  equivalent  to  a  training  in  logical  sequence  of  thought 
and  the  accurate  use  of  words  ;  it  is  alleged  that  a  boy  who  has  been 
thoroughly  trained  in  Latin  has  been  trained  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  it  an  easy  matter  to  acquire  any  other  language,  and  to  use 
his  own  language  efficiently  and  effectively.  This  claim  I  believe 
to  be  built  upon  an  obstinate  fallacy.  It  may  possibly  hold  good 
with  a  high  order  of  intelligences,  but  the  one  thing  that  an  average 
boy  does  not  learn  is  the  application  of  the  principles  of  one  subject 
to  the  medium  of  another.  To  grasp  principles  in  such  a  way  as  to 
be  able  to  apply  them  independently  of  the  terms  with  which  they 


232      HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION   WITHOUT   LATIN. 

were  primarily  associated,  means  a  very  thorough  grasp  of  those 
principles.  It  used  to  be  said  that  Euclid  taught  boys  logic ;  so 
it  did  in  a  sense,  but  it  was  only  the  logic  of  Euclid.  The  same 
sort  of  claim  is  constantly  made  for  Latin  prose.  It  may  be  true 
that,  if  a  boy  learned  to  construct  sentences  in  Latin  by  expressing 
his  own  thoughts  in  Latin,  he  might  be  able  to  do  the  same  in 
another  language.  That  was  the  one  advantage  of  the  old  system 
of  Latin  themes.  But  Latin  prose  is  now  only  taught  by  a  series 
of  versions,  and  all  that  the  average  boy  learns  by  doing  Latin 
prose  is  to  do  Latin  prose  ;  and,  as  the  results  of  examinations  like 
the  Little-go  only  too  clearly  prove,  he  learns  even  that  accom- 
plishment most  inadequately.  The  method  is  partly  to  blame. 
Some  gain  might  result  from  a  process  which  consisted  in  fusing, 
so  to  speak,  the  meaning  of  a  sentence  or  paragraph,  and  recasting 
it  in  a  Latin  form  ;  but  the  ordinary  boy  does  Latin  prose,  as  a 
rule,  like  a  mosaic  ;  he  finds  the  equivalent  of  a  word  in  a  dictionary, 
and  puts  it  with  as  little  alteration  as  he  dares  into  his  poor  patch- 
work ;  and  the  result  is  not  Latin  but  Latinised  English.  Neither 
does  the  translation  of  Latin  into  English  necessarily  produce  much 
mental  discipline,  partly  because  the  same  sort  of  mosaic  system  is 
employed,  and  partly  because  of  the  horrible  scholastic  dialect 
which  is  used,  that  semi-Biblical  semi-grammatical  patois,  only 
applied  in  England  to  the  purpose  of  translating  the  classics,  which 
uses  such  words  as  '  forsooth  '  and  '  offspring,'  and  such  phrases  as 
'  it  irks  me,'  and  '  having  waged  war,'  and  '  there  are  who,'  and 
'  meet  to  be  warned.'  I  am  not  here  decrying  the  practice  of 
translation  or  of  composition  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  the  ordinary 
boy  should  attempt  it  except  in  one  or,  at  the  very  most,  two  lan- 
guages other  than  his  own,  and  I  believe  that  it  is  far  more  profitably 
done  in  languages  where  his  vocabulary  is  larger  and  more  flexible, 
where  the  whole  atmosphere  is  more  consonant  with  his  own 
thought,  and  where  the  ideas  and  objects  described  are  more 
familiar.  How  many  boys,  who  have  learnt  Latin  for  several 
hours  a  week  for  ten  years,  could  describe  the  most  ordinary  incident 
in  grammatical  or  intelligible  Latin  ?  It  may  be  urged  that  neither 
could  they  do  it  in  French.  But  that  is  partly  because  much  less 
time  has  been  devoted  to  French,  and  still  more  because  their  time 
has  been  devoted  to  acquiring  the  elements  of  two  languages,  when 
they  might  have  attained  the  mastery  of  one. 

As  to  the  claim  that  Latin  trains  a  boy  in  logical  thought  and 
the  use  of  his  own  language,  I  have  made  a  careful  study  of  this 


HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION   WITHOUT   LATIN.      233 

point  of  late.     I  have  done  for  some  years  the  essay  work  of  the 
history  men  of  my  college.    As  far  as  the  use  of  English  goes, 
1  have  no  doubt  at  all  that,  apart  from  special  aptitude,  the  men 
who  have  been  educated  on  modern  lines  use  English  with  more 
flexibility  than  the  classical  men.     The  latter  seem  to  me  to  write 
as  a  rule  in  rather  a  stiff  and  crabbed  style,  traceable,  I  believe, 
to  the  habitual  use  of  the  infamous  dialect  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded.     While,  as  for  logical  sequence  of  thought  and  the  power 
of  accumulating  and  arranging  ideas,  I  can  find  very  little  marked 
difference,  though  my  experience  is  that  classically  educated  boys 
are  slightly  inferior.     They  ought,  of  course,  if  the  claims  made 
for  the  classics  are  to  be  substantiated,  to  be  superior  ;  but  they 
have  all  alike  done  some  Latin  ;  and  what  strikes  me  about  all 
alike   is   how  little  comprehension  they  have   of   anything  like 
logical  structure  and  the   orderly  sequence   of   simple  thought ; 
and  I  would  add  that  most  of  them  acquire  it  with  considerable 
rapidity,  when  their  attention  is  once  directed  to  it.     From  which 
I   am   inclined   to   infer   that   our    linguistic   method   does   not 
greatly  tend  to  the  development  of  logical  thought,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  too  mechanical,  in  the  first  place,  and  that,  in  the 
second  place,  the  pressure  of  subjects  degrades  it  all  into  elementary 
work,  and  defeats  the  possibility  of  expansion  and  progress.     And 
this  leads  me  to  say  that  I  believe  that  there  is  no  greater  fallacy 
than  the  claim  which  is  made  by  classical  teachers  that,  if  the 
classical  method  does  not  tend  to  direct  efficiency,  it  at  least  pro- 
duces ultimate  efficiency,  by  making  of  the  mind  a  well-equipped 
instrument  for  the  quick  and  accurate  apprehension  of  any  subject. 
How  this  claim  is  seriously  persisted  in,  passes  my  comprehension. 
Very  few  classically  educated  boys  have  any  real  grasp  even  of  the 
classics,  and  how  the  imperfect  assimilation  and  faltering  grasp  of  a 
subject,  to  which  the  best  educational  years  of  life  have  been 
sacrificed,  is  to  produce  swift  intuition  and  unfaltering  precision  in 
subjects  which  have  not  been  taught,  I  cannot  see.     It  is  like  the 
consolation,  so  liberally  applied  by  pious  and  inefficient  persons  to 
their  own  failures,  that  because  success  is  not  inconsistent  with 
low  morality,  failure  is  therefore  a  proof  of  high-mindedness.     The 
plain  truth  is  that  boys  as  a  rule  will  only  learn  what  they  are 
taught;  and  failure  in  a  difficult  subject  is  not  a  guarantee  that  the 
process  is  equipping  them  for  success  in  easier  subjects,  which  they 
might  have  mastered  if  they  had  only  been  taught  them  sensibly 
and^thoroughly. 


234      HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION   WITHOUT   LATIN. 

:  The  fact  is  that  the  classics  afford  an  excellent  and  unsurpassed 
medium  for  training  boys  of  linguistic  and  literary  ability,  whose 
work  is  to  lie  in  the  effective  literary  use  of  words  ;  but  we  ought 
not  to  conclude  that  they  are  therefore  a  good  medium  for  training 
boys  who  will  never  have  to  use  language  except  for  mechanical 
purposes,  and  who  may  possibly  attain  to  some  slight  appreciation 
of  literature,  but  will  certainly  never  be  able  to  practise  it  forensi- 
cally  or  technically. 

I  now  pass  to  a  further  point.  It  is  claimed  that  Latin  is  a 
useful  subject,  because  of  the  large  share  that  it  has  in  the  substance 
of  most  of  the  European  languages,  including  our  own.  It  is  main- 
tained that  a  close  acquaintance  with  Latin  teaches  boys  the 
meaning  and  derivation  of  many  words  common  to  many  modern 
languages.  To  this  I  would  in  the  first  place  reply  that  if  the 
object  of  it  is  to  make  the  acquisition  of  modern  languages  easier, 
why  not  go  direct  at  the  ultimate  object,  instead  of  round  a  corner  ? 
After  all,  it  may  be  interesting  enough  to  know  what  the  Latin 
originals  of  words  may  be,  but  it  is  not  essential.  A  boy  who  knew 
French  thoroughly  would  as  easily  perceive  the  cognate  and  corre- 
sponding words  in  other  languages.  And  then,  too,  it  is  a  com- 
plicated matter.  Take  the  case  of  our  own  language  ;  the  fact 
that  strikes  one  at  once,  in  studying  the  connexion  of  English 
with  Latin,  is  to  what  a  large  extent  the  Latin  words  have  shifted 
their  meaning.  In  fact  it  is  a  rule  of  thumb  with  most  schoolmasters 
to  insist  that  when  boys  begin  to  construe  Latin  they  are  on  no 
account  to  use  the  corresponding  word  in  English,  because  it  so 
seldom  does  correspond.  Not  to  multiply  instances,  a  boy  has  to 
learn  that  differo  does  not  mean  differ,  and  that  defero  does  not 
mean  defer,  that  obtineo  does  not  mean  obtain,  and  that  praevenio 
does  not  mean  prevent.  No  doubt  it  gives  philosophical  insight 
into  the  laws  of  language  to  see  how  these  changes  came  about, 
but  can  we  afford  the  time  for  such  leisurely  processes,  when  the 
world  teems  with  knowledge  of  places,  of  events,  of  personalities, 
that  must  be  acquired  by  any  mind  that  is  to  be  alert  and 
effective  ?  I  should  value  the  claim  more  highly,  if  classical  teachers 
were  equally  insistent  that  boys  should  learn  something  of  the  other 
origins  of  our  own  complex  language  ;  but  while  it  seems  to  be  of 
vast  importance  that  Latin  derivations  should  be  mastered,  is  it 
entirely  unimportant  that  Anglo-Saxon  elements  should  be 
acquired?  How  many  boys  are  there — or  men  for  that  matter — 
who  know  that  the  words  hail,  heal,  hale,  whole,  holy,  not  to  speak 


HUMANISTIC   EDUCATION    WITHOUT   LATIN.      235 

of  such  important  words  as  halibut  and  halidom,  have  one  and 
the  same  derivation  ?  I  have  often  heard  classical  teachers  speak 
with  disgust  of  erudite  editions  of  English  classics  for  school  use 
which  are  loaded  with  similar  information.  Yet  these  are  the  very 
things  that  are  thought  to  be  valuable  in  classical  study,  and  in- 
tellectually devastating  when  applied  to  our  own  literature.  The 
real  truth  is  that  all  these  things  might  be  taught  in  one  subject,  if 
the  curriculum  could  be  lightened,  and  taught  so  as  to  exercise  and 
stimulate.  But  they  cannot  be  taught  all  along  the  line.  And  the 
further  truth  which  underlies  all  these  attempts  to  maintain  the 
present  curriculum  are  little  more  than  the  desperate  efforts  of 
idealists  to  justify  their  idealism  on  practical  grounds  ;  whereas  the 
sad  conclusion  that  the  impartial  observer  draws  from  the  situation 
is,  that,  while  the  idealistic  system  has  failed  on  practical  grounds, 
it  has  not  succeeded  on  idealistic  grounds  ;  and  that  between 
the  five  or  six  stools  busily  congregated  for  the  '  leisurely  sweet 
session  '  of  the  tender  pupil,  the  victim  collapses,  as  Humpty 
Dumpty  collapsed,  and  no  resuscitation  of  the  fragments  is 
possible. 

In  conclusion  I  would  say  that  I  do  not  think  that  the  displace- 
ment of  Latin  from  its  position  as  an  integral  part  of  the  curriculum 
has  yet  become  quite  a  practical  question.  Latin  will  continue  to 
hold  its  own  for  a  time,  but  by  virtue,  I  believe,  of  tradition  and 
usage  rather  than  by  its  own  merits.  The  reasons  that  are  held  to 
justify  its  retention  are  cumulative  rather  than  direct.  Dr.  Johnson 
said  once,  with  stern  common-sense,  that  no  number  of  inadequate 
reasons  ever  constituted  an  adequate  one,  just  as  no  number  of 
rabbits  could  ever  constitute  a  horse.  And  my  own  belief  is  that, 
while  simplification  continues  to  be  the  one  crying  necessity  of  the 
curriculum,  no  subject  can  be  considered  secure  unless  the  reasons 
for  its  retention  are  very  direct  and  obvious  indeed.  What  is  now 
needed  is  a  well-thought-out  and  rational  scheme  for  adjusting  the 
rival  claims  of  various  subjects  ;  but  in  framing  it,  the  all-important 
axiom  must  be  kept  in  view,  that  no  scheme  of  education  can  be 
called  truly  humanistic  that  is  not  based  upon  development  rather 
than  upon  tradition,  and  that  does  not  rank  the  needs  of  the  present 
and  the  possibilities  of  the  future  higher  than  the  claims  of  the  past, 
however  august  and  venerable  those  claims  may  be. 

*  The  substance  of  an  address  delivered  at  the  meeting  of  the  Modern  Languages 
Association  at  Cambridge  on  January  8,  1910. 


236 


OWER    YOUNG    TO  MARRY    YET. 
BY  JANE   H.   FINDLATER. 

'  NICHOLSON'S  Orphanage  and  Training  Home  for  Young  Servants  '  : 
you  may  visit  it  any  day,  inspect  its  spotless  dormitories  and  class- 
rooms, pry  into  its  inmost  workings,  examine  personally  each  of 
its  fifty  inmates  ;  and  yet  be  unable  to  find  the  slightest  fault  with 
anything. 

Except — but  here  a  very  big  except  comes  in — that  a  chill  will 
creep  round  your  heart  at  the  thought  of  fifty  young  lives  growing 
up  in  the  terrible  iron  precision  of  the  place.  Not  a  tendril  of 
individuality  allowed  to  escape  the  shears  of  system  ;  each  little 
budding  character  relentlessly  pruned  down  to  the  regulation  shape 
and  kept  to  it. 

But  no  such  sentimental  reflections  overcame  good  Mrs.  Gilchrist, 
of  Sandyhill  Farm,  in  the  county  of  Fife,  when  she  arrived  one  day 
to  interview  Miss  Martin,  the  matron  of  Nicholson's,  about  a  young 
servant. 

Mrs.  Gilchrist  had  gone  over  the  whole  institution  in  company 
with  the  matron,  and  they  had  prosed,  as  such  women  will,  on  the 
to  them  exhaustless  subject  of  domestic  servants.  In  the  class- 
rooms she  had  been  shown  the  fifty  little  orphans,  all  dressed  alike 
in  peculiarly  hideous  frocks  of  speckled  brown  and  white  cotton, 
with  their  hair  dragged  back  from  their  foreheads  by  crop  combs. 
When  they  stood  up  it  was  exactly  as  if  a  set  of  nine-pins  had  come 
to  life,  so  precisely  similar  was  each  child  to  the  other.  The  fifty 
were  divided  by  age  into  different  classes,  so  that  even  their  height 
was  in  most  cases  identical — the  younger  girls  in  two  classes,  the 
older  ones  in  three  others,  for  the  orphans  ranged  from  four  to 
fifteen,  at  which  age  they  were  supposed  to  go  out  into  the  world  to 
seek  their  desperate  little  fortunes  as  best  they  might.  They  were 
equipped,  it  is  true,  with  a  good  knowledge  of  household  work,  a 
fair  education,  and  even  an  outfit  of  simple  clothes — all  these  they 
had  ;  but  of  love,  the  one  thing  that  is  most  needful  in  a  young  life, 
they  were  cruelly  destitute. 

To  return  to  our  story.    Mrs.  Gilchrist  had  told  Miss  Martin 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        237 

just  what  she  wanted  :  '  A  nice  young  general  servant ;  not  per- 
fection, Miss  Martin,  for  you  won't  get  it  nowadays,  but  one 
I  can  make  something  of.'  (Women  of  this  type  will  quite  in- 
variably make  this  remark  and  agree  upon  it  with  portentous  head- 
shakings,  though  it  is  much  to  be  questioned  whether  perfection  was 
at  all  easier  to  find  in  olden  times  than  it  is  in  the  twentieth  century.) 

'  No  more  you  will,'  Miss  Martin  agreed.  '  I  don't  know  one 
among  all  my  girls  that  I  could  call  perfect  in  her  work.'  (Poor 
mites,  it  would  have  been  sad  if  they  had  been,  at  their  age  !) 

'  Well,  as  I  say,  I  don't  expect  perfection  ;  but  I  must  have  a 
good  worker,  and  I  hate  a  lazy  girl.' 

Miss  Martin  dubitated,  her  thick  underlip  thrust  out  in  an  ugly 
expression  of  intense  consideration.  She  was  an  excellent  woman, 
kind  and  capable,  made  for  the  position  she  occupied — but  the 
gods  had  denied  her  beauty. 

'  I  wonder  now  would  Divina  Binning  suit  you  ?  '  she  exclaimed 
suddenly. 

'  Tell  me  about  her,'  said  Mrs.  Gilchrist. 

'  Well,  Divina's  the  oldest  girl  I  have  just  now ;  she's  home 
from  a  place  where  she's  been  for  a  while.  Divina's  sixteen  and 
more  now,  and  a  well-grown,  healthy  girl.' 

'  Why  did  she  leave  her  place  ? '  the  intending  mistress  asked ; 
and  again  Miss  Martin  fell  into  her  ugly  grimace  of  deliberation. 

'  Well,  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  I  took  Divina  away  myself. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  was,  I  found  they  were  not  very  desirable 
people.  They  gave  almost  no  wages  either.  I  didn't  mind  that 
as  a  beginning,  however  ;  no,  it  was  other  things  I  found  out  con- 
vinced me  it  wasn't  the  place  I  wanted  for  one  of  my  girls,  so  I 
advised  Divina  to  come  back  here  for  a  week  or  two  while  I  looked 
out  another  place  for  her,  and  she's  here  now.  I  have  to  be  careful 
the  sort  of  places  I  send  my  girls  to.'  The  two  women  looked  at 
each  other  and  nodded  sagely. 

'  Indeed  you  do.  Well,  what  about  Divina's  work  ?  '  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  said. 

Miss  Martin  paused,  apparently  summing  up  the  character  of 
the  absent  Divina  before  she  spoke. 

'  Divina  can  work  when  she  likes,  Mrs.  Gilchrist.  She's  a 
good  riser,  a  fair  cook,  and  honest  and  respectable ;  but  she's 
careless — very.  It  wouldn't  be  right  of  me  not  to  warn  you  of  it. 
But  there's  one  thing  about  Divina — everyone  that  has  to  do  with 
her  likes  her.  I  like  her  myself,  though  I  was  never  done  reproving 


238        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

her  all  the  years  she  was  here.  She  came  to  me  a  child  of  six,  and 
so  I've  a  good  knowledge  of  her.  Divina's  full  of  faults  ;  but  I 
advise  you  to  take  her,  Mrs.  Gilchrist ;  you  might  get  many 
worse.' 

It  was  not  a  rose-coloured  character-sketch,  but  it  was  an  honest 
one.  Mrs.  Gilchrist  finally  asked  to  see  the  girl,  and  Miss  Martin 
bustled  off  in  search  of  her. 

Divina  appeared :  one  of  the  regulation  Nicholson  type,  only 
taller  ;  gowned  in  hideous  speckled  print,  aproned  in  white,  an 
image  of  decorum  and  tidiness.  Her  curly  red  hair  had  been 
remorselessly  treated  with  a  wet  brush,  which  had  almost  managed 
to  flatten  it  down — only  her  eyes  defied  all  the  powers  of  Nicholson's 
to  change  their  congenital  sparkle. 

'  This  is  Divina,'  said  Miss  Martin,  by  way  of  effecting  an 
introduction  between  mistress  and  maid.  '  And,  Divina,  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  here  is  wanting  a  general  servant.' 

Divina  bobbed  an  old-fashioned  courtesy,  as  she  had  been 
taught  to  do,  and  kept  silence. 

'  I've  a  farm  in  Fife,'  Mrs.  Gilchrist  said,  '  and  I  think  you  may 
suit  me  for  a  general  servant.  There's  not  much  work,  for  there's 
only  myself  in  the  house.  You  get  good  food,  and  can  get  early  to 
bed  if  you  like  ;  but  I  like  a  girl  that  will  rise  early,  and  a  willing 
girl,  and  one  that  can  take  a  telling.' 

'  Yes,  m'am,'  said  Divina. 

'  I  think  you're  always  willing  to  do  your  best,  are  you  not, 
Divina  ?  '  said  Miss  Martin  anxiously — it  was  like  pressing  a  pair 
of  reluctant  lovers  to  come  to  the  point. 

'  Yes,  m'am,'  said  Divina  again. 

'  And  many  a  telling  you've  taken  from  me,'  said  Miss  Martin, 
with  a  smile  that  roused  an  answering  sparkle  in  Divina's  eyes, 
while  she  made  answer  once  more  : 

'  Oh,  yes,  m'am.' 

'  Well,  then,  Divina,  I  think  you  may  suit  me  quite  well,'  said 
Mrs.  Gilchrist.  '  Do  you  wish  to  try  the  place  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  m'am,  thank  you  ;  I'd  like  to  try  the  place,  please.' 

Thus  the  bargain  was  come  to,  and  then  Miss  Martin  and  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  fell  to  discussing  the  question  of  wages.  Finally  Divina 
was  engaged  to  go  to  Sandyhill  Farm  on  the  first  of  the  following 
month  at  the  rate  of  one  pound  a  month. 

'  And  you  may  count  yourself  a  very  fortunate  girl,'  Miss  Martin 
told  her,  '  to  get  a  good  place,  a  kind  mistress,  and  twelve  pounds 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        239 

a  year.    You  couldn't  get  a  better  start  in  life  ;  see  that  you  make 
the  best  of  it ;  it's  not  every  girl  who  is  so  lucky.' 

Divina  was  quite  of  the  same  opinion,  and  set  off  blithely  to 
seek  her  fortunes  in  the  kingdom  of  Fife. 

In  the  next  six  months  Divina  made  about  as  many  mistakes 
as  it  would  have  been  possible  for  one  girl  to  make  in  the  given  time ; 
yet,  strange  to  say,  at  the  end  of  these  six  months,  Mrs.  Gilchrist 
decided  to  ask  her  to  stay  on  for  the  summer.  There  was 
certainly  '  something,'  as  Miss  Martin  had  said,  about  Divina  which 
made  one  like  her  in  spite  of  countless  faults.  She  was  so  intensely 
willing,  so  impetuously  obliging,  that,  although  these  qualities 
often  led  her  into  the  most  provoking  mistakes,  it  was  impossible 
to  be  angry  with  her  for  more  than  a  minute.  '  I  must  try  to 
make  something  out  of  her  yet,'  Mrs.  Gilchrist  thought.  The  fine, 
caller  air  of  Fife,  the  healthy  work,  and  the  good  food  she  got 
were  in  the  meantime  making  something  of  Divina  physically.  She 
was  developing  into  a  very  pretty  young  woman  indeed,  rather  to 
the  dismay  of  her  mistress,  who  had  a  slight  distrust  of  too  much 
beauty.  '  She'll  need  looking  after,'  the  good  woman  thought ; 
'  there  are  so  many  lads  about  the  place.'  Divina,  therefore,  had 
a  tolerably  strict  watch  kept  upon  her — a  watch  she  did  not 
resent  in  the  least ;  it  was  as  nothing  compared  with  the  stringent 
discipline  of  Nicholson's.  The  girl  went  about  her  work  gaily, 
singing,  as  she  scrubbed  the  floor  or  peeled  potatoes,  in  a  shrill 
soprano  voice  that  made  Mrs.  Gilchrist  clap  her  hands  to  her  ears 
and  command  her  to  be  silent.  Then  Divina  would  chirp  out 
'  Oh,  I'm  sorry,  m'am  '  in  the  most  pleasant  way,  but  ten  minutes 
later  would  be  at  it  again.  One  might  as  well  have  commanded 

a  canary  in  a  sunny  room  to  be  mute. 

Still,  whenever  Mrs.  Gilchrist  thought  of  sending  Divina  away, 

it  seemed  as  if  the  house  would  be  intolerably  dull  without  her ; 

so  she  decided  to  keep  the  girl  and  put  up  with  her  many  short- 
comings for  the  sake  of  her  pleasant  nature. 

'  Are  you  willing  to  stay  on  here,  Divina  ?  '  she  asked  her  one 

morning. 

'  Yes,  m'am,  quite  willant,'  said  Divina,  who  had  retained  some 

of  her  native  idioms  in  spite  of  all  the  educational  advantages  of 

Nicholson's  ;   '  I  like  fine  to  be  here.' 

'  I'm  glad  of  that ;  I  thought  you  were  looking  well  and  bright 

lately/  said  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  rather  flattered,  naturally,  to  find  that 


240        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

her  place  was  considered  such  a  happy  one.  Divina  grinned,  and 
fell  to  work  scrubbing  the  kitchen  table  with  great  energy. 

'  I'm  sure  it's  a  comfort  to  see  a  girl  so  contented  in  these 
days,'  said  Mrs.  Gilchrist ;  '  most  of  them  fly  from  one  situation 
to  another  every  six  months  in  search  of  excitement.  I'm  glad 
to  see  you  have  more  sense.'  Had  she  known  the  true  reason 
of  Divina's  present  contentment,  her  mind  might  not  have  been 
quite  so  easy  ;  happily  for  herself,  however,  she  was  not  omniscient, 
and  the  girl  kept  her  own  counsel.  This  was  the  secret,  such  as  it 
was  : 

One  fine  evening,  some  weeks  before,  Divina  had  been  sent 
across  the  yard  to  the  dairy  for  a  jug  of  cream.  She  carried  in  her 
hand  Mrs.  Gilchrist's  most  precious  old  china  cream  jug — a  mani- 
festly absurd  thing  to  do.  As  she  crossed  the  yard,  John  Thompson 
the  ploughman  came  through  the  gate,  leading  his  horses  to  the 
water-trough. 

John  was  a  handsome,  well  set  up  man,  but  of  a  taciturn, 
unfriendly  nature,  very  unlike  that  of  our  young  friend  Divina. 
With  a  nod  and  a  smile  she  passed  the  time  of  day  with  him,  but 
John  gave  only  the  most  surly  response,  and  tramped  on  across  the 
yard,  the  great,  thirsty  horses  hastening  their  laggard  steps  as  they 
smelt  the  water. 

Divina  was  angry  ;  what  had  she  done  to  be  treated  like  this  ? 
All  her  budding  feminine  instincts  were  roused  to  life ;  she  deter- 
mined that  John  must  be  the  captive  of  her  bow  and  spear.  But 
in  her  anger  she  did  not  look  where  she  was  going,  and  stumbled  on 
the  step  at  the  dairy  door.  The  jug  fell  from  her  hand  and  cracked 
across  on  the  stones.  For  a  moment  Divina  stood  perfectly  still, 
gazing  at  the  broken  jug  ;  then  she  sat  down  and  burst  into  tears. 
Her  simple  grief  over  what  she  had  done  would  have  melted  a 
heart  of  stone,  and  John,  turning  to  see  what  was  the  matter,  left 
his  horses  at  the  trough  and  came  across  to  where  she  sat  weeping 
among  the  fragments  of  broken  china. 

'  It's  the  best  chiny — the  very  best,'  she  sobbed.  '  And  Mrs. 
Grant  from  the  Mains  coming  over  for  her  tea  and  all.'  She  wept 
aloud. 

Even  John  was  melted  to  pity,  and  sought  for  some  consolation 
to  offer  her. 

'  The  mistress  '11  no'  be  hard  on  a  bonnie  lassie  like  you,'  he 
assured  her,  taking  certainly  the  surest  way  he  could  have  taken 
to  erase  all  thought  of  her  fault  from  Divina's  mind.  It  was  the 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        241 

first  time  in  her  life  that  she  had  heard  herself  called  bonnie — no 
wonder  the  sudden  compliment  went  to  her  head  like  wine.  Of 
course  her  chief  thought  from  that  time  onward  was  to  make  her- 
self look  bonnier  still  in  the  eyes  of  the  man  who  had  first  apprised 
her  of  the  fact  of  her  own  good  looks. 

Like  a  smouldering  fire  that  will  suddenly  leap  up  into  flame, 
all  the  dormant  vanity  of  Divina's  nature  sprang  to  life.  She 
examined  her  face  in  the  tiny  square  of  cheap  looking-glass  which 
served  her  for  a  mirror,  and  began  to  see  latent  possibilities 
in  herself.  Not  every  girl  had  such  fine  curly  hair :  that  was  one 
thing  certain  ;  she  had  heaps  of  it  if  it  wasn't  brushed  back  flat 
with  a  wet  brush.  Then  Divina  realised  with  a  throb  of  delight 
that  she  was  now  a  free  agent — no  longer  under  the  yoke  of  Nichol- 
son's, so  why  should  she  not  do  her  hair  as  she  chose  ?  She  shook 
out  the  tumble  of  curly  red  hair  and  began  to  adjust  it  on  more 
fashionable  lines.  In  church  last  Sunday  she  had  noticed  that  all 
the  young  women  in  the  choir  had  their  hair  frizzed  out  to  the 
sides  ;  hers  would  now  be  the  same.  A  few  minutes  had  changed 
the  unimpeachable  Nicholson  plaits  into  something  that  nearly 
resembled  the  head-dress  of  a  savage  queen.  On  this  erection 
Divina  pinned  her  cap,  and  then,  feeling  a  little  conscious  but  on 
the  whole  very  proud  of  her  appearance,  she  went  down  to  the 
kitchen.  Alas  !  Mrs.  Gilchrist  pounced  upon  her  in  a  moment. 

'  Whatever  do  you  mean  coming  down  with  your  hair  like  that, 
Divina  ?  '  she  said  quite  sharply.  '  Go  upstairs  at  once  and  put  it 
right.' 

'  Please,  m'am,  I  saw  the  girls  in  the  choir,'  Divina  said,  a 
note  of  pleading  in  her  voice,  putting  up  both  her  hands  to  her 
head  as  if  to  protect  it  from  injury. 

'  Yes,  of  course  ;  silly  things  that  should  know  better.  They're 
a  sight  to  be  seen,  with  their  hats  and  their  chinongs,'  said  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  pitilessly.  She  had  not  the  imagination  that  was  neces- 
sary to  divine  the  universal  note  which  underlies  even  the  most 
grotesque  efforts  at  fashionable  dressing.  She  did  not  see  that 
one  of  the  great  primitive  instincts  prompts  it ;  something  '  not 
to  be  put  by,'  like  that  Presence  of  which  the  poet  sings.  Failing 
to  see  this  note  of  universality  in  Divina's  striving  after  fashion, 
Mrs.  Gilchrist  saw  only  individual  silliness  in  it ;  she  decided  to 
check  this  in  the  bud.  But  being  a  kind  and  sensible  woman,  she 
reasoned  with  the  girl  about  it  only,  instead  of  giving  her  harsh 
commands. 

VOL.  XXVIII.—  NO.  164,  N.S.  16 


242         OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

'  Believe  me,  Divina,  a  girl  just  spoils  herself  by  aping  un- 
suitable fashions.  They're  silly  enough  for  ladies  who  can  sit  all 
day  doing  nothing,  but  they're  downright  folly  for  girls  that  have 
to  work  ;  look  at  the  coal-dust  and  carpet-sweepings  you'll  get 
into  your  hair  if  you  wear  it  all  frizzed  that  way  like  a  mop  ! 
If  you're  a  sensible  girl,  you'll  go  upstairs  and  smooth  it  out 
again.' 

Divina's  eyes  filled  with  tears  ;  she  had  liked  her  own  appearance 
so  much  with  puffed-out  hair.  She  hesitated  for  a  moment,  almost 
meditating  rebellion,  then  slowly  turned  away,  mounted  the  stair 
to  her  room,  and  with  great  difficulty  subdued  the  Zulu  head- 
dress to  smaller  proportions.  '  I'll  no'  make  it  quite  flat,'  she  said 
to  herself,  pulling  out  a  becoming  little  ripple  under  the  frill  of 
her  cap.  Its  appearance  comforted  her,  and  she  gazed  at  herself 
again  with  some  complacency.  '  I  wonder  would  Mrs.  Gilchrist 
no'  like  me  in  a  pink  wrapper  ? '  she  mused ;  the  hideous  speckled 
brown  and  white  Nicholson  fabric,  with  its  horrible  wear-resisting 
qualities,  was  fit  only  for  ugly  girls.  She,  whom  John  the  plough- 
man called  bonnie,  should  wear  pink  print.  Divina  held  a  pink 
flannelette  duster  under  her  chin  at  this  point,  and  thought  the  effect 
was  exquisite.  Then  she  descended  once  more  to  the  kitchen. 

'  There,  now,  Divina,  you  look  more  like  yourself,'  said  Mrs. 
Gilchrist  heartily.  '  And  I  must  say  you're  a  good-natured  girl 
as  ever  lived.  I've  known  some  that  would  have  been  disagreeable 
over  less.' 

Divina  laughed  in  her  pleasant  way,  and  no  more  was  said 
about  the  matter.  But  the  incident  had  set  Mrs.  Gilchrist  thinking. 
Without  any  doubt  Divina  was  growing  up  rapidly ;  she  looked 
almost  a  woman  now,  and  these  first  dawnings  of  vanity  would 
be  sure  to  develop,  and  then  there  would  be  all  manner  of  love 
affairs  to  contend  with  .  .  .  the  girl  was  certainly  pretty,  and  was 
just  beginning  to  find  it  out,  and  no  doubt  the  young  men  about 
the  farm  would  begin  to  pay  their  addresses  to  her  ere  long.  .  .  . 

*  Dear  me,  I  wish  I'd  engaged  that  cross  old  body  Mrs.  Grant 
recommended ;  it  wouldn't  have  given  me  all  this  responsibility,' 
the  good  creature  thought. 

But  all  unconscious  of  the  anxiety  she  was  giving  her  mistress, 
Divina  advanced  gaily  upon  life ;  it  had  absolutely  no  terrors  for 
her,  and  just  now  seemed  very  bright  indeed.  For  she  had  begun 
to  lay  siege  to  the  reluctant  heart  of  John  Thompson,  and  found 
this  the  greatest  fun  possible.  John  was  so  silent,  so  unapproach- 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        243 

able,  that  the  element  of  sport  was  not  wanting  in  her  attempted 
conquest. 

Divina  cared  not  a  rap  about  the  man,  she  only  wanted  to  have 
him  admire  her,  and  was  determined  that  he  should  do  so. 

Under  the  stern  eye  of  Mrs.  Gilchrist  it  was  not  easy  to  have 
many  interviews  with  John,  but  it  is  wonderful  what  determina- 
tion will  do  in  these  affairs.  Divina  seemed  generally  to  be  at  the 
back  door  as  John  came  across  the  yard,  and  she  always  had  a 
smile  and  a  word  for  him  :  once  or  twice  she  even  managed  to 
extract  a  slow  smile  from  John,  and  that  was  a  great  achievement. 
He  was  a  curious  man,  dour  and  difficult,  the  product  of  a  Scotland 
that  is  almost  extinct  in  these  degenerate  but  happier  days.  His 
whole  view  of  life  was  joyless  and  stern ;  he  '  kept  himself  to  him- 
self,' the  neighbours  said,  and  in  all  his  thirty  years  had  never 
been  known  to  pay  his  addresses  to  any  woman.  Indeed,  there 
was  an  almost  aristocratic  aloofness  in  the  man :  he  would  not 
associate  with  any  of  the  village  people.  Alone  he  lived  with  his 
old  mother,  going  and  coming  to  his  work  with  the  regularity  of 
a  machine,  toiling  early  and  late,  with  apparently  no  thought  of 
amusement  or  relaxation  of  any  kind.  A  strange  target  this  for 
Divina  to  aim  at  with  her  careless  arrows  ! 

It  is  well  known  that  fortune  favours  the  brave,  so  this  must 
have  been  why  Divina  was  sent  along  one  afternoon  with  a  message 
from  her  mistress  to  old  Mrs.  Thompson.  Always  glad  of  a  diver- 
sion from  the  routine  of  her  work,  Divina  was  doubly  pleased  to 
have  this  opportunity  of  seeing  John's  house  and  John's  mother. 
She  would  have  liked  to  change  into  her  Sunday  merino,  but  Mrs. 
Gilchrist's  command  to  '  go  as  she  was '  could  not  be  disobeyed, 
and,  accordingly,  Divina  stepped  across  the  field  in  her  demure 
speckled  print  gown,  her  white  apron,  and  little  cap,  as  prim  as  a 
young  Quaker. 

The  cottage  door  stood  open,  for  the  day  was  warm,  and  looking 
in  Divina  could  see  that  John  and  his  mother  sat  at  tea  in  the 
kitchen.  John  rose  at  the  sound  of  her  knock  and  came  to  the 
door,  silent,  but,  as  Divina  was  quick  to  notice,  with  a  lurking 
smile  on  his  lips. 

'  Come  in  bye,'  he  said,  curtly,  standing  aside  to  let  her  pass 
in,  for  his  great  figure  almost  filled  up  the  doorway. 

'  Oh,  I'll  not  be  comin'  in  the  day,  thank  you,'  said  Divina, 
primly,  though  she  was  dying  to  enter  the  house.  '  The  mistress 
sent  me  over  wi'  a  message  for  Mrs.  Thompson.' 

16—2 


244        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

*  Come  in  bye,  lassie ;  what  for  are  ye  standin'  there  ? '  called 
the  old  woman  insistently  from  the  kitchen.  Divina  hesitated, 
relented,  and  then  found  herself  in  the  cottage  at  last. 

'  The  mistress  says,  could  ye  kindly  spare  her  a  pair  o'  duck- 
lings, Mrs.  Thompson,  please  ;  she's  wishful  to  keep  hers  for  the 
market,  and  she's  expectin'  friends  to  their  dinner  come  Friday  ? ' 
Divina  said,  repeating  off  her  message  as  a  child  says  its  school 
lesson. 

The  old  woman,  however,  did  not  apparently  wish  to  be  hurried 
into  this  bargain. 

'  Sit  ye  doon,  sit  ye  doon  till  I  think,  lassie ;  it's  no'  easy  to  say 
a'  at  aince.  Ye'll  hae  a  cup  o'  tea  wi'  us  ?  '  She  looked  sharply  at 
the  girl  as  she  spoke  ;  but  Divina,  with  down-dropped  eyelids, 
made  the  most  modest  reply  : 

'  Thank  ye  kindly,  Mrs.  Thompson,  but  we're  thrang  at  the 
farm  the  day.  I'll  not  stop  the  day,  thank  ye.' 

'  Hoots,  a  cup'll  no'  hinder  ye  long,'  said  John  suddenly.  He 
drew  forward  a  chair  for  Divina,  and  reached  across  to  the  dresser 
for  another  cup  and  plate.  It  was  impossible  to  refuse  such  pres- 
sing hospitality,  and  Divina  accepted  the  chair  and  the  tea  without 
any  farther  show  of  reluctance. 

She  might  not  have  been  so  willing  to  do  so  if  she  had  realised 
the  intense  scrutiny  she  was  undergoing  from  the  eyes  of  Mrs. 
Thompson.  Every  woman  undergoes  it  from  the  mother  of  the 
man  who  has  the  temerity  to  let  his  admiration  be  evident 
—under  heaven  there  is  no  searchlight  to  equal  that  maternal 
eye. 

But,  all  unconscious  of  this,  Divina  sipped  her  tea  and  made 
herself  most  agreeable,  answering  the  old  woman's  questions  quite 
frankly. 

'  Yes,  she  had  been  trained  at  Nicholson's  ;  yes,  you  got  a  fine 
training  there  ;  no,  her  parents  were  both  dead ;  yes,  she  was  very 
happy  at  the  farm  ;  no,  she  didn't  find  the  work  heavy.'  ...  So 
the  catechism  ran.  John  had  finished  his  tea,  lighted  his  pipe,  and 
now  puffed  silently  at  it,  listening  attentively  to  everything  that 
passed  between  Divina  and  his  mother.  What  it  was  that  at- 
tracted him  in  the  girl  he  scarcely  knew.  It  wasn't  altogether  her 
pretty  face,  John  rather  despised  these  allurements  ;  nor  altogether 
her  way  of  making  a  man  laugh  in  spite  of  himself.  No,  he  thought 
it  must  be  something  in  the  way  she  had  been  brought  up.  She 
seemed  to  have  none  of  the  nonsense  of  most  girls  :  just  look  at 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        245 

her,  how  sensible-like  she  was,  always  tidy  and  quiet  in  her  dark 
print  and  her  white  apron  !  Perhaps,  though  John  did  not  admit 
it  to  himself,  some  hidden  instinct  of  chivalry  also  moved  deep 
down  in  his  heart ;  the  girl  was  young  and  unprotected,  without 
father  or  mother,  kith  or  kin  of  her  own.  She  needed  a  man  to 
care  for  her  if  ever  a  woman  did. 

But  John  was  horribly  prudent,  nothing  was  farther  from  his 
thoughts  than  any  hasty  revelation  of  his  feelings ;  he  decided  to 
wait  and  see  more  of  Divina. 

In  order  to  do  this  satisfactorily,  however,  it  would  be  neces- 
sary to  take  one  decided  step  :  he  must  ask  her  to  walk  out  with 
him.  In  this  way  only  could  he  see  more  of  Divina,  and  without 
knowing  her  better  John  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  make  her 
an  offer  of  marriage. 

All  this  and  more  passed  through  his  thoughts  as  Divina  sat 
there  drinking  her  tea  and  talking  with  his  mother.  Finally,  when 
she  rose  to  go,  John  offered  to  go  as  far  as  the  farm  with  her  :  *  It 
was  time  to  see  to  his  horses,'  he  said.  But  Divina  knew  better. 

They  set  off  together  across  the  field,  walking  slowly  by  a 
-little  footpath  that  led  through  the  now  yellowing  corn,  John 
very  silent,  Divina  very  talkative,  till  they  reached  the  stile  leading 
over  into  the  farmyard.  Here  they  came  to  a  standstill,  and  John 
became  aware  that  the  awful  moment  for  speech  had  arrived. 

'  Yer  oot  on  Sundays  whiles  ? '  he  asked  bluntly.  '  What  would 
ye  say  if  I  cam  wi'  ye  ?  ' 

Divina  had  been  expecting  this  advance,  yet  she  feigned  sur- 
prise and  even  hesitation.  '  It  was  very  kind,'  she  said,  '  but  then 
she  went  to  the  minister's  Bible-class  on  Sunday  afternoons.'  .  .  . 

'  What  o'  that  ?   Yer  no'  at  the  class  a'  the  aifternoon  ?  ' 

'  No  more  I  am,'  Divina  admitted. 

'  Weel,  then,  I'll  be  at  the  cross-roads  at  five,'  said  John  with 
great  finality,  giving  Divina  no  time  to  hesitate  more,  for  he  leaped 
over  the  stile  and  went  off  to  the  stable  without  waiting  to  hear 
another  word  that  she  might  have  to  say. 

As  for  Divina,  she  was  in  a  state  bordering  on  ecstasy.  For 
unnumbered  Sabbaths  now  she  had  trudged  along  the  dismal 
Fifeshire  roads,  high-walled  and  dusty,  to  attend  the  Bible-class 
which  Mrs.  Gilchrist  fondly  hoped  would  be  for  her  soul's  good. 
And  on  the  way,  how  many  loitering  couples  she  had  met — couples 
who  seemed  contented  with  all  things  here  below,  while  she,  sorely 


246        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

against  her  will,  went  on  her  unattended  way  to  Mr.  Ferguson's 
Bible-class  ! 

Now  everything  was  to  be  changed.  No  more  would  she  take 
her  dismal  unattended  trudge,  but  in  company  with  John,  the 
best-looking  young  man  in  the  village,  would  proudly  loiter  along 
like  other  girls.  That  John  should  be  her  cavalier  was  a  special 
joy,  he  who  was  known  to  be  impervious  to  all  female  charms, 
that  he  had  capitulated  to  hers.  This  was  a  triumph  worth  having  ! 
Divina  hurried  back  to  her  work,  smiling  and  demure,  but  with 
a  kindling  eye. 

Sunday,  of  course,  was  wet.  Such  red-letter  days  in  a  girl's 
calendar  often  are  ;  and  Mrs.  Gilchrist  did  not  suppose  that  Divina 
would  be  anxious  to  go  out. 

'  You're  better  quietly  in  the  house  with  your  book,'  she  told 
the  girl.  '  I've  a  nice  set  of  addresses  written  for  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association  I'll  lend  you  to  read.'  But  to  her  surprise 
this  alluring  offer  did  not  seem  to  tempt  Divina ;  the  pages  of  the 
book  of  life  were  in  truth  what  she  longed  to  turn  that  afternoon, 
if  Mrs.  Gilchrist  had  only  known  ! 

'  Oh,  m'am,  I  don't  mind  the  rain.  I'm  sweir  to  give  up  th( 
class.  I  wasn't  at  the  church  either  the  day,'  said  Divina  eagerly. 

'  I'm  sure  I'm  glad  you  are  so  thoughtful,'  said  her  mistress, 
innocent  soul  that  she  was.  '  Well,  see  that  you  put  on  your 
thick  boots  and  your  waterproof.  Mr.  Ferguson  will  be  very 
pleased  to  see  you  make  the  effort  to  go  in  all  this  rain.' 

Divina  laughed  in  her  sleeve.  She  was  not  in  the  least  a  hypo- 
critical girl,  but  youth  is  youth,  and  nothing  on  earth  will  ever 
alter  that  fact.  She  was  dull,  and  saw  a  prospect  of  amusing  her- 
self. You  cannot  blame  the  child. 

So,  Bible  in  hand,  Divina  sped  along  the  muddy  roads  towards 
the  Manse.  Never  had  the  way  seemed  shorter  ;  but,  alas,  never 
had  good  Mr.  Ferguson's  exhortations  seemed  longer.  Again  and 
again  Divina's  eyes  sought  the  clock  :  a  quarter  to  four  ;  four ; 
a  quarter  past  four  ;  half  past  four  ;  the  hands  stole  along,  and  the 
minister's  patient  old  voice  droned  on,  explaining  the  journeys  of 
St.  Paul. 

Of  what  significance,  alas  !  was  one  word  that  she  heard  to 
Divina,  who  sat  there  watching  the  hands  of  the  clock  and  thinking 
about  John  the  ploughman  ?  As  well  might  the  minister  have 
spoken  to  the  wind :  it  would  have  paid  as  much  heed  to  his  teachings. 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        247 

This  was  to  be  a  day  of  triumph  to  Divina,  for  as  she  came  out 
of  the  Manse  gate,  along  with  a  little  band  of  her  fellow  class-mates, 
she  saw  John  waiting  for  her  under  the  shelter  of  the  trees  at  the 
church  door.  Here,  indeed,  was  an  open  declaration  in  the  face 
of  the  world  !  The  girls  nudged  each  other  and  giggled,  asking  in 
whispers  who  John  Thompson  was  after  (Far  from  their  thoughts 
already  were  the  journeys  of  St.  Paul !),  and  Divina,  knowing  the 
answer  to  their  question,  fell  behind  so  that  John  might  have  no 
difficulty  in  distinguishing  her  from  among  the  group. 

Who  can  tell  the  throb  of  gratified  vanity  that  her  young  heart 
gave  as  John  came  forward  and  joined  her  ?  The  other  girls 
looked  back  at  them  and  laughed  loudly  ;  but  John  minded  them 
not  a  whit. 

'  We'll  gang  roond  by  the  ither  road,'  was  all  the  comment  he 
made  upon  their  laughter. 

Divina  was  in  a  twitter  of  excitement ;  but  if  she  expected 
that  John  would  put  his  arm  round  her  waist  and  kiss  her,  she  was 
much  mistaken.  John  was  far  too  prudent  to  commit  himself 
in  any  such  way.  What  he  did  do,  was  to  saunter  along  in  the 
pouring  rain  (apparently  quite  oblivious  to  it,  as  any  self-respecting 
ploughman  should  be)  while  he  talked  gravely  to  Divina  about 
Mr.  Ferguson's  Bible-class.  Divina  would  have  preferred  almost 
any  other  subject ;  but  she  had  enough  of  tact  to  allow  her  adorer 
to  choose  his  own  topics  of  conversation. 

John  was  incurably  theological,  with  that  deep,  worrying, 
questioning  mind  that  belongs  more  inherently  to  a  certain  type 
of  Scot  than  to  the  native  of  any  other  country  under  the  wide 
arch  of  heaven.  He  could  not  keep  off  religious  subjects — they 
fascinated  him  as  horses  and  cards  fascinate  some  men.  His  sombre 
imagination  played  round  the  problems  of  this  bewildering  world 
of  ours  unceasingly. 

And  here  he  seemed  to  be  going  to  choose  Divina  for  his  life's 
partner — Divina,  careless  as  the  wind,  and  unthinking  as  a  kitten  : 
in  truth  the  attraction  of  opposites.  She  did  not  in  any  way  try 
to  deceive  him ;  but  she  certainly  tried  hard  to  please  him.  The 
method  she  adopted  was  a  very  old  one,  but  one  which  is  in  most 
cases  entirely  efficacious — she  merely  listened  with  rapt  attention 
to  every  word  that  feU  from  the  man's  lips,  and  said  little  herself. 

When  the  walk  came  to  an  end  therefore,  John  was  under  the 
impression  that  Divina  and  he  were  absolutely  one  in  thought, 
so  cleverly  had  she  listened,  so  little  had  she  said,  so  much  had  she 


248        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

looked.     He  might  have  been  a  little  hurt  and  surprised  if  he  had 
stood  beside  Divina  in  the  farm  porch  while  she  shook  out  her  wet 
umbrella.     For,  with  a  great  sigh  of  mingled  relief  and  disappoint- 
ment, she  exclaimed  to  herself  : 
"  Losh  me,  is  yon  courtin'  ? ' 

This  was  only  the  first  of  many  walks.  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  of  course, 
found  out  very  soon  that  Divina  and  John  were  '  keeping  company,' 
and  though  a  little  sorry  that  the  girl  should  begin  to  think  of 
matrimony  so  early,  she  was  thankful  that  such  an  exemplary  young 
man  should  be  her  choice. 

1  You're  far  too  young  to  marry  yet,  Divina,'  she  told  her; 
'  John  must  wait  a  year  or  two  for  you,  then  you  can  lay  by  some 
money,  and  you'll  have  learned  many  a  thing  before  then.' 

'  Oh,  I'm  no'  thinkin'  about  gettin'  married,  m'am,'  said 
Divina,  '  I'm  only  walkin'  out  with  John.' 

'  Well,  I'm  sure  I  don't  understand  you  girls,'  said  the  older 
woman.  '  What  does  walking  out  with  a  man  mean,  but  just 
that  you're  thinking  of  marrying  him  ?  It's  nonsense  to  speak 
that  way,  Divina,  and  I  hope  you're  not  trifling  with  John  ?  ' 

'  No'  me,  m'am — maybe  John's  triflin'  wi'  me,'  said  Divina, 
laughing. 

She  laughed ;  but  there  was  in  reality  a  nip  of  truth  in  her 
words,  for  in  spite  of  all  their  walking  and  talking,  John  had  never 
yet  made  her  a  definite  offer  of  marriage.  This  fact  Divina  could 
not  hide  from  herself,  nor  could  she  deny  that  such  an  offer  would 
be  extremely  gratifying  to  her  vanity. 

i  I'm  no  quite  sure  that  I'll  tak  him,'  she  said  to  herself, 
judicially  weighing  the  situation  ;  '  but  I'd  like  him  to  offer.' 

Things  then  were  in  this  parlous  condition,  when  Divina  had  a 
sudden  inspiration,  and  set  to  work  to  carry  it  out  at  once.  John 
must  somehow  or  other  be  brought  to  the  point :  her  vanity  could 
not  bear  his  silence  any  longer — speak  he  must.  Having  come 
to  this  decision,  Divina  began  to  act  upon  it. 

'  If  you  please,  m'am,'  she  said  one  day,  '  I'm  wan  tin'  to  go  to 
Edinbury  if  you  don't  objec'.' 

'  To  Edinburgh,  Divina  ?  Have  you  friends  to  see  there,  or 
what  is  it  ?  ' 

'  No,  m'am ;  it's  things  I  want  to  buy.' 

'  Why,  Divina,  haven't  you  all  you  need  ?  I'm  sure  your  things 
are  all  very  good.' 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        249 

'  I  want  a  hat,'  said  the  girl. 

'  The  one  you  have  is  quite  neat  and  nice — what  would  you  be 
spending  your  money  on  a  new  one  for  ? '  Mrs.  Gilchrist  remonstrated. 
'  Especially  if  you  think  of  getting  married  some  day,  Divina,  you 
should  be  laying  by  for  that.' 

'  Oh,  I'm  not  thinkin'  o'  it,'  Divina  said  evasively.  '  But,  if 
you  please  m'am,  I'd  like  the  day  in  Edinbury.' 

'  Well,  of  course  you  can  have  it — but,  Divina,  do  you  know 
your  way  about  the  town,  and  what  shops  to  go  to  and  all  ?  ' 

'  I'll  manage  fine,'  said  the  girl.  '  There's  a  shop  they  call 
Lyons — I've  heard  tell  of  it.' 

'  Yes,  its  a  good  shop ;  but  when  you  go  there,  be  sure  you 
know  what  you  want,  for  you'll  be  so  confused  by  the  number  of 
things  they  offer  you,  that  as  likely  as  not  you'll  end  by  buying 
what  you  don't  want.' 

Unfortunately  for  herself,  Divina  had  a  great  deal  of  self- 
confidence  ;  she  did  not  believe  these  words  of  wisdom  in  the  least. 

4 1  know  fine  what  I'm  to  buy,'  she  assured  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  who, 
with  the  wisdom  of  age,  shook  her  head  over  this  announcement. 

'  I  suppose  girls  will  never  learn  except  by  experience,'  she  said, 
*  but  let  me  give  you  one  bit  of  advice — beware  of  bargains — 
there's  not  such  a  thing  as  a  bargain.  When  a  shopman  tells  you 
he's  giving  you  one,  he's  really  getting  rid  of  the  goods  for  some 
reason  or  other — I've  found  that  out  long  ago.' 

Divina  listened,  of  course  ;  but  she  was  quite  sure  that  she  knew 
better.  Had  she  not  been  reading  the  advertisements  in  the 
Weekly  Scotsman  ?  That  powerful  organ  of  public  opinion  surely 
knew  more  than  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  and  it  spoke  of  '  Phenomenal 
Bargains  ' ;  of  '  Things  going  under  cost  price  ' ;  of  '  Summer  hats 
being  given  away.'  Certainly,  if  this  was  the  case,  she  would 
easily  get  what  she  wanted !  It  was  arranged,  therefore,  that 
Divina  should  go  to  Edinburgh  on  Friday  for  her  day  of  shopping. 
Bright  visions  of  hats  visited  her  pillow  all  the  night  before.  In 
dreams  she  saw  an  endless  perspective  of  pegs,  hung  with  hats  of 
every  shape  and  shade,  and  she,  with  the  exhaustless  purse  of  the 
fable,  strayed  among  them  buying,  buying,  buying.  .  .  . 

Divina,  you  must  remember,  looked  upon  herself  by  this  time 
almost  in  the  light  of  a  capitalist.  In  the  six  months  since  she 
came  to  Sandyhill  Farm,  she  had  been  able  to  lay  by  five  dirty 
one-pound  notes,  and  this,  almost  the  first  money  she  had  earned, 
seemed  to  her  an  enormous  sum,  with  illimitable  spending  capacities. 


250        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

Divina  had  none  of  the  spirit  of  the  miser  in  her — she  thought  that 
money  was  there  to  be  spent,  not  to  be  hoarded — a  philosophy  that 
has  a  good  deal  of  sound  sense  in  it. 

On  her  way  to  the  station  on  Friday  morning,  Divina  had  the 
good  luck  to  meet  John  going  to  his  work.  He  stopped  to  ask  her 
where  she  was  off  to  ? 

'  To  Edinbury,  for  the  day,'  she  answered,  her  face  glowing  with 
soap  and  pleasure.  '  I've  things  to  buy.' 

1  Yer  lucky  that  have  siller  tae  buy  wi','  said  John  grimly. 
'  It  tak's  a  man  all  his  time  to  live  these  days — let  alone  buyin'.' 

Divina  laughed  gaily,  and  assured  him  he  had  risen  on  the 
wrong  side  that  morning,  to  be  taking  such  dark  views  of  life. 
Then  she  hurried  on  to  the  station,  and  John  stood  looking  after 
her  admiringly. 

'  She's  a  sight  for  sair  e'en — none  of  the  fal-lalls  some  lassies 
wear — yon's  a  sensible  bit  thing,  would  make  a  man  a  good  wife,'  he 
meditated  as  he  plodded  on  to  his  work.  His  thoughts  were  full 
of  the  trim  little  figure  that  had  flitted  across  his  path  :  '  None  o' 
your  dressed  up  huzzies  for  me,'  he  added  aloud. 

Those  who  have  had  occasion  to  go  a-shopping  in  Edinburgh 
must  have  observed  that  pleasant  note  of  intimacy  which  prevails 
in  most  of  the  shops.  Trading  is  here  carried  on  under  genial 
conditions  ;  and,  except  where  the  intolerable  '  young  lady  '  from 
London  has  intruded,  the  saleswomen  take  an  almost  passionate 
personal  interest  in  their  customers. 

Impossible  to  convey  the  welcoming  intonation  of  the  Edinburgh 
saleswoman  as  she  presses  her  wares  :  '  This  now  I  can  really  recom- 
mend, for  I've  tried  it  myself — it'll  be  the  verra  thing  yer  wantin' : 
or  stop  a  minit,  I've  a  cheaper  line  I'd  like  to  show  you — no,  it's 
no  trouble  at  all.  .  .  .  now,  to  my  mind  that  becomes  ye  better 
than  the  dearer  one.'  .  .  .  Surely  in  no  other  known  capital  do 
the  sales  people  so  earnestly  consider  how  to  spare  the  purses  of 
their  clients.  But  this  may  be  only  a  deeper  depth  of  subtilty,  for 
it  is  so  disarming  that  the  purse-strings  fly  open  before  it  in  a 
wonderful  way. 

When  Divina  then  entered  that  genial  emporium  known  as 
Lyons,  she  was  immediately  made  welcome  by  one  of  these  redoubt- 
able saleswomen.  Our  heroine  scarcely  needed  to  voice  her  wants, 
they  were  understood  almost  without  speech  on  her  part  by  this 
omniscient  creature. 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        251 

4 1  perfectly  understand  :  what  you're  wantin'  is  a  dressy  hat 
that'll  look  well  at  the  church  and  yet  do  fine  for  your  afternoon 
out.  Yes,  we've  got  just  the  thing  here — but  maybe  that's  too 
dear — it's  nonsense  spending  too  much  on  a  hat,  I  always  say, 
that'll  be  out  of  fashion  next  year.  Here's  another  exactly  half 
the  price — its  real  stylish  too — I  sold  one  to  an  officer's  daughter 
half  an  hour  ago.  I  believe  it's  the  very  thing  for  you.  Just  you  try 
it  on,  please — let  me  put  it  on  for  you — a  wee  bit  to  the  one  side — 
that's  it — now,  if  you  ask  me,  I  think  that's  the  exact  thing  you've 
been  looking  for.  Its  a  cheap  hat  for  the  money,  really — the 
feather's  a  beauty.' 

Thus  cajoled,  Divina  assumed  the  hat,  and  then  gazed  at  her 
own  reflection  in  the  glass  and  wondered  at  the  awful  power  of 
dress.  For  this  hat  had  transformed  her  in  one  moment  from  a 
Nicholson  girl  into  a  fine  lady — or  so  she  fondly  imagined.  It 
was  a  gigantic  structure  of  emerald  green  velvet,  turned  up  sweep- 
ingly  at  one  side.  A  long  white  ostrich  (whalebone)  feather 
depended  from  it,  and  fell  bewitchingly  across  her  shoulder. 

'  Take  a  look  at  yourself  in  the  hand- glass,'  the  saleswoman 
recommended. 

Divina  did  not  understand  the  uses  of  the  hand-glass,  but  these 
were  quickly  explained  to  her  :  the  back  view  proved  even  more 
striking  than  the  front  had  been,  Divina  drew  in  a  long  breath. 

'  What's  the  price  ? '  she  asked. 

'  Fifteen  and  six — very  cheap  that  for  the  style,'  said  the  woman. 

Divina  had  never  heard  of  anyone  paying  15s.  Qd.  for  a  hat — 
the  idea  took  her  breath  away.  She  looked  again  at  herself  and 
hesitated — then  suddenly  made  up  her  mind. 

'  I'll  tak'  it,'  she  said  curtly. 

'  Very  good  ;  then  where'll  I  send  it  to  ?  the  saleswoman  asked, 
licking  her  pencil. 

'  I'll  tak'  it ;  it  won't  be  ill  to  carry,'  said  Divina. 

'  Not  a  bit.  I'll  put  it  up  in  a  nice  box  for  you — and  now 
what's  the  next  thing  ?  '  was  the  brisk  reply. 

Divina  put  her  finger  into  the  corner  of  her  mouth,  a  childish 
habit  she  still  retained  when  in  doubt. 

'  I'm  wantin'  a  dress,'  she  said  a  little  shyly.  Again  her  wants 
were  comprehended  almost  before  they  had  been  spoken. 

'  That'll  be  in  the  next  department — but  I'll  come  through  with 
you  and  bring  the  hat— it'll  be  better  for  you  to  see  them  together  ; 
just  come  this  way,  please.' 


252        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

Divina  stepped  '  through '  into  the  enchanted  region  of  the 
ready-made  costumes  ;  it  was  her  dream  come  true — pegs  and  pegs 
and  pegs  hung  with  wonderful  garments,  and  she  wandering  among 
them,  purse  in  hand.  The  genial  saleswoman  escorted  her  until 
they  met  another  lady  of  the  warehouse. 

'  Here's  Miss  Campbell,'  she  said,  as  if  there  was  but  one  Miss 
Campbell  in  the  world,  then  addressing  the  other  woman  :  '  Where 
are  these  nice  serge  costumes '  (the  emphasis  was,  of  course,  on  the 
last  syllable — *  costumes ')  '  you  were  showing  me  yesterday  ? 
This  young  lady  wants  one  to  go  with  this  hat — a  bit  of  trimming 
on  it,  and  good  value  for  her  money,  see  what  you  can  do  for  her.' 

The  two  had  got  Divina  now ;  she  was  clay  in  their  hands. 
The  serge  costumes  with  bits  of  trimming  were  quickly  produced, 
and  it  was  then  evident  that  Divina  had  set  her  heart's  affections 
on  a  rather  bright  shade  of  green  to  suit  the  hat.  Her  choice  was 
applauded  by  the  two  saleswomen  :  '  It's  the  one  I  would  have 
chosen  myself,'  said  Divina's  first  friend ;  '  I'm  glad  you're  to  have 
that — well,  now  you're  suited,  I'll  leave  you  with  Miss  Campbell,' 
and  she  swept  away. 

Divina  found  herself  thus  committed  to  pay  £2  10s.  for  the 
costume,  and  her  conscience  began  to  prick ;  but  the  redoubtable 
Miss  Campbell  had  decided  that  her  victim  was  to  make  still  farther 
purchases. 

'  I  call  that  a  very  nice,  showy  costume,'  she  said,  holding  it  out 
temptingly  ;  '  but  what  blouse  are  you  to  wear  with  it  ?  We've  a 
very  cheap  line  of  white  silk  ones  here  would  look  well  with  this 
green.'  She  swept  Divina  along  to  another  counter  where  blouses 
of  all  degrees  of  vulgarity  were  displayed  :  '  It's  really  difficult  to 
choose  where  they're  all  so  choice,'  she  said. 

But  Divina  had  a  wonderfully  quick  eye  for  what  she  admired— 
in  two  minutes  she  had  singled  out  a  particularly  showy  trifle 
made  up  almost  entirely  of  cheap  lace  medallions  and  sarsenet. 

1  This'll  be  very  dear,  isn't  it  ?  '  she  asked  longingly. 

c  Dear  ?  Oh  no,  I  call  that  quite  a  bargain — and  I  daresay  I 
could  let  it  down  a  shilling  to  meet  your  price  :  we're  selling  off  this 
line  at  five  eleven  three.  Let  me  think  now — I  daresay  I  might 
let  you  have  it  at  four  eleven  three,  if  that  would  suit,  and  there's 
a  bargain  for  you.' 

'  Four  eleven  three  ?  '  Divina  interrogated,  not  having  yet 
caught  up  the  lingo  of  the  cheap  shop.  Miss  Campbell  smiled, 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        253 

and  explained  the  enormous  reduction  that  the  term  conveyed, 
so,  of  course,  Divina  bought  the  blouse. 

*  These  make  a  nice  finish  to  a  costume,'  the  temptress  remarked 
casually,  as  they  passed  along  where  a  bunch  of  feather  boas  waved 
in  the  draught  from  the  staircase.  Mental  arithmetic  had  been 
tolerably  well  taught  at  Nicholson's,  so  Divina  was  quite  aware 
that  she  had  already  spent  the  tremendous  sum  of  £3  10s.  5f  d.  ; 
yet  pass  these  boas  she  could  not.  She  was  as  awfully  in  their 
toils  as  if  they  had  been  the  monsters  they  derived  their  name  from. 
There  was  in  Divina  some  of  the  reckless  spirit  of  the  true  dissipator 
— she  would  have  a  good  spend  while  she  was  at  it. 

'  What'll  they  be  ?  '  she  asked  firmly. 

'  Oh,  they're  a  cheap  line  too — six  eleven  three  these :  how 
would  you  like  this  white  coque  ?  it's  real  showy.' 

Divina  laid  down  her  six  eleven  three  like  a  man,  and  received 
a  farthing's  worth  of  pins  to  salve  her  conscience  and  make  her 
believe  that  the  boa  too  had  been  cheap.  Miss  Campbell  was 
now  carrying  the  hat  in  one  hand,  the  costume  over  one  arm,  the 
blouse  laid  across  it,  and  now  she  whisked  up  the  boa  and  carried 
off  the  whole  lot  in  trrumph  to  the  fitting-room  where  Divina  was 
to  try  on  the  dress.  Fitting  was  rather  too  precise  a  word  for  the 
perfunctory  tug  here  and  ruck  there  that  were  given  to  the  jacket ; 
but  Divina  was  assured  that  it  would  be  '  quite  all  right '  and  that 
Miss  Campbell '  saw  what  it  wanted  '  exactly. 

Divina  would  have  liked  to  carry  away  all  these  beautiful 
purchases  with  her  ;  but  this,  of  course,  was  impossible,  so  she  had 
to  content  herself  with  the  assurance  that  the  parcels  would  meet 
her  at  the  station  in  the  evening.  Then  feeling  wonderfully  rich 
(for  was  she  not  the  possessor  of  all  these  splendid  garments  ?), 
yet  strangely  poor  (because  her  purse  was  half  empty),  Divina 
took  a  walk  along  Princes  Street,  ate  a  bun  and  drank  a  cup  of 
tea  in  a  confectioner's,  and  got  to  the  station  an  hour  too  soon. 
There  she  looked  out  anxiously  for  the  messenger  from  Lyons, 
fearing  terribly  that  he  would  be  late  for  the  Fife  train.  When  at 
last  he  came  in  sight,  laden  with  big  cardboard  boxes,  Divina 
nearly  clapped  her  hands  for  joy.  She  bundled  the  boxes  into  the 
carriage,  and  waited  impatiently  for  the  train  to  start,  that  she 
might  take  a  peep  into  them.  Then  prudence  forbade  this — 
prudence  and  the  thought  that  the  parcels  had  to  be  conveyed 
along  the  mile  of  road  between  the  station  and  Sandyhill  Farm. 
She  contented  herself  with  breaking  a  corner  off  the  lid  of  the  hat-box 


254        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

that  she  might  get  one  glimpse  of  the  emerald  velvet  hat.  How 
beautiful  it  was  !  and  how  it  would  '  become  her  !  '  Divina  laughed 
aloud  in  the  empty  carriage. 

'  He'll  speak  this  week,'  she  said  gleefully. 

Sunday  dawned  without  a  cloud.  All  round  and  round  the 
great  arch  of  sky  was  brilliantly  blue,  smiling  down  upon  the 
green  earth  and  the  valleys  thick  with  corn.  Could  death  and  grief 
reign  in  this  splendid  world  that  seemed  quick  only  with  life  and 
joy?  .  .  . 

Divina  certainly  was  finding  it  a  joyous  place.  Her  light 
Sunday  duties  were  over,  and  now  at  three  o'clock,  she  was  free  to 
don  her  new  clothes. 

Of  course  she  had  already  held  a  hurried  dress-rehearsal  late  at 
night  by  the  flickering  light  of  a  candle  ;  but  that  had  scarcely 
counted.  Now  in  the  full  blaze  of  day,  with  her  door  securely 
locked  against  intrusion,  Divina  began  her  toilet.  It  was  a  tremen- 
dous occasion — how  tremendous  you  will  only  be  able  to  realise 
when  you  remember  the  repressive  influences  under  which  the  girl 
had  been  brought  up,  and  the  great  natural  law  that  was  working 
now  in  her  young  nature  like  a  ferment. 

First  of  all,  Divina  arranged  her  curly  locks  in  a  huge  halo 
round  her  face,  as  she  had  done  once  before.  Then  she  put  on  her 
skirt  and  blouse,  but  was  rather  perplexed  by  the  discovery  that 
the  blouse  was  transparent  and  showed  her  tidy  pink  flannelette 
under-bodice  almost  down  to  the  waist.  Could  this  be  right  ? 
'  Transparencies  are  all  the  rage,'  Miss  Campbell  had  said  when 
showing  her  the  garment — this  must  have  been  what  she  meant ; 
but  why  display  one's  underclothing  ?  Divina  pondered  the 
question,  then  compromised  by  pinning  a  clean  pocket-handkerchief 
across  her  bosom — that  seemed  better,  and  she  went  on  with  her 
toilet.  The  length  of  the  skirt  was  rather  dismaying  to  one  who 
knew  nothing  of  the  art  of  lifting  a  skirt  elegantly  ;  Divina  tried  to 
grasp  it  in  each  hand  alternately,  then  gathered  it  all  up  in  one 
immense  bunch  to  one  side,  and  wondered  how  it  would  be  possible 
to  walk  when  so  hampered.  The  coat  was  too  big ;  it  was  also 
badly  cut ;  but  its  owner  was  mercifully  unaware  of  these  deficiencies 
— she  thought  it  perfect. 

Divina  then  crowned  her  brows  with  the  great  green  hat  which 
sat  more  jauntily  than  before  upon  her  puffed-out  hair.  Last 
of  all,  she  flung  the  white  coque  boa  round  her  shoulders,  and  fell 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        255 

back  from  the  glass  to  gaze  at  her  own  reflection  with  a  feeling 
that  was  akin  to  awe.  The  Nicholson  orphan  had  completely 
disappeared — '  gone  as  if  never  she  had  breathed  or  been/  as 
Christina  Rossetti  sings,  and  in  the  orphan's  place  stood  a  vision  of 
fashion,  dazzling  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder. 

'  My  word  but  I'm  braw  !  '  Divina  cried,  pirouetting  before  the 
glass,  moving  it  up  and  down  in  a  vain  effort  to  get  a  full  length 
view  of  herself  in  its  six-inch  surface.  She  felt  a  little  shy  at 
the  thought  of  facing  people  in  such  an  altered  guise  ;  but  it  was  a 
proud  shyness — surely  everyone  must  see  that  the  change  was 
for  the  better  ?  Yet  a  lurking  fear  oppressed  her, '  I  wonder  would 
Mrs.  Gilchrist  like  them,'  she  thought — '  them  '  being,  of  course,  the 
new  clothes.  Mrs.  Gilchrist,  however,  was  comfortably  asleep 
behind  the  pages  of  the  British  Weekly  in  the  parlour,  so  Divina 
was  able  to  slip  down  stairs  and  get  across  the  yard  unobserved. 
Out  upon  the  high  road  she  was  safe,  but  Divina  had  now  to  learn 
the  truth  of  that  severe  little  proverb  '  Pride  must  suffer  pain.' 

For  it  was  a  windy  afternoon,  and  her  great  hat  swayed  peril- 
ously on  her  head,  secured  only  by  one  pin.  Before  she  had  gone 
many  yards  the  hat  blew  off  altogether.  Divina  clutched  at  her  new 
treasure,  pinned  it  on  again — awry — struggling  at  the  same  time 
with  her  unfamiliarly  long  skirt.  For  a  few  minutes  she  felt 
perfectly  desperate,  then  coming  to  a  more  sheltered  bit  of  road, 
she  stood  still  and  endeavoured  to  get  herself  more  in  hand.  The 
hat  was  skewered  on  squintly  but  firmly,  she  gathered  up  her 
skirt  in  an  iron  grip,  rearranged  the  ruffled  plumage  of  the  boa, 
and  then  walked  slowly  on  towards  the  cross-roads,  her  usual 
trysting-place  with  John. 

This  fight  with  fashion  and  the  elements  had  made  Divina  a 
little  later  than  usual,  and  as  she  drew  near  the  cross-roads  she  saw 
that  John  was  coming  to  meet  her. 

'  Eh  me,  what'll  he  say  ? — he'll  be  a  prood  man  the  day ! '  thought 
Divina,  strutting  along  exactly  like  a  peacock.  She  even  let  go 
her  grasp  of  the  skirt,  and  let  it  trail  behind  her  in  the  dust. 

John  came  nearer  and  nearer,  yet  made  no  sign  of  recognition. 
At  last,  as  they  came  actually  face  to  face  with  each  other,  he  halted, 
staring  at  her  in  a  bewildered  way. 

'  This  is  a  real  fine  afternoon,'  said  Divina  simpering,  by  way  of 
opening  conversation.  But  still  John  uttered  not  a  word.  It  is 
true  that  he  took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth  as  if  preparing  for  speech, 
yet  no  words  came  from  his  lips.  He  simply  stood  there  and  gazed 


256        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

at  Divina,  with  a  long,  disgusted,  contemptuous  stare.  Then  very 
deliberately  he  turned  away  and  walked  off  in  the  opposite  direction, 
without  having  exchanged  a  single  word  with  Divina.  She,  stupid 
girl  that  she  was,  did  not  take  in  the  situation — or  refused,  perhaps, 
to  admit  it  to  herself.  A  wave  of  colour  rushed  over  her  face  at 
this  '  affront '  that  had  been '  put  upon  her  ' ;  then  she  decided  that 
it  must  be  a  mistake. 

'  Hi,  John !  it's  me — d'ye  no'  recognise  me  ?  '  she  called  after 
him.  He  halted  at  the  sound  of  her  voice  and  looked  round. 
Divina  came  towards  him,  she  stood  close  beside  him,  her  face 
flushed  with  vexation  under  the  great  green  hat. 

'  Did  ye  no'  ken  me  ?  '  she  asked  again.  His  answer  came  slow 
and  unmistakeable : 

'  Fine  that,  Divina  ;  but  I'm  fair  scunnert  at  ye.' 

'  What  for  ?  '  she  asked  defiantly,  though  she  now  knew  perfectly 
well. 

'  Yer  ower  braw  for  me,'  said  John  sarcastically,  indicating  by 
a  wave  of  his  hand  the  green  hat,  the  white  boa,  the  trailing  skirt, 
all  the  bravery  her  young  soul  adored. 

'  What  ails  ye  at  the  hat  ?  '  she  asked,  trying  to  put  in  a  feeble 
defence. 

'  It's  no'  the  hat ;  it's  the  lassie  that  could  buy  it ;  I  thought  more 
o'  ye,  Divina  ;  it  seems  I  was  mistaken.' 

It  was  Divina's  turn  now  to  mount  her  high  horse.  No  girl  of 
spirit  could  have  done  otherwise.  She  tossed  her  feathered  head 
and  made  stiff  reply.  '  Oh  weel,  Mr.  Thompson,  if  that's  the  way 
of  it  I'll  wish  ye  good  evening.' 

'  Good  evenin','  John  responded,  and  they  turned  away  from 
each  other,  Divina  gulping  down  tears  of  mortified  vanity  and 
intense  disappointment. 

'  Mistaken  indeed  !  I'll  mistake  him  !  '  she  muttered,  em- 
ploying that  vague  and  awful  kitchen  threat  at  which  many  a 
brave  heart  has  quailed. 

It  was  no  good  to  walk  on  alone  in  her  fine  clothes — where  would 
the  pleasure  of  that  be  ?— better  go  home  and  tell  Mrs.  Gilchrist  that 
she  found  it  too  hot  for  walking.  .  .  .  She  floundered  along  in  the 
dust  and  wind  and  hot  sunshine,  her  heart  bursting  with  rage  and 
vindictive  feeling,  longing  only  to  get  in  again  and  be  able  to  tear 
off  the  finery  that  had  brought  this  humiliation  upon  her. 

John  meantime,  trudging  steadily  away  from  his  Divina,  ex- 
perienced equally  bitter  feelings. 


OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET.        257 

'  A  Jezebel,  just  a  fair  Jezebel ! '  lie  told  himself.  '  And  I  that 
took  her  for  the  quietest  lassie  in  the  countryside  .  .  .  did  ever 
a  man  see  the  like  o'  yon  hat  ?  .  .  .  she's  made  a  fool  o'  me 
athegither.' 

Now  a  man  can  face  up  to  most  griefs,  to  almost  every  sorrow, 
but  to  be  made  a  fool  of  he  cannot  bear  :  this  is  the  ultimate  bitter- 
ness. John  bit  upon  the  thought  after  the  fashion  of  some  natures, 
telling  himself  over  and  over  again  what  a  fool  he  had  been  to 
imagine  Divina  a  sensible,  quiet  girl  of  his  own  way  of  thinking, 
when  in  reality  she  was  a  good-for-nothing  huzzie  of  the  usual  sort. 
She  was  not  the  wife  for  him  ;  he  must  cast  her  out  of  his  thoughts, 
forget  her  entirely,  never  see  her  again.  All  the  harsh  Calvinistic 
side  of  the  man's  nature  came  uppermost  at  this  moment,  effacing 
the  normal,  human  feeling  that  had  begun  to  spring  up  in  his 
heart. 

So  the  two  went  their  separate  ways,  as  unhappy  a  man  and 
woman  as  you  can  well  imagine. 

Mrs.  Gilchrist  being  apparently  still  asleep,  Divina  had  the  good 
luck  to  gain  the  shelter  of  her  own  room  without  encountering  her 
mistress.  Once  having  attained  this  haven,  she  gave  way  at 
last  to  the  pent-up  feelings  of  the  afternoon.  Taking  off  the  unlucky 
green  hat,  she  flung  herself  down  on  the  bed,  and  burst  into  noisy 
passionate  sobs  like  the  child  she  still  was  at  heart.  Do  not  suppose 
that  Divina  wept  the  tragic  tears  of  wounded  love — no,  they  were 
only  tears  of  bitter  mortification.  But  then,  as  the  Bible  truly  asks, 
'  A  wounded  spirit  who  can  bear  ?  ' — certainly  extreme  youth 
cannot  endure  it,  and  Divina  wept  on  until  she  had  made  herself 
quite  sick,  and  her  eyes  were  all  swollen  up.  Then  when  the 
storm  had  a  little  worked  itself  out,  she  rose,  changed  the  green 
costume  for  her  black  merino  gown,  smoothed  out  her  puffed  hair, 
bathed  her  eyes,  and  went  down  to  prepare  supper.  Mrs.  Gilchrist 
was  quick  to  notice  that  something  was  wrong  ;  but  with  a  fineness 
of  feeling  that  is  often  wanting  in  elderly  people,  she  took  no  notice 
of  Divina's  swollen  eyelids,  and  contented  herself  with  sending  the 
girl  early  to  bed.  So  ended  this  disastrous  Sunday  for  Divina. 

John,  too,  had  gone  home ;  but  not  being  able  to  relieve  his  feelings 
by  a  burst  of  tears,  he  sat  glumly  smoking  by  the  kitchen  fire 
all  the  evening.  In  vain  his  mother  tried  to  get  him  to  talk  : 
he  remained  doggedly  silent.  Things  had,  indeed,  gone  far  deeper 
with  John  than  with  Divina,  and  the  events  of  the  afternoon  had 
made  him  profoundly  unhappy.  For  the  first  time  in  his  thirty 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  164,  N.S.  17 


258        OWER  YOUNG  TO  MARRY  YET. 

healthful  years,  John  could  not  sleep  that  night.  From  side  to 
side  he  tossed,  counting  the  slow  hours  as  they  went  by,  and  strug- 
gling with  something  that  was  too  strong  for  him.  At  last,  as 
morning  dawned,  he  gave  up  the  struggle.  With  a  great  sigh  he 
turned  over  on  his  pillow  : — 

'  The  worst  o't  is — /  maun  hoe  her — hat  and  a','  he  confessed  to 
himself. 

A  few  days  later,  Mrs.  Gilchrist  thought  it  necessary  to  question 
Divina  plainly  on  the  subject  of  her  relations  with  John  Thompson. 
The  young  man  made  so  many  excuses  for  coming  to  the  back  door, 
and  managed  to  hold  such  long  conversations  there  with  Divina, 
that  there  seemed  little  doubt  about  his  intentions.  But  the  good 
woman  did  not  get  any  very  definite  information  out  of  Divina. 

With  a  toss  of  her  head,  and  a  smile  of  quite  infinite  satisfaction, 
she  gave  the  following  enigmatic  reply  : 

'  It's  true  John's  wantin'  me  ;  but  I'm  no'  so  sure  that  I'll  tak' 
him.' 


259 


THE  LORD  MA  YOR'S   VISIT   TO  OXFORD  IN  1826. 

1  THERE  are,'  said  a  friend  to  me,  a  propos  of  some  curiously  obtuse 
person  whom  he  had  met  in  the  flesh,  '  some  priceless  chaps  in  the 
world.'  But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  in  view  of  the  considerable 
period  during  which  human  life  hcs  existed  on  the  said  planet,  there 
must  be  some  even  more  priceless  chaps  in  the  other  world  or  worlds. 
I  would  give  a  good  deal  for  a  talk  in  the  Elysian  fields  with  the 
Reverend  Robert  Crawford  Dillon,  sometime  (1826)  Chaplain  to 
the  Lord  Mayor  of  London. 

I  do  not  think  that  many  living  people  have  met  Mr.  Dillon,  even 
in  the  print,  because  his  book,  entitled  '  The  Lord  Mayor's  Visit  to 
Oxford  in  the  Month  of  July  1826  :  Written  at  the  desire  of  the 
Party :  By  the  Chaplain  to  the  Mayoralty '  (London  :  Longmans, 
Rees,  Orme,  Browne  &  Green,  Paternoster  Row,  1826),  was  very 
early  met  by  that  very  fierce  reviewer  Mr.  Theodore  Hook,  who 
*  treated  him  in  such  a  scathing  manner  that  he  suppressed  his  own 
work.'  This  one  learns  from  pencil  notes  inserted  in  two  of  the 
only  three  copies  of  the  book  which  I  have  yet  been  able  to  see. 
One  of  these  copies  has  Hook's  review  pasted  in  it ;  and,  to  a  student 
of  literary  manners,  the  poverty  of  the  quizzing  and  the  number 
of  points  missed  by  the  Great  Quiz  are  almost  as  interesting  as 
Mr.  Dillon  himself.  One  imagines  Hook  using  a  bludgeon  but 
pointing  it  with  real  wit ;  yet  in  truth  his  weapon  is  a  sorry  kind 
of  punt-pole.  It  is  not,  however,  with  Hook,  but  with  Mr.  Dillon 
that  we  are  at  present  concerned.  To  the  Bodleian  copy  of  the 
work  is  prefixed  a  portrait  of  the  author,  who  afterwards  became  a 
popular  preacher  at  more  than  one  London  chapel,  published  a 
volume  of  sermons  (including  obituary  eulogies  on  George  IV.  and 
William  IV.),  took  a  Doctor's  degree  at  Oxford,  and  died  in  1847. 
The  '  Church  Magazine '  for  October  1839  contains  an  article,  on 
his  innumerable  virtues  and  eloquence,  of  such  unction  that  one 
is  driven  to  suppose  that  he  must  have  composed  it  himself.  All 
reference  to  the  youthful  indiscretion  at  present  before  the  reader, 
and  all  reference  to  his  brief  chaplaincy  at  the  Mansion  House  is 
therein  carefully  suppressed. 

Even  in   1826  Mr.  Dillon  evidently  had  some  scruples  before 

17—2 


260    THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD   IN    1826. 

publication,  for  in  his  preface  he  tells  us  that  '  on  more  mature 
consideration  it  occurred  to  him  that  this  is  a  species  of  writing  not 
altogether  in  accordance  with  the  sacred  profession  of  which  the 
writer  is  the  unworthiest  member,  although  he  trusts  that  not  any- 
thing in  it  will  be  found  injurious  to  the  interests  of  piety.'  Piety 
(of  the  Dillonian  brand)  is  indeed  not  only  safeguarded,  but  shovelled 
a  deux  mains  upon  the  reader  throughout  the  book.  If  you  do 
not  rise  from  its  perusal  more  pious,  it  is  not  the  author's  fault : — 

Virtutem  videas  intabescasque  relicta. 

It  seems  that  the  Lord  Mayor,  Sir  William  Venables,  a  wholesale 
stationer  at  Queenhithe,  London,  desired  to  reassert  the  ancient 
jurisdiction  of  the  City  over  the  navigation  of  the  River  Thames  as 
far  west  as  Staines  ;  this  jurisdiction  extended,  as  is  well  known, 
from  the  City  Stone  (at  Staines  Bridge)  to  Yantlet  Creek  at  the 
river-mouth  ;  it  dated  from  a  charter  of  John,  and  perhaps  earlier  ; 
and,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  one  ever  claimed  it  adversely.1  But  it  had 
been  several  times  '  reasserted '  by  a  solemn  visit  to  the  City  Stone 
on  the  part  of  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  City,  once  as  lately  as 
1812  ;  and  I  suppose  it  must  have  been  an  uneasy  feeling  in  the 
breasts  of  successive  Lords  Mayors  that  the  City  did  no  longer 
anything  to  '  conserve  '  the  said  river,  that  led  to  these  reassertions 
of  claim.  Readers  of  the  late  Professor  Maitland's  works  are  aware 
that  Duties  were  accidents  very  separable  from  the  Rights  of  civic 
bodies  in  the  early  nineteenth  century.  Well,  with  this  serious 
business  Sir  William  now  proposed  to  couple  a  pleasure  trip  to 
Oxford,  and  to  return  from  that  place  by  water  to  Richmond. 
He  had  only  intended  to  spend  one  night  at  Oxford,  where  (as  even 
Lords  Mayors  must  dine  somewhere)  he  proposed  to  hire  an  inn  and 
give  a  display  of  civic  hospitality  by  inviting  the  Heads  of  Houses 
and  his  brother  Mayor  and  Aldermen  to  dinner. 

But,  says  Mr.  Dillon,  '  if  it  were  not  notorious  how  soon  the 
rumour  of  any  measure  is  propagated,  even  before  it  is  fully  matured, 
it  would  be  almost  incredible  that  this  excursion  should  scarcely 

1  The  best  history  of  this  jurisdiction  was  written,  eighty  years  before 
Mr.  Dillon's  book,  in  '  An  Essay  to  prove  that  the  jurisdiction  and 
Conservancy  of  the  River  Thames  is  committed  to  the  Lord  Mayor  and  City 
of  London,  both  in  point  of  Right  and  Usage  by  prescription,  Charters,  Acts  of 
Parliament,  etc.  ;  by  Roger  Griffiths,  Water-bailiff.  London  :  Printed  by  Robert 
Brown,  1746.'  This  is  a  very  interesting  work,  and  contains  some  very  curious 
facts  as  to  the  fisheries,  as  well  as  the  navigation  of  the  river.  If  Mr.  Dillon  had 
read  it  he  would  have  been  even  more  uplifted  than  he  was  as  to  the  magnifi- 
cence of  his  patron. 


THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD   IN    1826.     261 

have  been  determined  upon  in  London  before  it  was  known  in 
Oxford,'  with  the  result  that  T.  Ensworth,  Esq.,  Mayor  and  brandy- 
merchant  of  Oxford,  evidently  backed  himself  and  his  kind  to  outdo 
the  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  his  own  line — a  vain  hope  as  we  shall 
see  in  the  sequel.  Several  aldermen  of  London,  scenting  the 
rivalry  of  epulae  lautiores,  now  decided  to  join  themselves,  their 
wives  and  daughters,  to  his  Lordship's  proposed  excursion. 

A  correspondence,  given  in  full  by  the  reverend  author,  ensued 
between  the  High  Contracting  Powers.  Two  nights  were  to  be 
given  to  feasting,  and  the  Star  Inn  in  the  Cornmarket  at  Oxford, 
now  better  known  as  the  '  Clarendon,'  was  hired  for  the  London 
party  for  July  25  and  26.  The  City  Barge  and  the  '  Navigation 
Shallop '  were  despatched  upstream  and  reached  Folly  Bridge  in 
the  very  fair  time  of  five  days.  The  Lord  Mayor '  had  been  careful 
to  make  every  provision  for  his  absence  from  London  '  (in  fact 
he  left  a  Eegent  behind  him)  '  and  then  felt  that  the  period  of  his 
excursion  would  pass  less  anxiously  away.' 

Then  dawned  the  auspicious  Tuesday,  July  25,  and  we  at  once 
break  into  full  civic  splendours.  '  At  7.30  A.M.  the  private  state 
carriage '  (surely  a  strange  oxymoron)  '  drawn  by  four  beautiful  bays, 
had  driven  to  the  doors  of  the  Mansion  House.  The  coachman's 
countenance  was  reserved  and  thoughtful,  indicating  full  con- 
sciousness of  the  test  by  which  his  equestrian  [sic]  skill  would  this 
day  be  tried '  (in  fact  it  is  hinted  that  the  absence  of  the  postillion 
customary  on  one  of  the  leaders  had  made  him  nervous).  '  The 
fine  animals  were  in  admirable  condition  for  the  journey.  Having 
been  allowed  a  previous  day  of  unbroken  rest  they  were  quite 
impatient  of  delay,  and  chafed  and  champed  exceedingly  on  the 
bits  by  which  their  impetuosity  was  restrained.  The  murmur  of 
expectation,  which  had  lasted  for  more  than  half  an  hour  amongst 
the  crowd  which  had  gathered  round  the  carriage,  was  at  length 
hushed  by  the  opening  of  the  Hall  door.  The  Lord  Mayor  had  been 
filling  up  this  interval  with  instructions  to  the/emme  de  menage  and 
other  household  officers,1  who  were  to  be  left  in  residence,  to  attend, 
with  their  wonted  fidelity  and  diligence,  to  their  respective  depart- 
ments of  service  during  his  absence,  and  now  appeared  at  the 

1  One  suspects  that  the  Femme  de  Manage  was  none  other  than  the  cook  ; 
and  that  his  Lordship  had  been  merely  busy  ordering  Saturday's  supper.  For 
the  '  Yeoman  of  the  Household,'  who  had  '  charge  of  the  provisions,'  turns  up 
later  at  Oxford  with  a  vast  suite ;  and  perhaps 

in  the  absent  giant's  hold 
Are  women  now,  and  menials  old. 


262     THE    LORD    MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO    OXFORD   IN    1826, 

door,  accompanied  by  the  Lady  Mayoress  and  followed  by  the 
Chaplain. 

4  As  soon  as  the  female  attendant  of  the  Lady  Mayoress  had 
taken  her  seat,  dressed  with  becoming  neatness,  at  the  side  of  the 
well-looking  coachman  '  (Oh,  naughty  Chaplain  !  Fifty  years  ago 
you  and  that  female  attendant  would  have  been  sitting  behind  in 
the  rumble,  and  you'd  have  ended  by  marrying  her),  '  the  carriage 
drove  away  ;  not,  however,  with  that  violent  and  extreme  rapidity 
which  rather  astounds  than  gratifies  the  beholders '  (and  in  which, 
sad  to  say,  his  then  Gracious  Majesty  delighted  to  indulge)  '  but  at 
that  steady  and  majestic  pace  that  indicates  real  greatness.'  The 
drive  is  described  in  detail ;  the  weather  was  perfect '  and  the  whole 
face  of  creation  gleamed  with  joy  '  : 

Why  hop  ye  so,  ye  little  hills  ? 

Ye  little  hills,  why  hop  ? 
Is  it  because  you're  glad  to  see 

His  Grace  the  Lord  Bishop  ? 

Nor  was  the  first  stage  without  an  adventure  :  the  party  almost 
witnessed  an  explosion  of  a  powder  mill  at  Hounslow  and  did  in  fact 
see  the  smoke  of  it.  '  Such  calamitous  occurrences/  however 
(there  were  several  killed),  '  although  they  may  for  a  moment  or 
two  interrupt  the  current  of  cheerful  gaiety,  will  not  be  without  a 
salutary  moral  use,  if  the  sympathy  which  they  awaken  shall  settle 
down  into  a  permanent  Christian  principle  of  action  ' — a  beautiful 
creed  for  Lords  Mayors  and  their  chaplains.  Oxford  was  reached  at 
3.15,  not  bad  going  for  a  heavy  state  carriage  with  only  four  changes 
of  horses  (Cranford  Bridge,  Maidenhead,  Henley,  Benson)  by  the 
longer  of  the  two  London-Oxford  roads. 

Mr.  Dillon  rhapsodises,  as  in  duty  bound,  over  the  entrance  to 
the  city  *  where  learning,  which  in  other  places  is  content  to  lodge 
in  cottages  and  be  closeted  in  garrets,  dwells  here  in  palaces  and 
puts  on  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  Majesty.  And  if  within 
the  precincts  of  this  august  city  it  shall  have  been  your  privilege  to 
receive  your  education — an  education  which1 — if  its  advantages 
have  been  closely  followed  out  and  you  have  been  careful  by  sub- 
sequent attention  and  diligence  to  ripen  into  fruit  those  blossoms  of 
instruction  which  were  here  first  raised  in  your  mind — may  per- 
chance have  fitted  you  to  fill  some  commanding  station  in  society  ' 
(perhaps  even  to  become  Chaplain  to  the  Lord  Mayor),  '  every 

1  Mr.  Dillon  has  a  passion  for  hyphenic  pauses  and  parentheses  ;  I  have  failed 
in  some  cases  to  reproduce  the  abundance  of  his  commas. 


THE   LORD    MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD   IN    1826.     263 

renewed  visit  will '  &c.,  &c.  The  little  snob  doesn't  tell  us  which 
his  own  college  was,1  nor  whether  he  sneaked  round  during  his  stay 
to  talk  a  little  piety  to  his  old  scout. 

Learning,  in  her  Palaces  and  Majesty,  showed  herself  at  first 
somewhat  unappreciative  of  the  honour  now  being  done  to  her ; 
for  a  miserable  Pro- Vice-Chancellor  was  all  she  deigned  to  send  to 
the  Star  to  welcome  the  First  Citizen  of  the  Empire  ;  the  City  of 
Oxford,  on  the  contrary,  turned  up  in  full  strength.  Other  London 
aldermen  in  postchaises  must  by  this  time  be  supposed  to  have 
dropped  in  ;  and  '  all  then  congratulated  themselves  that  only 
another  hour  lay  between  them  '  and  their  dinner.  Oxford  at  once 
showed  its  inferiority  to  London  by  having  failed  to  invite  the 
ladies  of  the  party  to  its  feast.  But  the  gentlemen  soon  consoled 
themselves,  for  the  banquet  at  the  Town  Hall '  was  of  such  a  grand 
and  costly  nature  as  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  whole  of  the 
neighbouring  country  had  been  put  in  requisition.'  The  conversa- 
tion in  the  intervals  of  the  toasts  '  though  naturally  of  a  desultory 
and  general  nature,  was  yet  such  as  to  show  that  good  taste,  good 
feeling,  and  good  sense  are  by  no  means  limited  to  the  citizens  of 
the  Metropolis.'  Anyhow  they  did  five  hours  of  it,  straight  on 
end,  and  then  '  retired  to  their  respective  apartments  of  repose.' 

On  Wednesday  they  really  laid  themselves  out  (of  course,  with 
serious  intervals  for  a  '  sumptuous  breakfast '  and  a  '  copious 
luncheon ')  to  do  the  sights  with  appropriate  reflections.  Queen 
Elizabeth's  Latin  Exercise  book  calls  for  the  remark  that  '  in  those 
days  it  was  the  fashion  among  great  ladies,  quite  as  much  as  it  is 
now,  to  study  the  ancient  languages  ! '  I  was  previously  under  the 
impression  that  such  was  the  fashion  rather  more  in  the  reigns  of 
the  Tudors  than  in  that  of  George  IV.  and  Lady  Conyngham.  At 
St.  John's  Mr.  Dillon  lets  us  into  the  true  secret  of  poor  old  Laud's 
fall ;  whose  habit  of  '  permitting  himself  to  be  addressed  by  the 
title  of  "  Your  Holiness  "  and  "  Most  Holy  Father  "  confessedly 
gave  too  much  reason  for  the  calumny  raised  by  the  factious  Zealots 
of  that  day  that  he  was  in  collusion  with  the  papal  Court ' ;  our 
author  here  escapes  his  own  notice  being  illogical,  for  I  do  not  think 
that  Sua  Santita,  Urban  VIII.,  would  have  regarded  this  as  an 
appropriate  method  of  '  collusion.'  But  what  no  doubt  pleased  the 

1  It  was  in  fact  St.  Edmund  Hall,  which  he  entered  in  1813,  and  from  which 
he  proceeded  B.A.  in  1817,  and  M.A.  in  1820 ;  he  was  ordained  Deacon  in  1818, 
and  Priest  in  1819  ;  what  he  was  doing  between  1819  and  1826  I  have  failed  tp 
discover. 


264    THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT  TO  OXFORD   IN    1826. 

party  most  was  a  lecture  at  the  Theatre  of  Anatomy  by  the  Regius 
Professor  of  Medicine  on  a  model  of  the  alimentary  canal  of  the 
Turtle,  followed  by  one  on  the  functions  and  power  of  the  human 
teeth.  '  The  fragrance  of  the  air  which  breathed  around  the 
summit  of  the  Radcliffe '  (to  which  the  males  only  of  the  party 
ascended)  *  had  made  them  by  no  means  incapable  of  doing  honour 
to  a  copious  luncheon,'  at  which  '  the  amusement  of  the  party  was 
exceedingly  promoted  by  the  ludicrous  entree  of  a  lady  of  Oxford 
who,  though  of  great  respectability,  had  yet,  in  her  eager  desire  to  be 
admitted  to  the  presence  of  the  Lady  Mayoress,  overstepped  all  the 
usual  ceremonies  of  introduction.  Her  manners  and  appearance 
were  ridiculous,  but  one  felt  much  regret  on  hearing  that  her 
talents,  which  were  ot  the  highest  order,  had  been  unhappily 
directed  and  associated  with  too  small  a  portion  of  common-sense.' 
This  lady  reappeared,  also  uninvited,  at  the  drawing-room  reception 
after  the  Lord  Mayor's  dinner,  performed  various  amusing  con- 
versational antics,  and  even  led  the  Reverend  Chronicler  to  quote 
Aristotle's  Poetics  (without  accents)  on  such  things  as  happen  Trapa 
Trjv  §o%av.  Does  anyone  yet  live  who  can  tell  tales  of  this  proto- 
type of  many  an  Oxford  Oddity  of  either  sex  ?  It  may  serve  to 
identify  her l  if  I  allow  Mr.  Dillon  to  state  that  '  she  appeared  to 
have  passed  the  meridian  of  life,  and  was  in  person  somewhat 
charge  [sic]  <T  embonpoint ' — a  shocking  reflection  on  her  sex  at 
Oxford  just  a  year  before  Angelo  Cyrus  Bantam,  Esq.,  assured 
Mr.  Pickwick  that '  nobody  was  fat  or  old  in  Bath.' 

The  sights  having  been  done  with  satisfaction  and  the  '  classic 
water '  (surely  a  strange  euphemism  for  College  beer)  having  been 
tasted  at  Magdalene  [sic],  the  real  business  of  the  day  began 
at  six  o'clock  with  the  Lord  Mayor's  return  banquet  at  the  Star. 
Here  indeed  the  Vice-Chancellor,  Dr.  Richard  Jenkyns  of  Balliol, 
the  same  who  founded  the  famous  '  Jenks  '  exhibition  and  lived  to 
condemn  Pusey's  sermon,  together  with  both  Proctors  and  five 
Heads  of  Houses  condescended  to  be  present ;  the  whole  of  the 
Civic  Fathers,  one  county  Member,  and  the  two  city  Members  were 
also  among  the  guests.  Men  then  living  could  remember  when 
the  Mayor  and  aldermen  of  Oxford  had  been  imprisoned  in  the 

1  It  is  quite  possible  that  Dillon  means  Miss  Rachel  Burton,  or,  as  she  was 
familiarly  called,  '  Jack '  Burton,  daughter  of  a  Canon  of  Christ  Church,  '  whose 
flirtations  with  old  Blucher,'  says  Mr.  Tuckwell,  in  his  '  Reminiscences  of  Oxford,' 
on  the  visit  of  the  Allied  Sovereigns,  had  amused  a  former  generation  ' ;  or,  again 
it  may  be  the  Miss  Horseman  mentioned  by  the  same  author  ('  Reminiscences,' 
pp.  8  and  9). 


THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD    IN    1826.     265 

lump  (a  fate  they  no  doubt  have  often  richly  deserved)  for  offering 
for  sale  the  parliamentary  representation  of  their  city.  We  are 
not  told  what  counties  were  ransacked  to  provide  this  second 
banquet ;  Oxon  and  Berks,  we  have  already  learned,  had  been  all 
but  used  up  for  yesterday's  feast.  Nor  does  the  author  dilate  too 
much  on  the  delicacies,  for  he  feels  that  he  holds  the  winning  card  in 
his  hand  without  them.  What  brought  the  Lord  Mayor  in  lengths 
ahead  of  his  friendly  rival  was  the  presence  of  the  ladies  !  and 
Oxford  gracefully  admitted  its  defeat  in  the  race  of  splendour  to  be 
wholly  owing  to  their  absence  on  the  previous  night.  Among  them 
'  the  Lady  Mayoress  attracted  particular  observation,  for  she  wore 
a  towering  plume  of  ostrich  feathers  and  blazed  with  jewels.' 

'  When  the  Chaplain,  by  craving  a  blessing  on  the  feast,  had  set 
the  guests  at  liberty  to  address  themselves  to  the  dainties  before 
them,  it  would  not  have  been  easy  for  an  eye,  however  accustomed 
to  splendour,  not  to  have  been  delighted  in  no  common  manner  with 
the  elegance  of  the  classic  and  civic  scene.'  Not  that  this  was  even 
'  quite  quite,'  for  it '  fell  short  of  the  splendour  '  of  the  feasts  at  the 
Mansion  House,  yet  withal '  when  the  [inferior]  rank  of  the  company 
is  considered  it  might  in  truth  be  called  brilliant.'  When  the  ladies 
had  retired 

'  With  grace, 
Which  won  who  saw  to  wish  their  stay,' 

[  ?  Dillon] 

it  is  with  some  surprise  that  we  read  that  the  conversation  was  not 
in  any  way  changed  by  their  absence  ;  '  so  far  from  being  succeeded 
by  that  vulgar  and  obstreperous  merriment,  or  anything  like  that 
gross  profligacy  of  conversation  which  indicates  rejoicing  at  being 
emancipated  from  the  restraints  of  female  presence,'  it  continued  to 
be  chaste  and  elegant.  The  Oxford  Magistrates  expressed  them- 
selves gratified  at  this ;  perhaps,  before  the  Lord  Mayor  came  among 
them  to  point  a  moral,  their  tales  at  Carfax  banquets  had  been 
adorned  by  gros  sel,  or  perhaps  Alderman  Richard  Wootten  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  throwing  bottles  at  Town  Clerk  Robeson. 
Anyhow  there  can  be  no  question  that  '  the  influence  which  well 
educated  and  amiable  females  have  upon  Society  is  immense.' 

Too  brief  such  scenes  of  joy  !  In  four  hours  the  gentlemen  were 
back  among  the  amiable  females,  and  the  party  broke  up  at  mid- 
night ;  and  on  Thursday  27th,  '  While  the  morning  was  yet  early— 
for  the  Lord  Mayor  had,  the  night  before,  requested  his  friends  not 
to  devote  too  many  hours  to  repose — the  sound  of  footsteps  was 


266     THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO    OXFORD   IN    1826. 

heard  through  the  inn.  .  .  .  Long  before  seven  o'clock  the  whole 
city  was  in  motion  towards  the  Wooden  (Folly)  Bridge l  to  see  his 
Lordship  embark  upon  the  State  Barge.'  There,  too,  was  the 
Navigation  Shallop,  and  the  cook  already  preparing  a  fire  in  a  grate 
fixed  in  the  bow  of  another  large  boat.  '  Every  tree,  every  window 
that  could  admit  a  face  or  a  footstep  was  alive  with  spectators  '  ;  in 
short,  as  when  Drury  Lane  was  burned, 

Thick  calf,  flat  foot,  and  slim  knee 
Mounted  on  roof  and  chimney, 

and  the  Heavens  again  smiled  when  his  Lordship  was  *  launched  on 
the  broad  bosom  of  the  princely  Thames.' 

I  am  not  going  to  describe  the  voyage,  which  would  be  of  little 
interest  to  others  than  topographers  and  navigators.  One  may  see 
a  representation  of  the  State  Barge  on  the  cover  of  the  '  Illustrated 
London  News.'  We  gather,  from  page  102,  that  it  was  towed  by 
horses,  while  the  other  boats  were  rowed,  and  both  rowers  and 
horses  did  perhaps  not  badly  to  reach  Windsor  in  two  days  of 
fifteen  hours  each.  Mr.  Dillon  got  such  remarks  as  he  makes  about 
the  state  of  the  navigation  from  Mr.  Alderman  Lucas,  '  whose 
knowledge,'  he  tells  us, '  of  that  subject  extends  considerably  beyond 
the  rudiments  of  the  Science.'  For  himself,  I  am  sure  he  didn't 
know  a  lock  from  a  weir,  for  he  tells  of  the  '  falls  of  water  bursting 
through  the  floodgates  of  Whitchurch  lock  ' ;  and,  as  for  what  he 
saw  on  the  banks,  he  considered  Iffley  Church  '  a  fine  specimen  of 
the  Saxon  architecture.'  But  from  Lucas,  doubtless,  came  his  very 
sensible  suggestions  for  cutting  off  corners  of  the  towing-path,  for 
prolonging  old  and  making  new  artificial  cuts,  e.g.  at  Clifton  Hamp- 
den,  where,  though  drawing  only  two  feet,  they  stuck  on  the  rocky 
shallow.  The  same  was  the  case  between  Boulter's  Lock  and 
Windsor,  where  the  barge  was  only  floated  because  the  Lord  Mayor 
and  Aldermen  relieved  it  of  their  weight  and  travelled  in  another 
boat.  There  was  no  lock  then  at  Boveney,  and  our  author  proposes 
to  build  one  at  Clewer  Point  (the  historic  '  Sandbank  '  of  Etonian 
oarsmen).  He  also  shows  us  that  the  practice  of  penning  the  water 
to  produce  a  temporary  flush,  on  which  the  whole  system  of  naviga- 
tion had  rested  till  almost  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  had  not 
been  wholly  abandoned  with  the  introduction  of  pound  locks  in  the 
nineteenth.  Another  topographical  point,  which  we  are  apt  to 

1  The  present  bridge,  replacing  the  old  '  Grandpont '  on  which  '  Roger  Bacon's 
Study  '  stood,  was  opened  later  in  this  very  year,  1826  ;  and  the  wooden  bridge, 
to  which  Dillon  refers,  was  no  doubt  a  temporary  structure. 


THE   LORD    MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD    IN    1826.     267 

forget  nowadays,  is  that  Reading  is  not  on  the  Thames  at  all  but  a 
good  mile  or  more  up  the  Kennet. 

But  I  do  not,  and  my  readers  will  not,  care  for  Mr.  Dillon  sober  ; 
let  him  speak  only  when  he  is  drunk  with  verbiage  and  piety.  Much 
of  the  journey  seems  to  have  been  accompanied  by  crowds  upon  the 
banks,  especially  of  urchins,  to  whom  his  Lordship  and  Mr.  Alderman 
Atkins  scattered  continuous  streams  of  halfpence.  It  gratified  the 
moralist  to  see  '  the  absence  of  selfish  feeling  manifested  by  some  of 
the  elder  boys  who,  forgetful  of  themselves,  collected  for  the  younger 
girls  '  (ah  !  how  times  and  boys  must  have  changed  since  that  age 
of  copper)  '  and  there  is  unquestionably  something  genuine  and 
affectionate  in  the  cheerfulness  of  the  common  people  when  it 
springs  from  the  bounty  and  familiarity  of  those  above  them.' 
Arrived  at  Cliefden  (sic  for  Clieveden)  we  moralise  long  on  the 
wicked  Duke  of  Buckingham,  longer  still  upon  the  fact  that  '  his 
Lordship  was  now  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  his  paternal 
fields  ' l  .  .  .  '  with  his  early  life  many  of  the  people  here  were 
acquainted,  and,  as  they  gazed  on  him  '  (he  dined  in  state  at  5  P.M. 
—cold  food — in  the  octagonal  temple  at  Clieveden  Spring)  '  could 
say,  "  He  was  born  in  our  village  !  "  Yes,  *  however  high  and 
wide  the  renown  may  be  which  from  early  boyhood  a  man  has  sought 
in  a  doubtful  world,  however  full  the  harvest  of  applause  he  may 
have  reaped,  yet  when  the  weary  heart  and  failing  head  indicate  that 
the  hour  of  departure  from  this  transitory  scene  will  not  be  much 
longer  delayed,'  then  even  a  Lord  Mayor  will  '  look  back  with 
fondness  to  his  paternal  fields,'  beside  which  '  the  Thames  seemed 
to  awe  itself  into  stilhiess,  as  if  to  listen  attentively  to  the  high 
applause  with  which  its  Chief  Conservator  was  welcomed.' 

But  the  real  gush  of  Pietas  is  reserved  for  the  fact  that 
'  G-eorge  III.  spent  at  Clieveden  the  springtime  of  his  years,  while, 
Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales  lived  there  in  affluence  and  dignity' 
(Fred  !  who  was  alive  and  is  dead  !)  t  superintending  the  education 
of  his  children.' 2  King  George  is  then,  by  a  violent  tour  de  force, 
contrasted  with  Augustus,  though  when  the  latter  resided  at 
Clieveden  is  not  clear.  But  perhaps  Horace  was  right  after  all  in 
his  statement,  hitherto  considered  doubtful,  that  Augustus  annexed 
the  Britons  to  his  empire  as  well  as  the  troublesome  Parthians. 

1  Sir  William  was  born  at  Cookham,  where  his  father  had  been  a  small  paper- 
maker. 

2  The  Prince  rented  Clieveden  from  the  widowed  Lady  Orkney  from  1737  to 
1745,  and  occasionally  stayed  there  in  the  summer.     It  was  there  that  in  1740 
was  presented  the  Masque  which  contained  the  air  of  '  Rule,  Britannia.' 


268     THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD    IN    1826. 

Mr.  Dillon  is  obliged  to  admit  that '  as  a  man  of  letters  George  III. 
was  probably  not  equal  to  tlie  Great  Alfred,  nor  was  his  temper 
milder  or  more  amiable  than  that  of  our  Sixth  Edward,  nor  his 
sanctity  more  eminent  than  that  of  Henry  the  Sixth ! '  (Alas  !  these 
are  poor  compliments,  Sir.  Modern  research  tells  us  that  it  is  more 
than  doubtful  if  King  Alfred  could  read,  while  King  George  certainly 
could  even  write,  though  he  couldn't  write  in  good  grammar,  and  as 
for  King  Edward  VI.,  everyone  knows  now  that  he  was  a  pre- 
cociously cold-blooded  little  wretch.)  But  George's  c  understanding 
rose  above  the  grovelling  ideas  of  vulgar  monarchs  '  (Oh,  Sir,  can  a 
monarch  ever  be  vulgar  ?)  'He  scorned  to  wield  a  nation's  folly  to 
its  own  destruction  ;  he  raised  the  depressed  tone  of  virtuous 
practice  ;  he  adorned  society  with  correct  facetiousness '  (yes,  he 
was  at  times  '  very  fa-ce-ti-ous,'  as  Dominie  Sampson  would  say) ; 
'  the  groans  and  pangs  of  dying  victims  had  no  charm  for  him,'  and 
so  on,  ending  with  a  picture  of  George  III.  as  he  will  appear  on  the 
Kesurrection  morning. 

When  we  reach  Windsor  at  11  P.M.  on  Friday,  and  when  we  have 
thoroughly  '  done  '  the  State  Apartments  on  Saturday  morning,  and 
admired  the  exquisite  taste  with  which  George  IV.  rebuilt  and 
decorated  the  Castle,  we  expect  a  similar  panegyric  on  George  IV. 
But,  no  ;  either  Mr.  Dillon  has  heard  of  Lady  Conyngham,  or,  more 
likely,  the  awe  of  a  living,  if  vulgar,  monarch  is  too  much  for  him, 
and  we  are  merely  asked  to  join  (for  a  page  and  a  half)  in  a  prayer 
for  the  long  duration  of  his  auspicious  reign  and  for  his  ultimate 
apotheosis. 

The  last  day  was  but  a  short  one  ;  the  party  did  not  embark  till 
12  o'clock  and  were  soon  within  the  boundary  of  the  Lord  Mayor's 
jurisdiction  at  the  City  Stone,  round  which  all  walked  three  times  in 
procession  ;  after  this  the  City  Sword  was  placed  upon  the  Stone. 
Three  young  Lords  Beauclerk,  with  a  tutor,  had  been  caught  at 
Windsor  (they  were  '  altogether  devoid  of  that  petulant  volubility 
which  commonly  renders  the  young  impatient  of  the  conversation 
of  their  elders ')  and  one  of  them,  '  dressed  in  a  naval  uniform, 
mounted  the  Stone  and  held  the  City  Banner  aloft  during  the 
performance  of  the  ceremony.'  Orders  were  then  given  to  engrave 
on  the  pedestal  of  the  Stone  an  inscription  commemorating  the 
event,  and  the  Lord  Mayor  scattered  a  hundred  newly  coined 
sixpences  among  the  crowd. 

Richmond  was  the  close  of  the  voyage,  and  the  party — '  every- 
one's countenance  deeply  embrowned  by  long  exposure  to  the  sun 


1  THE   LORD   MAYOR'S   VISIT   TO   OXFORD   IN    1826.     269 

and  air  ' — took  leave  of  the  Lord  Mayor,  who  entered  the  '  private 
State  Carriage '  again,  and  *  the  horses  being  put  at  full  speed ' 
(though  this  was  stated  above  to  be  inconsistent  with  true  greatness) 
'  the  Mansion  House  was  reached  at  ten  o'clock.'  Mr.  Dillon  winds 
up  his  narrative,  first  with  expressing  gratitude  to  heaven  that  the 
conversation  had  been  '  throughout  the  excursion,  so  agreeable, 
that  no  recourse  had  been  necessary  either  to  cards  or  dice,  or  to  any 
other  of  those  frivolous  expedients  of  indolence,  to  which  so  many 
of  the  evening  hours  of  life  are  sacrificed,  and  in  which  that  time  is 
suffered  to  waste  away  which  Providence  allows  us  for  the  duties 
of  our  stations,  and  which,  when  gone,  shall  never  return ' ;  and, 
finally,  with  musings  on  the  Four  Last  Things.  '  The  Party  are 
never  likely  to  meet  again  in  this  world.  An  event  has  happened 
— even  since  the  first  sheets  of  this  little  work  were  put  to  press — 
the  sudden  and  lamented  death  of  one  of  the  Party '  [Alderman 
Mangay],  *  which  not  only  impressively  forbids  this  expectation,  but 
proclaims,  with  the  voice  of  a  passing  bell,  the  tremendous  uncer- 
tainties of  life.'  In  short,  as  in  the  case  of  Hans  Breitmann,  where 
is  dat  Barty  now  ?  The  final  paragraph  of  Piety  is  really  too  Pious 
for  quotation. 

Yeomen  of  the  Provision  Department,  young  Lords  destitute 
of  petulant  volubility,  Aldermen,  Mayors,  even  Lords  Mayors  and 
Ladies  Mayoresses — omnes  eodem  cogimur — quo  George  III. — quo 
dives  Tullus  et  Ancus.  Even  between  Mr.  Dillon  and  ourselves 
there  will  not  roll  for  long  the  unjumpable  Styx. 

C.  K.  L.  FLETCHER. 


270 


THE  LIFE  AND  DESTINIES    OF  MAGISTER 
LA  UKHARD. 

THERE  is  assuredly  no  fairer  land  in  Europe  than  the  ancient 
Palatinate  of  the  Khine.  Kestricted  now  to  a  mere  department  of 
Bavaria,  the  name  three  hundred  years  ago  denoted  wide  territory 
on  both  banks  of  the  great  river,  stretching  scatteredly  from 
Moselle  to  Main  ;  a  land  of  corn  and  of  wine,  of  rich  pastures  and 
nourishing  cities,  and  in  its  midst  the  stately  Heidelberg,  where  for 
a  brief  space  that  most  unhappy  of  English  princesses,  Elizabeth, 
wife  of  the  '  Winter-King '  of  Bohemia,  held  her  lively  Court.  But 
thus  dowered,  like  Italy,  with  the  fatal  gift  of  beauty,  the  Palatinate 
shared  Italy's  unhappy  fate  as  the  fighting  ground  of  foreigners, 
and  was  indeed  the  first  and  sweetest  bone  of  contention  for  the  war 
dogs  of  the  Thirty  Years'  struggle.  Torn  from  the  feeble  grasp  of 
Elizabeth's  husband,  and  never  fully  restored  to  his  heirs,  the 
country  became  a  paradise  of  petty  princes,  all  of  them  calling 
themselves  Palatines  or  Rhinegraves  of  this  or  that,  but  tyrants 
all  in  their  small  way.  Nor  was  that  way  improved  by  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  France,  in  the  slavish  imitation  of  which  the  Electors 
Palatine  had  led  the  way  ever  since  Huguenot  times.  One  of  these 
potentates — he  of  Veldenz — is  actually  said  to  have  proposed  to  sell 
his  principality,  people  and  all,  as  if  it  had  been  a  mere  article  of 
vertu,  to  the  King  of  France.  So  on  political  degradation  and  the 
material  misery  caused  by  incessant  wars  followed  moral  wreck,  and 
of  this  the  remarkable  man  whose  name  stands  at  the  head  of  this 
paper  has  given  us  a  vivid  picture,  and  perhaps  an  example  also. 

Rescued  of  late,  not  indeed  from  mouldy  manuscript,  but  from 
the  scabrous  paper  and  bleared  type  proper  to  German  printing  a 
hundred  years  ago,  the  '  Life  of  Magister  Laukhard '  has  excited 
deep  interest  among  students  of  that  strange  time  when  on  the  one 
hand  Germany  was  ripening  in  rottenness  for  foreign  domination, 
and  when  on  the  other  hand  the  literary  glory  of  her  sons  was  at  its 
height.  It  is  from  the  standpoint  of  these  great  men  and  their 
friends  that  we  usually  judge  the  society  of  this  period  ;  Laukhard 
has  described  the  same  society  from  a  different  point  of  view :  while 
they  look  upon  it  from  the  drawing-room  windows  he  surveys  it 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      271 

from  the  basement,  from  which  other  things  besides  masks  or  even 
faces  are  visible.  Of  the  deep-seated  corruption  of  the  times  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  but  in  Goethe's  '  Weimar '  it  was  covered  over 
by  a  veneer  of  culture  which  was  lacking  in  the  circles  in  which 
Laukhard  moved;  and  yet  those  circles  were  not  always  of  the 
lowest  in  point  either  of  wit  or  wealth. 

Whether  he  himself  was  quite  so  bad  a  man  as  he  makes  out  may 
reasonably  be  doubted.  He  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  possessed, 
like  many  greater  men,  with  a  mania  for  self -accusation.  He  is 
certainly  no  Bunyan,  but  at  the  worst  he  seems  to  have  been  no 
baser  than  his  contemporaries,  and  beside  some  of  them  he  posi- 
tively shines.  His  disgust  at  the  swinish  conduct  of  the  French 
emigres  at  Coblenz  is  righteous  enough,  and  he  has  given  us  only 
too  good  pieces  justificative*  to  bear  him  out.  On  the  other  hand 
his  remorse  for  his  first  sin  is  expressed  in  words  which  would  have 
been  impossible  to,  say,  a  Kousseau.  Only,  being  such  as  he  was, 
it  was  unfortunate  that  he  should  have  given  way  to  the  idea — he 
says  it  was  his  father's — that  he  was  destined  to  become  a  light  of 
the  clerical  profession,  and  he  cannot  see  what  hinders  his  advance- 
ment therein. 

He  is  a  bad,  bad  man,  he  says  with  genuine  tears ;  but  that 
others  should  take  him  at  his  own  valuation  never  enters  into 
his  calculations.  If  he  fails  to  become  a  '  Superintendent '  in  the 
Church,  or  even  a  Court  preacher,  it  is  all  envy  and  malice  and 
wickedness  in  high  places  that  keeps  him  back.  And  vagabond 
as  he  is,  he  is  always  the  beloved  vagabond ;  he  never  lacks  friends 
even  on  a  Kevolutionary  tribunal ;  and  '  impayable  '  as  they  found 
him  in  many  respects,  yet  from  apostate  priests  up  to  princes  of  the 
blood  they  will  always  stand  by  him  at  a  pinch.  That  with  such 
powers  of  attraction,  such  literary  ability,  and  such  keen  appreciation 
of  human  weakness  he  did  not  rise  to  better  things,  in  an  age  in 
which  genius  did  not  always  require  to  be  backed  up  by  character, 
is  explained  by  his  own  open-hearted  confessions. 

Lurid  indeed  is  Laukhard's  account  of  his  own  upbringing. 
Born  somewhere  about  1758  (he  does  not  know  the  exact  date,  and 
when  in  doubt  gets  a  friend  to  forge  a  certificate  of  baptism),  as  the 
son  of  an  unbelieving  clergyman  in  that  same  luckless  Palatinate 
of  the  Rhine,  he  was  made  over  at  an  early  age  to  an  aunt,  who  was 
'  like  most  women  in  the  Palatinate '  an  ardent  '  friend  of  drink.' 
There  was  a  mother  in  the  case,  but  she  was  apparently  a  person 
of  no  account.  The  aunt  not  only  made  use  of  the  child,  as  poor 


272     LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

Oliver  Twist  was  used,  to  get  through  a  small  window  into  the  wine- 
cellar  for  her — for  her  friends  knew  her  conditions  and  locked  it — 
but  shared  her  plunder  with  him,  and  taught  the  six-year-old  child 
to  drink  like  a  fish.  That  his  foolish  old  father  should  ever  have 
had  the  impertinence  to  remonstrate  with  a  son  so  brought  up  for 
anything  he  ever  did  may  appear  incredible  ;  yet  he  is  always 
treated  by  his  cruelly-misused  offspring  with  a  respect  and 
reverence  which  he  certainly  never  deserved  ;  for  a  weak  indulgence 
and  an  equally  reprehensible  capacity  for  supplying  money  at  odd 
times  seem  to  have  been  his  only  virtues.  Yet  when  not  employed 
in  making  gold  or  searching  for  the  elixir  of  life  under  the  guidance, 
first  of  a  coiner,  who  was  hanged,  and  then  of  an  inebriate  apothecary 
of  the  neighbourhood,  the  old  man  did  at  times  devote  a  few  hours 
to  the  instruction  of  his  son.  Unfortunately  his  ideas  of  education 
were,  like  his  theology,  on  ultra-modern  lines  :  he  seems  to  have 
been  a  *  crammer '  of  the  most  uncompromising  type,  and  poor 
Laukhard's  remarks  on  the  effect  of  such  a  system  on  himself  might 
be  commended  to  the  notice  of  some  modern  educationists. 

Incidentally,  and  sketched  with  a  graphic  pencil,  we  have  a 
picture  of  affairs  ecclesiastical  in  the  Palatinate.  That  unhappy 
country  had  been  for  two  centuries  the  prey  not  only  of  furious 
combatants  but  of  scarcely  less  furious  theologians.  The  theo- 
logians had  harried  the  unfortunate  peasants  from  Lutheranism 
to  Calvinism — and  how  Lutheran  could  hate  Calvinist  and  Calvinist 
Lutheran  we  can  now  hardly  imagine — and  back  again,  half  a  dozen 
times,  as  successive  Counts  Palatine  changed  what  they  called  their 
minds.  The  soldiers — Spanish,  Swedish,  Scots  and  English — had 
harried  their  bodies  as  well  as  their  souls,  and  sucked  the  very  life 
out  of  the  country,  which  the  cold-blooded  devastation  ordered 
by  Louis  XIV.  finally  ruined  from  a  temporal  point  of  view.  Moral 
and  spiritual  conditions  were  correspondingly  affected  :  society  was 
wrecked.  Drunkenness  was  as  universal  as  it  was  cheap  in  the  land 
of  Bacharach  and  Berncastel ;  vice  was  the  habitual  recreation  of 
the  peasants  :  but  it  was  in  church  matters  that  the  deepest  depth 
was  reached.  Laukhard's  father's  parish,  nominally  a  Lutheran 
one,  was  in  the  gift  of  the  Romanist  Elector-Bishop  of  Mainz,  and 
the  Elector-Bishop  not  unnaturally  made  his  money  out  of  it ;  sold, 
indeed,  all  such  preferments  to  the  highest  bidder.  They  were  all 
heretics  alike  ;  would  burn  hereafter  ;  and  what  mattered  it  to  his 
Grace  of  Mayence  who  blessed  them  or  cursed  them  with  his  presence 
at  the  parsonage  ? 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      273 

Compelled  to  mortgage  years  of  their  '  living  '  to  buy  themselves 
in,  the  unhappy  Lutheran  clergy  found  themselves  at  the  mercy  of 
duodecimo  princes  and  niggardly  peasant-farmers.  The  former 
had,  as  in  Scotland,  contrived  to  eat  up  bit  by  bit  the  endowments 
of  the  parishes  ;  the  latter  extended  to  the  parson  a  grudging 
hospitality  by  the  stove  of  the  village  inn  of  a  Saturday  night,  and — 
were  rewarded  if  they  could  make  him  too  bemused  to  preach  on  the 
morrow.  Books  the  clergy  had  none,  save  '  postilles  '  and  '  com- 
pendiums '  dating  back  to  the  good  old  times  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War :  the  wigs  and  the  cassocks  which  they  had  worn  at  their  ordina- 
tion must  serve  them  for  the  rest  of  their  natural  life.  No  wonder 
that  they  were  subservient  both  to  prince  and  peasant.  To  Lauk- 
hard,  indeed,  the  worst  of  their  faults  appears  to  be  their  '  crass 
orthodoxy '  ;  but  he  mentions  other  traits.  One  enterprising 
cleric  who  considered  himself  aggrieved  by  a  neighbour — and  a 
Hofprediger  too — crept  up  to  his  enemy's  dining-room  window  and 
fired  '  bullets  chopped  small '  among  the  family  party,  killing  a  girl 
of  eleven  on  the  spot.  He  escaped  and  would  probably  have  been 
let  off,  but  he  committed  suicide.  A  few  instances  like  this,  and  a 
few  of  even  worse  character  indicating  the  most  servile  obedience 
to  the  powers  that  were,  made  Laukhard's  atheistic  old  progenitor 
appear  as  a  very  dove  among  serpents.  No  wonder  these  men  were 
among  the  first  to  welcome  '  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity.' 

A  figure  even  more  characteristic  of  the  times  than  his 
simoniacal  Grace  of  Mainz  was  the  temporal  prince  of  those  parts, 
the  Rhinegrave  of  Crehweiler,  a  wee  wee  German  lairdie,  of  a  bad 
type  in  a  bad  time.  Enjoying  an  income  of  40,000  thalers  (say, 
5000?.  a  year)  he  lived  at  the  rate  of  400,000.  He  dared  do  little 
to  extort  more  by  taxation,  for  he  had  a  feudal  lord  over  him,  the 
Elector  Palatine.  But  what  man  could  do,  he  did.  His  princely 
household,  his  chamberlains,  his  court  musicians,  and  his  outriders 
had  to  be  paid  for.  So,  following  the  example  of  greater  lords, 
even  of  England,  he  required  '  benevolences '  or  forced  loans  from 
his  subjects,  and  got  900,000  Rhenish  gulden  from  them.  But  even 
in  those  bad  times  il  y  avait  des  juges  a  Berlm,  or  rather  at 
Vienna,  and  good  Joseph  II.,  hampered  as  he  was  in  his  philan- 
thropies by  pigtails  and  powder,  could  yet  crush  a  Crehweiler,  and 
did  it.  The  little  principality  was  rescued  and  put  into  the  hands 
of  a  kind  of  official  receiver  ;  while  incidentally  old  Laukhard  was 
delivered  from  the  vengeance  of  a  court  preacher,  whose  '  crass 
orthodoxy  '  had  roused  the  foolish  old  man's  ire. 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  164,  N.S.  18 


274     LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

But  presently  the  old  Pfarrer  recognised  that  his  boy  required 
more  teaching  than  he  could  give  :  he  had,  for  example,  one  craze 
in  which  he  again  anticipated  modern  superstitions  ;  he  regarded 
bad  handwriting  as  a  mark  of  genius  and  taught  it  as  such.  In  time 
he  sent  poor  Frederick  Christian  to  a  kind  of  private  school  a  few 
miles  from  home — as  bad  as  were  schools  of  the  same  class  and  of  the 
same  period  in  England.  Even  there  the  omnivorous  urchin 
managed  to  learn,  and  on  his  return  home  he  fell  into  the  one  real 
romance  of  his  life  ;  he  met  his  Theresa.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a 
petty  official  of  the  little  State,  but  alas  !  a  '  Jesuit  Catholic.'  We 
may  tell  at  once  the  story  of  his  love-making,  and  its  end.  Almost 
had  he  been  persuaded  to  renounce  his  Protestantism,  such  as  it 
was,  for  Theresa's  sweet  sake.  But  it  was  not  to  be.  His  student 
life  and  his  own  inexcusable  follies  left  but  little  room  for  the  pure 
affection  which  should  have  made  him  a  good  husband  and  father. 
On  his  first  return  from  the  wild  ribaldry  of  Giessen  he  finds,  to  his 
surprise — and  his  naive  statement  of  the  natural  fact  goes  far  to 
prove  that  his  Theresa  is  no  figment — that  his  affection  has  become 
cold.  Self-indulgence  has  poisoned  the  very  springs  of  true  love. 
Again  and  again  he  meets  her  ;  but  neither  he  nor  she  cares  much 
for  a  union  which  would  plainly  make  both  unhappy.  She  had,  to 
the  great  pleasing  of  Master  Laukhard's  self-esteem,  refused  several 
good  offers  of  marriage,  but  in  the  end  she  seems  to  have  found  a 
husband,  while  her  lover  late  in  life  espoused  a  good  comfortable 
German  girl  of  the  lower  classes,  who  abused  him  soundly  when 
necessary  for  his  irregularities  and  kept  him  as  well  as  she  could 
within  bounds. 

On  one  point  the  vagabond  is  a  serious  and  unsurpassable 
authority.  What  he  did  not  know  of  the  German  student  life  of 
the  time  was  not  worth  knowing ;  he  was  deep  in  the  mysteries : 
Giessen,  the  wild  and  rather  nasty ;  Marburg,  the  humble  and 
sensible  ;  Strassburg,  the  crassly  orthodox  ;  Gottingen,  the  learned  ; 
Leipzig,  the  priggish  ;  Halle,  the  pietistic  ;  Jena,  the  home  of  every 
German  student's  fancies  and  follies — he  knows  them  all.  At 
Giessen,  his  first '  alma  mater,'  he  took  part  in  tricks  which  seem  to 
us  nowadays  rather  filthy  than  funny.  At  Gottingen  he  was  a  little  j 
daunted  by  the  '  Petimaterei '  of  the  place.  The  word,  derived 
from  petit  maitre,  was  used  contemptuously  to  signify  good 
manners  ;  and  good  manners  were  ever  irksome  to  Laukhard.  Yet 
even  here  he  was  cheered  by  discovering  one  or  two  Englishmen 
capable  of  buffoonery.  But  at  Jena  he  found  the  real  thing  :  the 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF  MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      275 

'  Komment '  in  all  its  glory,  and  what  the  '  Komment '  exactly 
signified  only  the  student  of  the  time  could  tell.  It  was  the  '  Corpus 
Juris  Burschici '  :  the  esoteric  lore  which,  conveyed  in  a  jargon 
unintelligible  to  the  Philistine,  established  a  kind  of  Freemasonry 
between  '  brother  studios  '  all  through  Germany.  Each  University 
had  its  own  version,  but  Jena  possessed  the  archetype.  There 
Laukhard  lodged  in  the  Leutragasse,  there  he  sat  in  the  Fiirsten- 
keller — name  dear  to  English  and  Scottish  students  of  thirty  years 
ago — and  was  at  once  taken  to  the  heart  of  all  present  as  one  of  the 
faithful. 

Before  his  settlement — and  catastrophe — at  Halle,  we  find 
him  wandering  almost  as  a  beggar-student  from  one  university  to 
another.  Where  there  was  a  river  available  and  a  market-boat 
on  it  he  went  by  that ;  sometimes  he  got  a  cheap  back  seat  on  a 
coach,  but  mostly  he  walked  and  kept  his  eyes  open.  In  trudging 
through  Hesse,  for  example,  he  noticed  the  awful  misery  of  the 
people  and  its  cause — the  Landgrave's  sale  of  his  soldiers,  the 
breadwinners  of  the  land,  to  England  and  other  Powers.  But 
his  liveliest  picture  is  of  Wetzlar,  the  law-capital  of  the  Empire, 
a  faint  copy  of  the  Edinburgh  of  the  time,  it  would  appear,  and 
just  then  frenzied  with  Goethe- worship.  That  the  vagabond  found 
society  there  too  stiff  for  him  does  not  imply  that  it  was  very 
elevated,  for  the  society  which  he  did  not  find  too  stiff  must  have 
been  flexible  indeed.  But  what  delights  us  is  his  account  of  the 
crack-brained  ceremony  with  which  Goethe's  admirers  honoured 
the  grave  of  one  Jerusalem  (the  very  name  should  have  been 
enough  to  stifle  sentiment)  who  was  supposed  to  be  the  original 
of  Werther.  The  enthusiastic  idiots  met  at  night,  read  little  ex- 
tracts from  Goethe,  sang  little  songs  by  little  poets,  and  after 
'  weeping  and  howling  full  manfully '  lit  wax  tapers  and  formed  a 
procession  so  gruesome  to  the  view  that  those  who  met  it  crossed 
themselves  and  fled,  deeming  it  a  diversion  of  devils.  Arrived  at 
the  tomb  they  stood  round  it  in  a  ring,  chanted  more  little  staves 
in  praise  of  suicide  and  free  love  and  so  on,  and  went  home  sneezing. 
A  week  after  they  proposed  to  play  the  same  game  again,  but  a 
paternal  police  interfered.  Fantastic  '  Schwarmers  '  of  the  baser 
sort  might  be  permitted  to  make  themselves  ridiculous  ;  but  when 
high  officials  of  the  Imperial  Court  and  ladies  of  quality  were  like 
to  descend  from  their  pedestals,  they  must  be  protected  from 
themselves.  Laukhard  adds,  with  some  malice,  that  Jerusalem 
blew  his  foolish  brains  out,  not  for  love  at  all,  but  to  revenge  a 

18—2 


276      LIFE   AND    DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

real  or  fancied  insult  offered  to  them,  which  he  as  the  '  son  of  an 
abbot '  could  not  put  up  with. 

But  to  return  to  the  vagabond's  own  '  Life  and  Destinies.' 
Of  all  professions  in  the  world  he  was  surely,  with  his  upbringing, 
least  fitted  for  the  Church.  Yet  into  the  Church  he  must  go,  or  at 
least  become  a  theologue  with  a  view  to  an  ultimate  livelihood  as 
one  of  those  egregious  Pfarrers  of  the  Palatinate.  The  value  of 
his  father's  opinions  on  the  matter  may  be  estimated  from  his 
question  put  to  his  son  when  the  boy  was  thinking  of  turning 
Papist  for  the  sake  of  his  Theresa  :  '  Wilt  thou  exchange  the  lesser 
folly  of  Lutheranism  for  the  greater  folly  of  Romanism  ?  '  Edu- 
cated in  such  a  school,  the  lad  was  to  make  his  first  essay  in  Chris- 
tian eloquence  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  accordingly  learned  by 
heart  a  sermon  of  someone  else's,  and  preached  it,  his  foolish  old 
father  listening  outside  the  Church  and  admiring  the  elegance  of 
his  discourse.  The  young  man's  capacity  and  wit  and  learning 
could  never  help  him  to  an  honourable  position  while  such  in- 
fluences were  at  work  in  his  life. 

This,  however,  was  but  an  interlude  in  academic  life.  Too 
coarse  for  Gottingen  and  too  rowdy  even  for  Giessen,  Laukhard 
was  now  commended  to  that  most  gentle  of  pietists,  Semler  of 
Halle,  and  actually  became  an  inmate  of  his  house.  The  house 
was  a  curious  one,  perhaps  not  unlike  those  early  academic  '  halls  ' 
which  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  development  of  the  English 
universities.  Semler  was  a  kind  of  principal,  and  a  number  of 
students  lodged  in  the  house,  while  a  good  many  more  had  their 
dinner  there.  Laukhard,  when  he  became  a  Magister  at  all  events, 
exercised  a  certain  control  over  them,  but  they  were  a  wild  crew, 
and  poor  Semler  was  moved  to  remonstrate,  especially  in  the 
case  of  one  young  aristocrat  who  only  got  out  of  bed  twice  a  week, 
and  then  persisted  in  sitting  about  '  mit  nodings  on.'  And  this 
kind  of  folly,  says  Laukhard,  was  contagious.  Of  student  follies 
he  has  much  to  say.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the  '  orders,'  the 
'  Landsmannschafts,'  '  Corps,'  and  afterwards  the  '  Burschens- 
chafts  '  began  to  spread  through  the  universities,  and  Laukhard 
has  but  one  word  to  describe  them — '  childishness.'  In  truth 
they  had  not  as  yet  shown  their  good  points  ;  they  were  Frenchified 
to  the  last  degree.  Orders  of  '  Amicists,'  '  Inviolabilists,'  '  Despera- 
tists,'  and  the  like  savour  rather  of  sickly  sentiment  than  of  the 
German  honesty  and  love  of  the  Fatherland  which  was  to  make 
the  Burschenschafts,  at  all  events,  so  prominent  in  the  coming 


LIFE   AND    DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      277 

struggle  for  freedom.  Even  in  their  drinking  bouts  the  '  order 
brothers  '  talked  French.  '  A  bonne,'  said  the  Jena  student  to 
Laukhard  when  he  should  have  said  '  Prosit !  '  The  Magister  knew 
them  from  within  and  despised  them.  He  indicates  that  in  one  case 
an  order  was  broken  up  by  a  professor  who  simply  printed  its 
rules  ! 

In  the  course  of  his  wanderings  Laukhard  had  one  narrow 
escape,  coming  off,  perhaps,  better  than  he  deserved ;  and  there- 
with had  his  first  brief  experience  of  soldiering  ;  for,  taking  his 
wine  at  Frankfort  in  a  place  where  another  '  Master '  of  kindred 
type,  Francois  Villon,  would  have  been  much  at  his  ease,  he  made 
the  acquaintance  of  a  fair-spoken  gentleman  who  proved  to  be  a 
crimp,  and  awoke  next  morning  in  a  strange  room,  with  a  bad 
headache,  and  four  ducats  in  his  pocket  which  he  could  not 
account  for,  to  find  himself  a  soldier  in  the  Austrian  army.  By 
good  luck  he  was  able  to  persuade  his  captors  to  send  for  the 
major,  who  was  a  gentleman.  We  note,  by  the  way,  that  Laukhard 
never  has  an  ill  word  for  the  Imperial — as  opposed  to  the  Prussian 
— service.  The  major  came,  found  the  poor  scholar  sitting  there 
with  the  before-mentioned  head  on  him,  sipping  brandy  to  steady 
his  nerves,  and  after  a  few  sensible  questions  to  test  his  veracity, 
and  some  yet  more  sensible  advice  for  the  future,  let  him  go.  And, 
indeed,  Laukhard  might  have  fallen  into  much  worse  hands  :  he, 
at  least,  found  four  ducats  in  his  purse.  In  the  French  service 
at  the  time,  if  MM.  Erckmann-Chatrian  knew  what  they  were 
writing  about,  a  drunken  recruit  would  assuredly  have  been  robbed 
even  of  his  '  King's  shilling.' 

And  now,  at  the  mature  age  of  twenty-one,  Laukhard  was 
expected  by  his  father  to  take  up  the  vocation — secure  if  not 
lucrative — of  parish  priest.  His  cleanly  education  had  been  im- 
proved by  a  study  of  Voltaire,  upon  whom  and  upon  the  English 
deists  he  has  a  few  incisive  remarks.  With  a  flash  of  worldly 
wisdom  the  old  Pfarrer  recommended  his  son  to  seek  preferment 
elsewhere  than  in  the  Palatinate,  where  he  was  too  well  known. 
But  the  history  of  his  travels  in  search  of  a  parish  is  monotonous, 
a  mere  catalogue  of  disappointments.  Here  he  was  expected  to 
marry  the  old  parson's  daughter,  and  she  would  not  have  him  ; 
here  he  was  expected  to  pay  more  for  the  living  than  he  could 
raise.  In  one  place  he  did  obtain  a  kind  of  locum-tenency,  and 
held  it  for  some  months,  being,  as  he  assures  us,  very  popular 
with  the  farmers.  We  can  quite  believe  it,  and  that  the  liking 


278     LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

was  founded  on  other  qualities  than  those  of  boon  companionship. 
But  everywhere  the  end  was  the  same :  he  had  to  go,  and  could 
never  understand  why,  good  easy  man. 

The  stickit  minister,  somewhat  reversing  the  usual  order  of 
things,  took  refuge  in  university  lecturing.  He  had  obtained  the 
now  obsolete  degree  of  '  Magister '  at  Halle,  after  a  disputation 
in  which  his  own  brother  (his  one  enemy)  was  his  toughest  op- 
ponent, and  started  as  an  extra-mural  lecturer ;  at  the  good  Sem- 
ler's  suggestion,  however,  he  avoided  theology  and  discoursed  on 
the  history  of  the  Empire.  Students  came  in  plenty,  he  says,  but 
they  and  he  laboured  under  two  difficulties — impecuniosity  and 
cold.  They  could  not  pay  for  his  lectures,  and  he  could  not  pay 
for  firewood,  and  they  were  finally  frozen  out.  In  all  probability, 
though  he  does  not,  of  course,  recognise  it,  his  presence  at  numerous 
students'  orgies  had  something  to  do  with  his  failure.  At  all  events, 
on  Christmas  Day,  1786,  bereft  alike  of  heat  and  hearers,  after  long 
hours  spent  in  stolid  despair,  and  fortified  for  the  tremendous 
step  by  hearing  early  mass,  he  'listed — became  a  Prussian  soldier. 
His  friends  were  in  despair,  but  he  maintained  the  calm  of  a  philo- 
sophic suicide ;  he  would  not  be  bought  out ;  no,  he  would  persevere 
to  the  bitter  end ;  and  his  childlike  heart  seems  to  have  been 
mightily  comforted  by  the  new  reputation  which  he  had  gained. 
It  purely  delighted  him  when  the  urchins  chanted  scurrilous  songs 
upon  him  in  the  streets  ;  for  to  that  last  infirmity  of  noble  minds, 
the  desire  of  notoriety,  Magister  Laukhard  was  a  willing  victim. 

His  first  experiences  as  a  Prussian  soldier  are  diverting  beyond 
measure.  His  drill  was  done  in  the  living-room  of  an  under- officer, 
who  put  him  through  his  paces  while  he  himself  sat  darning  stock- 
ings with  the  Schnapps  bottle  before  him,  clad  in  an  old  blue 
cloak,  with  a  black  '  poodle-cap  '  on  his  head  and,  for  appearance 
sake,  his  side-arms  on.  But,  nevertheless,  Laukhard  was  happy  ; 
his  comrades  loved  the  derelict  scholar  as  the  boors  of  Hesse  had 
loved  him,  for  his  genial  presence  and  that  improving  conversation 
of  which  he  has,  unfortunately,  left  us  no  specimens.  He  was  lucky 
in  his  captain,  who  bore  the  honoured  name  of  Muffling,  who 
actually  never  opened  his  private  letters,  and  who  entrusted  him 
with  the  education  of  his  children.  Onc-.%  too,  he  had  an  experience 
never  to  be  forgotten  :  he  saw,  with  his  own  unworthy  eyes,  the 
great  captain  himself — Fritz  of  Prussia  ;  and  with  the  record  of 
that  blessed  moment  he  ends  a  chapter. 

Even  in  the  lifetime  of  the  great  warrior  we  can  trace  the  signs 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAG1STER   LAUKHARD.     279 

of  the  downward  progress  from  the  triumph  of  Eosbach  to  the 
rout  of  Jena.  Soldiers  drilled  in  kitchens  while  the  sergeant  knits 
stockings  can  hardly  have  much  sense  of  discipline  and  military 
self-respect ;  and  the  disorder  was  increased  by  the  economical 
regulation  which  permitted  the  soldier,  who  was  a  '  child  of  the 
country,'  to  live  at  home  and  feed  himself  for  three-quarters  of 
the  year.  For  recruits  from  other  lands  it  was  far  otherwise ;  they, 
it  was  feared,  might  escape  from  slavery.  So  when  Laukhard 
wanted  furlough  his  friends  had  to  give  heavy  bail  for  his  re- 
appearance (we  may  note,  in  passing,  that  he  walked  home  in  tight 
boots,  and  never  quite  recovered  from  that  experience).  Marriage, 
however,  was  freely  permitted  to  the  soldier,  and  therefore,  says 
Laukhard,  he  is  loth  to  go  to  war  ;  brave  as  a  lion,  he  must  needs 
cry  when  he  leaves  wife  and  child.  And,  in  truth,  his  chances  of 
seeing  them  again  were  not  great,  for  his  principal  danger  came, 
not  from  the  enemy,  but  from  those  of  his  own  household ;  if  he 
once  got  into  hospital  and  did  not  die  there  it  was  not  the  fault  of 
the  authorities.  Laukhard  was  a  soldier  in  the  campaign  of  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  against  France  in  1792,  and  he  took  part  in 
the  terrible  retreat  from  Valmy  which  completed  the  ruin  of  the 
German  army.  Goethe,  an  eye-witness  also,  describes  the  same 
affair ;  but  whereas  his  view  of  things  is  that  of  a  high  official 
from  headquarters,  Laukhard's  is  that  of  the  ragged  Prussian 
musketeer  from  the  quagmire  called  a  road,  from  the  miserable 
bivouac,  and,  worst  of  all,  from  the  lazarette.  He  was  spared  none 
of  the  horrors,  and  he  spares  us  none ;  couleur  de  rose  is  a  tint 
unknown  from  his  point  of  view.  However,  here  he  is  a  genuine 
and  graphic  historian  ;  brief  descriptions,  awful  enough  in  them- 
selves, like  that  of  Carlyle  with  his  '  latrines  full  of  blood '  are 
completed  and  supplemented  with  horrors  unutterable.  Of  the 
frightful  dysentery  which  scourged  the  troops — ill-fed  and  utterly 
uncared-for  in  sanitary  matters — Laukhard  does  not  spare  us  the 
details.  The  Moselle,  '  covered  with  a  scum  of  floating  dung,' 
from  which  the  soldiers  had  to  drink,  is  bad  enough  ;  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  encampments  in  mud  and  filth  is  indescribably  worse ; 
but  the  climax  is  reached  in  the  account  of  the  hospitals.  For  a 
nation  organised  for  war  as  the  Prussian  people  was  supposed  to 
be,  the  state  of  things  was  doubly  disgraceful.  Crippled  corporals 
were  the  nurses ;  mere  barber-surgeons  the  medical  officers — 
'  ^Esculapian  buffaloes,'  as  the  Magister  terms  them  in  his  wrath. 
With  200  or  300  cases  to  attend  to,  they  were  content  to  bandage 


280      LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

half-a-dozen  wounds  of  a  morning,  and  then,  as  it  is  alleged,  passed 
the  remainder  of  the  day  in  drinking,  and  actually  gambled  away 
to  the  inspecting  officers  the  money  entrusted  to  them  to  purchase 
comforts  for  the  patients.  There  may  be  exaggeration  in  this, 
but  Laukhard's  literal  account  of  what  he  saw  in  the  hospital  at 
Longwy  bears  on  it  the  stamp  of  horrid  truth.  The  poor  wretches 
knew  what  they  had  to  expect,  and  when  hardly  able  to  stand  for 
weakness  caused  by  the  dysentery  they  would  protest  that  they 
were  sound,  lest  they  should  be  sent  to  hospital.  When  Laukhard 
himself  became  a  male  nurse,  a  year  or  two  after,  he  found  the 
French  hospitals  far  better  arranged  and  served.  But  it  is  difficult 
for  us  to  understand  how  very  recent  are  the  real  improvements 
in  the  care  of  wounded  soldiers.  In  the  war  between  Germany 
and  France  in  1870  '  wounds  in  the  knee  generally  proved  fatal '  ; 
in  that  between  Russia  and  Turkey,  where  surgeons  from  half 
Europe  gave  their  services,  men  with  bullets  in  the  skull  were 
sometimes  left  untended  till  the  probe,  when  it  was  used,  '  rattled 
on  the  maggots'  eggs  in  the  wound  '  ;  while  in  many  points,  though 
not  the  grossest,  Laukhard's  description  of  the  sufferings  of  his 
comrades  recalls  those  of  our  own  troops  in  the  Crimea. 

Out  of  this  inferno  he  came  safely.  At  Valmy  he  had  run  no 
particular  risk  :  his  description  of  that  '  decisive  battle  of  the 
world '  is  indeed  amazing.  He  depicts  it  as  a  mere  cannonade, 
in  which  the  armies  never  got  to  close  quarters  and  in  which  the 
German  loss  in  killed  and  wounded  (it  came  to  much  the  same 
thing  apparently)  was  160  only.  He  is  perhaps  not  quite  trust- 
worthy here ;  his  sympathies  are  plainly  with  the  French ;  he  is 
already  a  sansculotte  in  principle,  as  he  afterwards  became  one  in 
action,  or  rather  inaction.  The  Duke  of  Brunswick  himself  had 
been  personally  kind  to  him,  and  as  Laukhard  can  never  really 
think  ill  of  a  patron,  he  cannot  understand  so  popular  a  Prince 
issuing  the  famous  manifesto  which  roused  all  France  to  frenzy. 
But  his  account  of  the  advance  into  France  and  the  ravages  which 
accompanied  it  is  coloured  ;  he  has  no  patriotism  to  make  him  see 
the  brighter  side  of  things  ;  for  the  Fatherland  which  would  not 
make  a  Court  preacher  of  him,  the  vagabond,  has  no  claims  upon  him- 
What  impresses  him  in  the  matter  is  the  magnanimous  conduct  of 
the  French  in  not  annihilating  Brunswick's  army  on  its  staggering 
retreat  through  Lorraine  ;  and  for  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI.  he 
has  ready  excuse.  It  should  be  added  in  his  defence  that  he  had 
had  personal  experience  of  the  uncleanly  horde  of  emigres  at  Coblenz, 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES  OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      281 

and  resented  being  sent  with  his  comrades  '  to  the  slaughter-house  ' 
for  the  sake  of  such.  Like  many  other  Teutons  of  that  sad  time, 
he  regarded  republican  France  as  the  promised  land  of  liberty — 
but  being  once  arrived  there  was  glad  enough  to  get  out  of  it,  as  soon 
as  he  had  the  chance,  with  his  head  on  his  shoulders. 

'  I  hate  desertion,'  says  he  ;  but  this  is  '  Steenie  lecturing  against 
incontinence  '  with  a  vengeance,  for  he  deserts  no  less  than  three 
times  ;  and  the  first  of  his  desertions  came  about  in  strange  wise. 
The  see-saw  of  French  and  German  successes  on  the  Rhine,  in  1793, 
found  pause  for  a  time  in  the  siege  of  Landau,  a  German  fortress 
long  held  by  the  French.     For  the  attack  of  this  masterpiece  of 
Vauban's  fortification  the  besieging  Prussians  had,  characteristically 
enough,  little  or  no  artillery.     It  was  resolved  to  employ  treachery, 
and  Laukhard  was  selected  as  the  agent  of  corruption.     There  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  his  statement  that  he  was  known,  and  well  known, 
to  some  of  the  princely  chiefs  of  his  army  ;  the  unfortunate  want  of 
discretion  shown  by  those  personages  in  the  choice  of  their  asso- 
ciates is  known  from  other  sources,  and  Laukhard  was  no  doubt  a 
veritable  treasure  as  a  raconteur.     He  repaid  their  familiarity  as 
was  to  be  expected — by  estimates  of  their  character  sketched  from 
a  somewhat  low  standpoint.     The  King  of  Prussia,  it  is  true,  is  for 
him  half  a  hero,  but  rendered  less  heroic  by  his  invulnerability  :  only 
a  silver  bullet  can  kill  him,  if  stories  are  true,  and  therefore  it  is 
little  glory  to  him  to  ride  through  a  shower  of  lead.     With  Max  of 
Bavaria,  afterwards  King  Max  I.,  the  Magister  was  admitted  to 
conversation  which  bordered  on  intimacy ;  he  explained  his  re- 
publican views  to  the  delight  of  this  enlightened  prince,  and  got  a 
piece  of  gold  and  an  assurance  that  he  might '  rely  on  the  friendship 
of  his   Maximilian.'     His   acquaintance   with   Prince   Hohenlohe 
proved  more  dangerous  ;   for  that  Commander  had  heard  that 
Dentzel,  the  *  representative  deputy '  at  Landau,  was  a  friend  of 
Laukhard.     This   person,  one  of  the  emissaries  whom   the  ever- 
jealous  Republic  commonly  sent  to  hamper  its  generals  in  the  field, 
thwart  their  policy,  and  spy  on  their  actions,  was  in  truth  one  of 
the  rogue's  acquaintances — of  course  an  apostate  Lutheran  priest, 
and  equally  of  course  an  exile  for  social  reasons  :  in  this  case  ap- 
parently only  for  libelling  a  virtuous  woman.     This  man  it  was 
hoped  to  corrupt,  and  Laukhard  was  to  be  the  instrument,  as  a 
pretended  deserter.     But  Laukhard  kicked  :  his  head  would  be  at 
stake,  and  he  loved  his  head.     It  took  a  whole  series  of  captains 
and  adjutants,  including  the  ill-fated  Prince  Louis  of  Prussia,  and 


282      LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

ending  with  the  Crown  Prince  himself,  to  bring  him  to  the  point. 
At  breakfast  (wine  included)  with  the  last-named,  the  matter  was 
finally  arranged,  and  Laukhard  got  a  paper  under  the  Prince's 
own  hand  to  show  to  Dentzel.  He  had  now,  to  prevent  future 
unpleasantness,  to  explain  to  his  fellow  soldiers  that  he  really 
intended  to  desert ;  and  they  received  the  news  with  equanimity. 
Not  so  the  officers,  who  were  to  see  the  deserter  safely  desert !  His 
captain  '  had  his  heart  so  full  that  he  could  scarce  speak  to  me,' 
and  when  he  took  leave  of  the  rogue,  rather  too  near  the  French 
outposts  as  it  proved  (for  he  was  nearly  caught  himself),  could  but 
press  his  hand  and  listen  in  silence  to  his  noble  farewell :  '  a  man  of 
honour  keeps  his  word  though  it  cost  his  life.' 

The  man  of  honour  was  gathered  in,  though  with  some  suspicion, 
by  a  picket  of  dragoons,  to  whom  he  discoursed  of  '  commands  and 
obedience,  righteousness,  liberty,  and  respect  for  the  law.'  Much 
edified,  they  conducted  him  to  the  military  commandant,  Laubadere, 
who  was  also  impressed  by  his  language  and  finally  sent  him  on  to 
the  great  Spartan  ephor  himself,  Dentzel,  whom  he  found  at  break- 
fast with  his  generals  and  one  of  those  Egerias  who  solaced  repub- 
lican deputies  for  their  absence  from  Paris.  His  old  boon  com- 
panion received  him  kindly  enough,  but  there  his  success  ended. 
He  was  consigned  to  the  real  deserters'  quarters,  which  were  vile 
enough  to  revolt  even  him,  and  peopled  with  the  scum  of  the  German 
armies,  who  came  straggling  in  nightly,  sold  their  accoutrements, 
and  drank  the  proceeds.  In  his  actual  mission  he  failed  egregiously  ; 
Dentzel  rejected  all  thought  of  treason,  and  Laukhard  only  suc- 
ceeded in  bringing  suspicion  upon  him.  The  deputy  was,  of 
course,  at  loggerheads  with  Laubadere,  and  it  was  not  long  before, 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  the  city  rang  with  the  traditional  cry  of 
'  nous  sommes  trahis,'  and  demands  for  Dentzel's  head.  Fired  at 
on  his  own  balcony  by  twenty  '  volunteers  '  (and  missed),  compelled 
to  take  refuge  in  the  congenial  shelter  of  a  winecask  in  his  own  cellar, 
and  placed  under  arrest  by  Laubadere,  the  deputy  never  betrayed 
his  old  friend,  and  was  in  due  time  reinstated,  became  a  general  of 
some  kind  under  Napoleon,  and  was  eventually  commandant  in 
Carl  August's  Weimar.  But  who  so  innocent  as  Laukhard  ?  All 
he  regrets  is  that  he  had  not  '  insinuated  himself  into  the  Re- 
public and  made  his  fortune ' — apparently  by  making  further 
mischief.  He  remained  in  Landau  till  it  was  relieved,  and  some 
of  his  remarks  as  to  the  danger  of  walking  in  the  streets  of  a  boi 
barded  town  tempt  one  to  doubt  whether  he  was  quite  a  dare-de> 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      283 

for  courage.  Certainly  he  had  little  occasion  for  it  in  his  new  part 
of  a  sansculotte  ;  for  now  he,  the  hater  of  desertions,  had  his 
opportunity :  he  deserted  de  facto,  and  became  one  of  that  heroic 
band.  If  the  rest  were  like  him  they  did  little  harm  to  anyone 
except  their  fellow-countrymen.  Never  trusted,  but  always 
regarded  as  a  deserter  and  herded  together  with  that  unsavoury 
crew,  the  only  service  he  ever  rendered  to  the  Republic  was  to  draw 
a  liberal  daily  pay,  and  it  would  appear  that  many  of  those  '  Death 
and  Glory  Boys  '  did  little  else.  Once,  indeed,  they  were  inveigled 
towards  the  frontier  and  the  fighting,  but  they  found  out  the  plot 
and  escaped  somehow.  So  Laukhard  passed  a  fairly  idle  twelve- 
month, now  as  a  male  nurse  in  hospital,  now  in  giving  lessons  in 
French  to  German  officers  in  bondage ;  sponging,  of  course,  on  all 
and  sundry  for  wine.  It  was  cheap — two  sous  the  bottle — and,  as 
he  says,  his  improving  conversation  merited  such  favours.  But  now, 
unhappily,  his  loose  tongue  landed  the  luxurious  sansculotte  in  a 
moonlight  duel  in  a  backyard,  where  he  received  a  wound  in  the 
breast,  which,  partly  owing  to  his  own  excesses  and  partly  to  the 
bad  surgery  of  the  times,  troubled  him  for  years.  The  love  of 
Fatherland  woke  in  him  afresh,  but  he  always  hated  a  deserter, 
and  so  wrote  (of  all  people  in  the  world  to  whom  to  write  !)  to  poor 
Dentzel  at  Paris,  to  get  him  his  discharge.  Dentzel  was  then  passing 
through  the  customary  routine,  and  taking  his  turn  in  gaol,  like  all 
other  patriots,  with  a  prospect  of  soon  commanding  the  services  of 
Monsieur  de  Paris ;  and  of  course  the  letter  was  opened  by  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety.  Public  safety  demanded  and  effected 
Laukhard's  instant  arrest,  and  the  most  shameful  confession  which 
he  makes  in  this  book  is  to  the  effect  that  he  actually  contemplated 
saving  his  own  skin  by  denouncing  Dentzel  as  a  traitor.'  He  was, 
indeed,  in  the  depths  of  terror  ;  yet,  as  at  other  critical  moments, 
the  beloved  vagabond  found  friends.  The  public  prosecutor,  in  the 
face  of  his  own  most  damaging  and  pusillanimous  admissions  as  to 
the  Landau  business,  got  him  off  in  spite  of  the  judges,  and  he  was 
actually  liberally  compensated  by  the  Republic  for  the  moral  and 
material  disturbance  caused  by  his  imprisonment.  He  would 
probably  have  had  but  little  difficulty  now  in  obtaining  his  discharge 
from  the  '  service.'  But  with  a  perfect  superfluity  of  naughtiness 
he  preferred  to  do  so  with  the  aid  of  forged  certificates  of  identity, 
which  he  got  a  friend  (as  usual  a  renegade  monk  in  Germany)  to 
fabricate,  and  so  returned  with  glory  to  the  Fatherland. 

Peremptorily  rejected  by  the  Swiss  authorities  at  Basle  as  an 


284      LIFE   AND    DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD. 

undesirable  alien,  and  forbidden  to  make  his  way  to  Zurich,  where  he 
had  actually  had  an  introduction  to  the  good  Gessner,  he  fell  again 
into  the  hands  of  the  emigres,  and  for  a  change  and  a  small  monetary 
consideration  enlisted  under  them  in  a  company  of  thirty  men, 
with  one  general,  the  Prince  de  Rohan,  two  colonels,  five  captains 
and  several  other  officers.  He  had  always  loathed  a  deserter,  but 
he  made  no  scruple  about  giving  this  crew  the  slip,  and  joined  a 
Swabian  regiment — one  of  the  last  representatives  of  the  old 
mediaeval  '  troops  of  the  circles.'  Here  he  was  happy  and  idle, 
as  well  supplied  with  wine  as  he  could  desire,  and  well  paid.  But 
according  to  his  own  account  his  humane  soul  revolted  at  having  as 
corporal  to  lay  on  a  score  of  stripes  on  the  defaulting  private. 
He  therefore  '  seldom  attended  parade,'  and  presently,  by  the  favour 
of  his  ancient  patron  the  Crown  Prince  of  Prussia,  obtained  his 
discharge  again.  Before  he  went,  however,  he  witnessed,  and 
has  described,  the  gruesome  punishment  of  two  German  burghers 
who  had  acted  as  spies  for  the  French.  They  were  condemned 
to  run  the  gauntlet  of  300  men  for  three  days  in  succession  ;  they 
never  did  so,  for  after  the  first  day  they  died. 

At  this  point  the  autobiography  does  not  indeed  cease,  but 
becomes  trivial  and  tedious.  He  degenerates  into  the  man  with  a 
grievance,  and  what  is  worse  not  only  a  grievance  but  a  claim. 
He  makes  his  way  into  the  very  presence  of  the  Crown  Prince,  now 
King  of  Prussia,  at  Berlin,  and  obtains  from  him  the  promise  of  his 
countenance  as  candidate  for  an  academic  appointment.  But  alas ! 
the  academic  appointment  contemplated  is  at  Halle,  and  no  worse 
place  than  Halle  could  be  imagined  wherein  to  ask  for  a  place  for 
Magister  Laukhard.  The  University  authorities  joyfully  accept  the 
opportunity  of  expressing  their  opinion  of  their  graduate,  and  he 
returns  to  his  vagabond  life.  By  means  which  remind  us  forcibly  of 
the  methods  pursued  by  his  unhappy  prototype,  Richard  Savage, 
he  succeeded  in  disgusting  all  his  patrons,  high  and  low,  and  he  had 
many.  He  married,  and  got  what  he  deserved  in  the  way  of  mar- 
riage, and  at  last  actually  obtained,  what  in  his  earlier  days  he  had 
in  vain  striven  and  sinned  for,  a  church  preferment  in  the  new 
French  '  Department  of  the  Saar.'  But  misfortune  dogged  his  steps 
still.  Among  his  various  literary  productions,  chiefly  romances 
distinguished  apparently  for  bad  taste  and  personalities,  there  was 
one  directed  against  Napoleon.  It  was  nothing  very  terrible,  but 
the  First  Consul  did  not  as  Emperor  forget  or  forgive  such  things, 
and  the  Minister  of  Public  Worship  discovered  that  Laukhard  was 


LIFE   AND   DESTINIES   OF   MAGISTER   LAUKHARD.      285 

not  all  that  a  pastor  should  be.  Once  more  he  was  driven  out 
into  the  world,  and  there,  somewhere  and  somehow,  he  lived  on  till 
1822,  when  he  died  in  poverty. 

And  this,  to  use  his  own  words,  is  the  picture  of  Magister 
Laukhard  as  he  lived  and  breathed.  Psychologically  interesting 
enough  as  the  portrait  of  a  sinner  who  was  neither  a  vain-glorious  liar 
like  Casanova,  a  sly  rake  like  Pepys,  nor  a  prurient  philosopher 
like  Rousseau,  it  mainly  claims  our  attention  for  the  vivid  colouring 
of  its  surroundings.  All  true  biography,  in  Goethe's  opinion  at 
least,  deserves  our  interest ;  still  more  when  it  includes  portraits 
so  life-like,  dramas  so  realistic,  and  experiences  so  natural  and  yet 
so  amazing  as  those  of  the  Beloved  Vagabond  of  the  Palatinate. 

A.  T.  S.  GOODRICK. 


286 


THE   GHOST  IN   THE  HOUSE. 

WHEN  a  man  takes  a  hansom  from  Charing  Cross  to  St.  Martin's 
Lane  and  a  taxicab  from  one  side  of  Piccadilly  to  the  other,  it 
means  that  he  is  either  burning  the  candle  at  both  ends  or  husband- 
ing what  little  wick  remains.  So  that  when  the  light  of  Batterbee 
— Horace  Beauchamp  Batterbee — went  out,  one  winter,  at  the 
first  sharp  puff  of  north-east  wind,  nobody  was  in  the  least  sur- 
prised. Everybody  had  predicted  the  event.  Therefore  every- 
body was,  in  secret,  a  little  pleased.  Though,  of  course,  they  were 
all  very  sorry  for  Batterbee,  and  said  charitably  that  if  he  hadn't 
helped  Boreas  with  brandy  and  eaten  three  times  as  much  as  was 
good  for  him  he  would  have  been  alive  to  tell  more  tales. 

Batterbee's  speciality  had  been  treasure — buried  treasure. 
Buried  treasure,  properly  hidden,  is  an  Ali  Baba's  cave.  Accom- 
panied by  a  plan,  drawn  with  a  finger-nail — preferably  in  blood — 
it  is  often  a  gold  mine.  That  is  what  Batterbee  had  found  it.  For 
as  soon  as  his  public  grew  sick  of  him  another  public  had  grown  up. 
There  are  certainly  advantages  in  writing  for  boys. 

For  all  that  he  had  earned  the  income  of  a  second-class  Cabinet 
Minister,  Batterbee  left  his  wife  and  babies  abominably  badly  off. 
The  precise  amount  of  his  estate  is  immaterial.  It  was,  so  to 
speak,  the  pale  residue  of  the  half-crowns  which  had  won  the 
London  cabmen's  hearts.  Within  a  week  of  his  death  an  avalanche 
of  bills  descended  upon  his  widow.  And  she  began  to  talk  about 
buying  an  art  shop  and  selling  old  furniture  in  a  cathedral  town 
where  living  was  cheap  and  schooling  not  dear,  and  where  good 
Americans  came  before  they  died. 

It  was  after  she  had  opened  the  envelope  which  covered  Batter- 
bee's  little  bill  for  wines  and  spirits  that,  black  and  rustling,  Mrs. 
Batterbee  floated  up  the  big  Bloomsbury  staircase  to  her  late 
husband's  study.  She  was  a  tall  woman  with  large  grey-green 
eyes,  with  hair  black  as  the  raven's  wing,  beautiful  in  a  way  that 
was  individual  and  quite  rare.  She  had  distinct  personal  magnetism, 
yet  displayed  for  all  her  youth — she  was  hardly  thirty — a  curious 
outward  tenderness,  a  manner  positively  maternal  towards  the 
more  intimate  of  her  friends.  But  above  all  she  was  of  a  laziness ! 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE.  287 

She  was  the  kind  of  person  who  drifted,  who  just  let  things  happen. 
And  though  her  present  financial  position  was  perilously  shoal- 
like,  she  had,  so  far,  always  managed  to  drift  in  the  middle  of  the 
stream.  Even  the  death  of  Batterbee — the  Batterbee  of  the  last 
two  years — was,  in  a  measure,  a  mercy  :  in  the  fashion  of  a  happy 
release. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  turned  the  handle  of  the  study  door  ;  the  rings 
of  the  big  blue  portiere  jingled  on  their  rod,  and  Graham  Steele, 
the  secretary,  jumped  to  his  feet.  He  pushed  back  his  chair  and 
stood  facing  her,  fingering  at  the  heaps  of  manuscript  on  the  table. 
He  was,  except  for  height,  the  physical  converse  of  his  late  employer's 
wife.  His  eyes  were  blue  and  eager ;  his  manner  was  quick  and 
nervous  ;  he  had,  save  for  his  mouth,  the  face  of  an  ascetic,  and 
his  forehead  was  the  forehead  of  an  idealist.  He  was,  in  fact,  the 
kind  of  person  who  is  born  with  the  passion  for  romance. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  floated  lazily  across  to  the  Chesterfield  that 
ran  out  from  the  fireplace,  parallel  with  the  desk.  She  sank  into 
it  with  a  languor  that  was,  at  once,  unconscious  and  a  delight. 
Then  her  great  grey-green  eyes  rested  maternally  on  the  standing 
boy,  and  she  smiled  at  him  with  tenderness. 

'  Sit  down,  dear,'  she  said  in  her  soft  voice.  '  Sit  down.  I  want 
to  talk  to  you.' 

Graham  Steele  did  as  she  asked.  There  was  quite  a  long  silence 
before  Mrs.  Batterbee  spoke  again. 

'  What  do  you  propose  to  do,  dear  ?  '  she  suddenly  brought 
out.  4 

The  boy  stared,  as  if  he  failed  to  understand.  Then  he  seemed, 
against  his  will,  to  take  her  meaning. 

'  You  mean  about — about  going  ?  '  he  began. 

'  Yes,  dear,  about  going,'  answered  Mrs.  Batterbee.  And  she 
looked  at  him  as  much  as  to  say,  '  I  hate  to  give  you  notice,  but 
you  know  I  must,  and  I  wish  to  goodness  you'd  help  me  out ! ' 

The  boy  looked  back  at  her — as  Rostand's  Trouvere  might  have 
looked  at  the  Distant  Princess. 

'  I  was  hoping  that  you'd  let  me  stay  for  a  time,'  he  said  fer- 
vently. '  There  will  be  so  much  to  do,  and  I  understand  it  all 
so  thoroughly.  I'm  the  only  person  who  does.'  Then,  as  he  saw 
Mrs.  Batterbee  regarding  him  with  wonder,  he  added  eagerly  : 
'  I'm  sure  I  should  be  a  tremendous  help  !  ' 

A  faint  annoyance  at  his  denseness  showed,  for  a  moment,  in 
Mrs.  Batterbee's  face.  It  was  so  stupid  of  him  to  make  things 


288  THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE. 

difficult.    Why  couldn't  he  help  her  out  ?     But  she  was  far  too 
indolent  to  be  angry,  and  her  voice  was  still  quite  even  and  kind. 

'  I  know,  dear,'  she  took  up.  '  I  know  what  a  help  you  could  be. 
I'm  not  in  the  least  blind  to  all  that  you  did  for  Horace.  But  now 
there's  literally  nothing  more  to  be  done.  And  besides,  though  I 
hate  to  talk  about  money,  I  simply  can't  afford  to  keep  you  another 
month.  Horace  has  left  me  criblee,  and  all  the  royalties  on  his 
books  will  hardly  pay  the  bills.  As  it  is,  everything  will  have  to 
be  sold.  We're  just  on  the  rocks.  There's  no  other  word.'  And 
she  looked  at  the  boy  with  imploring  eyes,  as  much  as  to  say, 
4  Do  make  it  easy  for  me,  there's  a  dear.' 

But  Graham  Steele  showed,  for  the  moment,  no  inclination  to 
meet  her.  His  tongue  licked  dry  lips,  his  nervous  hands  gripped 
the  chair-arms,  and  his  foot  played  with  the  pattern  of  the  rug. 
At  last  he  faced  Mrs.  Batterbee  with  sudden  resolution. 

'  Things  are  never  so  bad  as  they  seem,'  he  began.  Then  he 
smiled.  '  That  sounds  like  a  copy-book  maxim,'  he  deprecated. 
'  But,  all  the  same,  it's  true.  Can  you  bear  some  good  news  ?  ' 

Mrs.  Batterbee  stared.     The  boy  repeated  his  question. 

'  Is  it  necessary  to  ask  ?  '  she  took  him  up.  '  Don't  be  so 
mysterious,  Graham.  What  is  it  ?  ' 

For  answer  he  turned  half  round  to  the  table  beside  him,  on 
his  left.  His  hand  touched  successively  the  several  heaps  of 
manuscript.  '  Two,  four,  six,'  he  said,  half  to  himself.  '  Two  this 
Christmas,  two  next,  and  two  the  year  after.  It  isn't  riches  ;  it 
isn't  more  than  a  competence.  But  it  isn't,  most  certainly,  the 
rocks  !  ' 

Fairly  startled,  Mrs.  Batterbee  jumped  to  her  feet.  She  came 
across  to  the  table  and  looked  at  the  manuscripts.  Little  as  she 
had  shared  her  husband's  literary  life,  she  knew  enough  to  know 
what  they  were.  In  a  flash  she  realised  the  difference  that  it 
made. 

'  But  these  are  stories  !  '  she  cried.  '  New  stories.  They've 
never  come  out  ?  '  And  she  turned  swiftly  upon  the  secretary  for 
confirmation. 

Graham  Steele  nodded.  '  Not  stories,'  he  said— and  there  was 
a  strange  note  of  personal  triumph  in  his  voice.  '  Not  stories— 
books  !  '  But  his  face  was  averted  and  his  nervous  fingers  drummed 
the  table's  top. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  regarded  him  curiously.  Her  lips  moved  more 
than  once,  but  each  time  uttered  no  sound.  It  was  as  if  she  found 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE.  289 

herself  face  to  face  with  some  situation  which,  while  it  advantaged 
her,  she  felt  it  her  duty  to  probe.  Then  her  native  indolence 
conquered  once  more.  And,  having  shirked  the  issue,  she  went 
slowly  back  to  the  Chesterfield  and  sat  down. 

'  I  really  don't  understand,'  she  said  nervously.  Then,  after  a 
pause  :  '  I  suppose  this  is  Horace's  unpublished  work  ?  ' 

Graham  Steele  faced  her,  looked  her  full  in  the  eyes. 

'  Yes,'  he  answered,  '  this  is  your  husband's  unpublished  work.' 
And  though  it  wants  setting  in  order  and  putting  on  the  market, 
you  need  have  no  fear  about  its  going.' 

Half  credulous,  yet  only  half  convinced,  she  furrowed  puzzled 
brows. 

'  It's  so  strange,  so  extraordinary  !  '  she  cried.  '  And  so  utterly 
unlike  Horace.  He  never  did  anything  till  he  was  obliged.  Just 
think  of  the  telegrams  he  used  to  get  from  editors  about  his  serials, 
and  how  he  kept  them  all  waiting  till  the  last  possible  day  ! ' 

The  boy  had  his  answer  ready.  '  Ah  !  that  was  because  he 
was  doing  what  they  liked  ;  not  what  he  himself  wanted  to  do. 
But  when  he  hadn't  to  work,  he  just  did.  It  was  his  way.  He  was 
like  that  always.' 

Mrs.  Batter  bee,  still  wondering,  let  herself  drift. 

'  It's  all  right,  then  ?  It's  good  work — not  early  stuff  that  he 
couldn't  place  ?  ' 

There  was  a  fine  confidence  in  the  boy's  answer.  '  It's  good 
work,'  he  said.  '  You  needn't  fear  about  that.  It  would  have 
been  sold  long  ago — if  it  hadn't  been  unwise  to  overload  the 
market.' 

The  final  flicker  of  scruple  in  Mrs.  Batterbee's  mind  took  the 
form  of  a  single  word. 

'  But—  -'  she  hesitatingly  began.  Then,  for  she  was  full  in 
the  middle  of  the  stream  by  now,  she  adopted  the  easy,  comfortable 
course.  She  let  her  suspicions  die.  She  accepted  the  miracle  as 
it  came.  Presently,  after  a  further  silence,  she  got  up  and  walked 
across  to  the  boy,  putting  out  grateful  hands.  Graham  Steele  took 
them  in  his  own.  Mrs.  Batterbee,  stooping  swiftly,  kissed  his 
cheek.  '  You're  a  dear,'  she  whispered.  '  You  must  stay  with 
us  now  ;  you  must  stay  and  see  them  through.'  Then,  as  if  afraid 
of  further  speech,  she  turned  and  stepped  away.  Once  more  the 
rings  of  the  portiere  jingled  on  their  rod  ;  the  door  closed  after  her  ; 
black  and  rustling,  she  was  passing  down  the  stairs.  And  in  the 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  164,  N.S.  19 


290  THE   GHOST   IN   THE    HOUSE. 

study  Graham  Steele  sat,  looking  after  her  with  a  knight  errant' s 
eyes,  with  the  face  of  a  devot  passioning  at  the  shrine  of  a 
goddess. 

If  any  one  had  told  Mrs.  Batterbee  that  her  husband's  secretary 
was  in  love  with  her  she  would  have  been  as  furious  as  her  tempera- 
ment could  ever  let  her  be.  She  loved  admiration  before  every- 
thing ;  like  all  women,  she  believed  herself — as  she  most  certainly 
was — capable  of  inspiring  a  grand  passion  ;  but  for  Graham  Steele 
she  had,  as  yet,  nothing  but  the  maternal  tenderness  which,  after 
indolence,  was  the  strongest  note  in  her  character.  And  ever  since 
the  boy  had  come  to  them,  five  years  back,  she  had  treated  him  in 
the  same  semi-sisterly,  semi-motherly  fashion,  and  had  looked 
after  his  health  and  underclothing  in  the  friendliest,  most  un- 
romantic  way.  But  then  Mrs.  Batterbee  was  just  an  ordinary 
everyday  person.  She  had  not,  like  Graham  Steele,  an  imagina- 
tion. Neither  had  she  his  all-absorbing,  soul-consuming  passion 
for  romance. 

Graham  was  the  son  of  a  major  in  a  West  Indian  regiment 
whom  the  climate  had  killed,  as  it  had,  later  on,  killed  his  mother 
too.  The  boy  had  lived  in  Jamaica,  had  sailed  the  Spanish  Main 
in  coasting  steamers,  was  saturated  with  the  genuine  piratical 
lore.  As  he  added  a  knowledge  of  the  locale  that  people  who  have 
written  about  it  hardly  ever  possess,  his  use  to  Batterbee,  who 
had  never  been  further  than  Bruges  and  Paris,  was  past  all  price. 
He  had  been  made  much  of  ;  he  had  been  treated  as  one  of  the 
household ;  Batterbee  took  him  wherever  he  went.  All  of  which 
Graham  had  repaid  with  an  affection  for  his  employer  that  did  not 
blind  him  to  his  employer's  faults,  and  a  feeling  for  his  employer's 
wife  such  as  Thackeray's  Esmond  had  for  Lady  Castlewood. 
1  Esmond '  was  Graham's  favourite  romance.  There  was  no 
sacrifice  that  he  would  not  have  made  for  Mrs.  Batterbee's  sake. 

When  he  had  said  that  he  could  be  of  use  to  Mrs.  Batterbee 
he  had  not  exaggerated.  Wanting  to  be  of  use,  he  was  of  use — as 
only  a  person  who  wants  a  thing  desperately  can  be.  And,  working 
with  Batterbee's  agent,  he  contrived  to  do  more  for  the  dead 
author  than  that  erratic  genius  had  ever  done  for  himself.  First 
and  foremost,  he  did  not  allow  the  public  to  forget  him.  The  only 
thing  that  they,  quite  soon,  forgot  was  that  Batterbee  had  ever 
died. 

There  were  always,  one  way  and  another,  paragraphs  about 
Batterbee.  There  were  sixpenny  canvas-backs  and  sevenpenny 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE.  291 

board-backs  of  Batterbee's  best-known  books.  And  for  two 
Christmases  in  succession  the  posthumous  works  of  Batterbee 
had  enjoyed  a  sale  such  as  Batterbee  had  never  known. 

'  That  is  nothing,'  said  Graham  to  the  agent,  when  together 
they  went  through  the  figures — '  that  is  nothing  to  what  they  will 
be  next  Christmas,  when  the  last  and  best  two  come  out.' 

But  in  spite  of  the  boy's  hard  work  and  enthusiasm  the  ultimate 
income  of  Mrs.  Batterbee  would  have  been  nothing  very  much  if 
it  hadn't  been  that  Graham,  by  sitting  on  the  doorstep  of  the 
fashionable  actor,  Charles  Caesar,  persuaded  that  handsome  person 
to  stage  '  Captain  Doubloon,'  which  was  the  work  by  which 
Batterbee  had  first  made  his  name.  The  successful  appearance  of 
the  well-known  actor-manager  in  the  part  of  the  pirate  is  still  fresh 
in  people's  memory.  The  play  ran  in  town  for  eight  months,  and 
is  still  running  in  the  provinces.  And  whenever  the  forgetful 
public  were  reminded  that  the  author  had  died  twelve  months 
earlier,  they  merely  exclaimed,  '  How  sad  !  '  and  went  to  see  his 
creation  a  second  time.  All  of  which  was  very  nice  for  the  babies 
and  Mrs.  Batterbee,  whose  gratitude  and  affection  for  Graham 
grew  greater  every  day.  She  was  altered  very  little — except  that, 
if  possible,  she  was  more  beautiful.  But  Graham  had  changed  a 
good  deal.  He  was  still  a  devot ;  he  still  lived  for  Mrs.  Batterbee, 
whose  service  was  the  mainspring  of  his  actions,  to  whom  he  devoted 
every  free  moment  of  his  life.  Yet  he  was  older.  He  had  gained 
in  self-confidence.  He  felt  that  he  had  served  for  his  Kachel  as  few 
men  serve.  Moreover,  Henry  Esmond  had  married  his  Lady  at 
last.  Might  not  Graham  Steele  do  the  same  ? 

Meanwhile,  their  relations  were  delightful :  beautiful  to  Graham 
as  a  lover,  beautiful  to  Mrs.  Batterbee  as — well,  he  never  could 
decide.  Sometimes  he  gathered  hope  from  trifles  said  or  done  ; 
sometimes  he  touched  the  nadir  of  despair  or  was  racked  with 
jealous  anger  when  she  smiled  on  other  men.  But  the  solitary 
substantial  blot  upon  his  perfect  bliss  was  the  liking  which  she  had 
conceived  for  Charles  Caesar  and  the  frequency  of  that  eminent 
actor's  visits  to  the  house  in  Bedford  Square. 

Though  always  he  comforted  himself  with  this  :  she  turned  to 
him  for  advice  in  everything,  consulted  him  about  the  children, 
could  make  no  decision  unless  he  helped  her  out.  Again  and 
again,  when  he  brought  her  news  of  some  money-making  scheme 
carried  to  an  issue  successful  and  sure,  she  thanked  him  with  tears 
of  gratitude  dimming  her  wonderful  eyes.  And  not  once  but  a 

19—2 


292  THE  GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE. 

hundred  times  she  had  said  to  him  :  '  Graham,  dear,  the  children 
and  I  owe  everything — absolutely  everything — to  you  \ 

And  so  he  waited  still,  biding  his  time  to  speak.  Presently  it 
came. 

One  night,  in  the  late  autumn  of  the  third  year  after  Batterbee's 
death,  Mrs.  Batterbee  and  Graham  were  sitting  over  dessert  when 
the  maid  came  in  with  the  letters.  There  was  a  parcel  as  well, 
and  Graham,  cutting  it  open,  took  out  a  couple  of  Batterbee's 
books.  He  passed  them  across  to  Mrs.  Batterbee  without  speaking. 
She  examined  the  covers,  glanced  at  an  illustration  or  two,  then 
put  them  down  and  smiled  up  into  Graham's  face.  And  suddenly 
he  felt  his  blood  surge  and  his  heart  hammer,  and  a  swift  determina- 
tion to  declare  himself  came.  With  a  new  light  in  his  eyes,  he 
leaned  forward  and  put  his  hand  upon  hers,  pressing  it  with  fierce, 
unconscious  force. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  started,  but  did  not  withdraw  her  hand.  Graham 
had  been  getting  more  and  more  emotional  of  late  ;  had  given  such 
outward  demonstrations  of  affection  again  and  again.  She  had 
ascribed  it  to  nerves,  to  overwork,  to  the  unsparing  way  in  which 
he  had  striven  for  her  and  hers.  Therefore — and  because  of  her 
passive,  easy-going  temperament — she  had  not  troubled  to  check 
him ;  had  never  even  seen  the  use  or  need.  But  this  time  an 
unusual  nervousness  mastered  her.  She  shunned  his  eyes.  She 
sought  for  a  means  of  turning  the  conversation  upon  hard,  material 
things.  With  her  free  hand  she  pointed  to  the  books. 

'  So  these  are  the  last  ?  '  she  said.     '  The  very  last !  ' 

Something — something  faint,  elusive,  and  frightening — jarred  in 
her  tone.  Graham  started ;  then  dismissed  the  thought  that  stung. 

'  Yes,  these  are  the  last — the  very  last,'  he  answered,  quietly,  for 
all  his  passion.  And  he  sat  looking  at  Mrs.  Batterbee  with  a  question 
in  his  devot's  face. 

But  because — though  she  was  very  fond  of  him — she  was  not 
in  love  with  him  the  least  little  bit  in  the  world,  Mrs.  Batterbee  mis- 
read it.  She  thought  that  he  was  asking  for  something  else — for 
advice,  suggestion,  help.  And  her  grey-green  eyes  gleamed 
mischievously  as  she  leaned  across  the  table  suddenly  and  whispered, 
'  Don't  you  think  they'd  stand  a  couple  more  ?  ' 

There  came  the  scrape  of  a  chair  upon  the  carpet ;  the  heavy 
table  itself  moved,  pushed  away  by  two  nervous  hands.  Graham 
Steele  stood  in  front  of  Mrs.  Batterbee,  who  looked  up  at  him  in 
fear. 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE    HOUSE.  293 

*  Then  you  know,'  he  whispered  fiercely — '  you  know  every- 
thing. You  know  that  they  were  all  mine — that  I  wrote  them 
before  your  husband  died  !  ' 

For  a  moment  she  wanted  to  dissemble,  to  turn  it  off,  to  feign 
ignorance.  But  the  devot's  accusing  face  forced  her  to  the  truth. 

'  Yes,'  she  said,  and  shrugged  her  shoulders  with  false  careless- 
ness. '  Yes,  I  know  everything.' 

Again  the  whisper  came  to  her,  fierce,  distinct. 

'  How  long  have  you  known  ?  ' 

'  From  the  first  day,'  answered  Mrs.  Batterbee,  beneath  her 
breath.  For  she  knew  it  useless  to  lie. 

'  My  God  !  '  cried  Graham.  '  Oh,  my  God  !  '  He  hid  his  face 
in  his  arm  and  began  to  sob,  not  like  a  child,  but  with  the  horrible 
sobbing  of  a  grown  man. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  got  up  slowly,  and,  coming  across  to  him,  put  a 
gentle  arm  round  his  neck. 

'  How  could  I  help  knowing,  dear  ?  '  she  said.  '  As  if  Horace 
was  capable  of  doing  anything  during  that  last  dreadful  year  of  his 
life  ! ' 

Roughly,  brutally,  he  pushed  her  away.  '  Don't  touch  me  ! 
Ah  !  don't  touch  me  !  '  he  said. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  went  slowly  back  to  her  chair.  Then  Graham 
faced  her  again. 

'  I'm  going  !  '  he  flung  out. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  threw  out  protesting  hands.  Her  grey-green 
eyes  filmed.  Her  voice  was  full  of  tears. 

c  Graham,  dear,'  she  began,  c  don't  go.  We  mustn't  quarrel 
after  all  these  years.  You've  been  so  good  to  me,  and  - 

'  I'm  going — going  now  !  '  he  interrupted. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  was  roused  at  last. 

'  You  did  it  because  you  wanted  to,'  she  cried — '  because  you 
wanted  to,  and  for  no  other  reason.  It's  so  like  a  man.  You 
blame  me  because  I  acquiesced — for  the  sake  of  the  children — in 
what  you  did.  It  was  your  doing — all  yours  ;  I  only  acquiesced.' 

He  looked  at  her  sadly  and  shook  his  head. 

'  Yes,'  he  said,  and  paused  a  moment  with  his  hand  upon  the 
half-open  door.  '  Yes,  that's  it.  You  acquiesced.' 

As  the  door  swung  open  to  the  full,  Mrs.  Batterbee  threw  her 
arms  round  Graham's  neck.  '  You  mustn't  go,  you  mustn't  go  !  ' 
she  sobbed.  '  I  need  you.  I  can't  do  without  you  now.  Don't 
be  so  horribly  cruel !  I  can't  bear  it.' 


294  THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE. 

But,  cold  and  inexorable,  his  passion  extinguished,  his  idol 
shattered,  Graham  Steele  shook  off  her  detaining  hands.  After 
him  the  door  closed  firmly.  He  had  really  gone.  And  in  the 
dining  room  Mrs.  Batterbee,  flinging  herself  into  a  chair,  wept  out 
vain  and  despairing  tears. 

Half  an  hour  later  she  got  up  and  looked  into  the  glass.  She 
hardly  knew  herself.  Nothing  so  disturbing  had  happened  in  all 
her  life.  A  moment  later  the  maid  came  in. 

1  Mr.  Caesar  is  in  the  drawing-room,'  she  said. 

Mrs.  Batterbee's  averted  face  struggled  into  calmness.  She 
was  even  blushing  a  little.  She  shot  a  side-glance  into  the  glass 
and,  though  a  moment  before  she  had  not  minded,  she  was  now 
horror-struck  with  what  she  saw. 

'  Tell  him  I'll  come  in  a  minute,'  she  answered. 

And,  black  and  rustling,  she  floated  upstairs  to  her  room. 

It  was  in  the  hell  of  lost  illusions  that  Graham  Steele  passed  the 
next  few  days.  His  idol  was  fallen  and  shattered  ;  his  belief  in 
himself  was  gone.  All  these  years  he  had  cherished  the  belief  that 
he  had  behaved  splendidly,  that  he  had  done  not  one  but  a  thousand 
fine  things,  that  he  was  fit  to  rank  with  the  great  lovers  of  the 
world.  Now  the  reverse  of  the  medal  faced  him,  ugly  and  plain. 
He  saw  his  conduct  in  a  new  light — a  light  which  showed  him  how 
other  people  would  see.  In  the  furnace  of  disenchantment  the 
idealist  in  him  was  consumed.  The  boy  that  had  been  Batterbee's 
ghost  was  dead.  He  was  a  man,  bitter,  cynical  and  resolved  to 
take  from  life  all  that  life  had  to  give.  So  because  he  still  loved 
Mrs.  Batterbee — but  in  a  different  way — he  was  determined  to 
make  her  his  wife.  Had  not  her  actions,  her  very  words,  confessed 
that  he  had  only  to  ask  ?  And  so,  after  three  horrible  days  and 
four  sleepless,  interminable  nights,  he  set  out  for  the  house 
again. 

Coming,  on  the  fourth  morning,  from  his  rooms  in  Maida  Vale, 
he  got  upon  a  'bus.  It  was  an  October  morning,  beautiful,  fresh 
and  boon.  To  steady  his  jangled  nerves  he  took  his  newspaper 
and  tried  his  best  to  read.  By  chance,  he  opened  it  at  the  fashion- 
able column.  Half-way  down  the  page  a  paragraph  caught  his 
eye.  At  first  he  read  it  mechanically  and  without  comprehension. 
Then,  re-reading  it,  the  full  horror  of  what  he  saw  glimpsed  on  to 
him  and  stayed.  This  is  what  it  said  : 

"'  A  marriage  has  been  arranged  between  Mrs.  Batterbee,  widow 
of  the  late  Horace  Batterbee,  and  Mr.  Charles  Caesar,  the  well- 


THE   GHOST   IN   THE   HOUSE.  295 

known  actor.     It  is  understood  that  the  wedding  will  take  place 
at  once.' 

The  next  thing  that  Graham  Steele  knew  was  that  someone 
had  tapped  him  gently  on  the  shoulder.  He  looked  up  with  a 
start  and  saw  the  conductor.  There  were  no  other  people  on  the 
'bus. 

'  What  is  it  ?  '  asked  Graham  Steele. 

The  conductor  stared  at  him  with  some  curiosity. 

*  This  is  the  terminus,  sir,'  he  said.     '  We  don't  go  any  further.' 

And  Graham,  who,  getting  down,  found  himself  in  Bromley- 
by-Bow,  walked  for  hours  in  a  dream  through  mean  and  torturing 
streets. 

Mrs.  Batterbee  and  Charles  Caesar  were  married  a  week  later. 
He  never  had  any  illusions  about  her,  and  she  has  made  him 
as  happy  as  she  would  have  made  Graham  Steele  miserable. 
The  marriage  is  indubitably  a  success.  Graham,  who  goes  to  see 
them  from  time  to  time,  has  achieved  fame  as  a  writer  of  novels 
that  present  women  in  the  least  favourable  light.  But,  as  your 
true  cynic  is  a  sentimentalist  at  heart,  those  who  know  the  facts 
of  the  case  say  that  he  will  return  to  his  first  love — buried  treasure — 
in  the  end. 

And  they  wait  patiently  till,  in  the  hungry  forties,  Stevenson 
resumes  his  own  and  Henley  sways  the  heart  of  middle  age,  so  that 
Graham  Steele  shall  witch  the  world  with  tales  of  treasure  trove, 
and  win  the  heart  of  boys — and  of  men  who  have  never  grown  up-- 
with  the  true  and  perfectest  romance. 

AUSTIN  PHILIPS. 


296 


MORE   HUMOURS   OF  CLERICAL   LIFE. 

IT  is  many  years  since  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE  published  some 
articles  on  the  humours  of  clerical  life,  and  as  I  move  from  place  to 
place  in  the  course  of  my  work,  I  often  regret  that  I  have  not  made 
notes  of  some  of  the  amusing  things  that  occur. 

It  is  strange  how,  even  now,  the  clergy — or  at  any  rate  the 
unbeneficed,  popularly  known  as  the  curates,  are  made  the  objects 
of  often  well-worn  jokes.  For  as  a  matter  of  fact  nothing  strikes 
one  so  much  as  the  distance  which  separates  the  typical  curate  of 
fiction  from  the  genuine  article.  I  may  have  been  particularly 
fortunate  or  unfortunate  in  the  fellow-clergy  whom  I  have  met, 
for  the  worst  that  can  be  said  of  the  majority  is  that  they  are  very 
like  the  average  layman,  neither  more  clever  nor  more  foolish. 
Indeed  in  the  London  diocese  it  is  remarkable  how  the  very  fact 
that  one  is  a  clergyman  is  sufficient  passport  among  the  working 
classes.  Nothing  struck  me  so  much,  on  coming  into  the  diocese, 
as  the  remarkable  courtesy  and  kindness  with  which  one  was 
treated,  especially  by  working  men.  No  !  certainly  in  many  parts 
of  England  the  '  working  classes  '  at  least  no  longer  hold  aloof 
from  the  clergy,  and  the  Church  is  becoming  more  and  more  the 
Church  of  the  people. 

Of  course  foolish  things  are  said  and  done  by  us,  as  is  some- 
times the  case  in  other  professions  ;  and  this  is  not  perhaps  sur- 
prising when  the  position  into  which  a  man  is  suddenly  thrust  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three  is  remembered. 

I  have  certainly  known  one  man  who  might  have  served  for  the 
model  of  the  curate  in  the  '  Private  Secretary.'  The  traditional 
goloshes  were  his  constant  companions,  and  on  the  occasion  of  a 
choir  treat,  when  an  expedition  was  to  be  made  to  a  town  twenty 
miles  north  of  the  parish,  he  took  with  him  a  pair  of  woollen  socks, 
which  he  carefully  put  on  in  the  waiting-room  on  arrival,  to  prevent 
him  catching  cold  in  such  far  northern  regions.  He  had  a  rooted 
objection  to  the  shortening  of  names.  The  servant  in  his  lodgings 
rejoiced  in  the  name  of  '  Carry,'  but  he  insisted  on  her  answering 
to  the  name  of  Caroline  only.  On  a  friend  announcing  to  him  his 
engagement,  he  merely  besought  him  not  to  abbreviate  her  Christian 


MORE    HUMOURS    OF   CLERICAL   LIFE.  297 

name,  even  for  purposes  of  endearment.  Still,  for  all  that,  he  did 
good  work  and  commanded  the  affections  of  not  a  few. 

A  friend  of  mine  came  to  preach  for  me  at  the  harvest  festival. 
The '  use '  at  his  church  was  for  the  preacher  to  carry  his  stole,  putting 
it  on  in  the  pulpit  and  again  removing  it  at  the  end  of  the  sermon. 
This  little  piece  of  ritual  he  duly  performed,  but  its  meaning  was 
wholly  lost  on  my  congregation.  A  servant  being  asked,  on  her 
return,  why  the  service  had  been  so  short,  said  that  the  preacher 
was  in  a  hurry  to  catch  his  train,  as  he  had  begun  undressing  before 
he  left  the  pulpit. 

A  woman  in  a  parish  where  I  lived  used  each  day  to  prepare 
herself  for  the  worst.  I  was  complimenting  her  one  day  on  the 
extreme  tidiness  of  the  house  even  early  in  the  morning.  '  Yes,' 
she  said,  '  I  always  likes  to  'ave  my  bedrooms  done  hearly,  for,  as 
I  alms  sez,  you  never  knows  what  may  'appen ;  'ow  soon  one  of  the 
children  may  be  brought  'ome  in  a  fit  or  with  a  broken  leg,  and,  as  I 
allus  sez,  it  don't  matter  what  'appens,  so  long  as  you've  got  a 
bedroom  to  put  'em  into.'  Whether  she  would  have  taken  quite 
so  calmly  the  actual  arrival  of  a  child  in  a  fit,  I  cannot  say,  for  her 
rule  of  life  was  never  put  to  the  test.  I  wish  I  could  recall  all  the 
splendid  vocabulary  she  had  at  her  command  ;  but  I  remember 
her  making  use  of  one  of  the  best  '  portmanteau  '  words  I  have 
heard.  '  That  gal  of  mine  is  that  aggrannoying,  she  won't  get  up 
of  a  morning.'  On  another  occasion  she  told  me  with  great  pride 
that  her  boy  at  school  had  been  made  '  a  something  or  other,  I 
didn't  rightly  catch  the  name,  but  he  'as  to  look  after  t'other 
lads.'  I  suggested  that  the  word  probably  was  monitor.  '  Ho,  yes, 
that  was  it ;  but  there,  I  never  did  give  way  to  eddication.'  She 
spoke  with  such  splendid  scorn  of  the  pursuit  of  education  that  you 
might  have  supposed  it  was  some  vice,  like  drink,  from  which  all 
her  life  she  had  endeavoured  to  keep  free. 

The  compliments  that  one  meets  with  are  sometimes  as  strangely 
phrased  as  they  are  generally  little  deserved.  On  my  leaving  a 
curacy,  an  old  friend  of  mine  said  :  '  Well,  I  be  sorry  you're  going, 
for  I  did  'ope  you  would  'ave  died  'ere  ' — which  was  certainly  more 
than  I  did.  But  in  the  way  of  testimonials,  the  one  which  I  prize 
the  most  was  received  from  a  certain  bishop.  He  was  famous  for  the 
infelicitous  way  he  had  of  putting  things.  I  wrote  to  tell  him  I 
was  leaving  the  diocese,  and  to  thank  him  for  his  kindness  to  me. 
His  reply  was  short,  and,  I  trust,  not  to  the  point :  '  Dear  Sir, — 
I  am  sorry  you  are  leaving  my  diocese,  for  I  have  never  heard 


298  MORE    HUMOURS   OF   CLERICAL   LIFE. 

anything  against  you. — Yours  faithfully, .'  This  at  least  was 

a  negative  kind  of  testimonial  which  might  be  useful  to  some  of 
us.  My  vicar  was  leaving  at  the  same  time,  and  I  was  accom- 
panying him  to  his  new  parish.  He  fared  very  little  better  at  his 

bishop's  hands.  '  Well, ,  you  and  I  have  not  always  seen  eye 

to  eye,  but  I  might  well  get  a  worse  man/  So,  with  this  episcopal 
blessing,  we  migrated  to  another  diocese. 

It  has  only  once  been  my  lot  to  preach  to  a  bishop,  and  that 
was,  so  to  speak,  by  accident.  A  certain  bishop  was  spending 
the  day  with  us,  and  after  tea  had  settled  himself  down  to  answer 
some  of  his  correspondence.  1  had  carefully  refrained  from  telling 
him  of  the  evening  service,  simply  because  an  address  was  to  be 
given  at  it.  However,  he  heard  the  bell,  and  waiting,  1  suppose,  to 
finish  the  letter  he  was  engaged  on,  did  not  arrive  till  we  were 
singing  the  Psalms.  The  subject  of  the  address  was  attendance  at 
church,  and  one  of  my  points  was  the  necessity  of  punctuality  and 
the  irreverence  of  coming  in  at  the  last  moment.  It  was  only 
when  I  was  labouring  this  particular  point  that  it  flashed  across 
me  that  the  bishop  had  come  into  church  at  least  five  minutes  late, 
and  that  naturally  enough  all  had  marked  his  presence.  Being, 
however,  a  man  of  humour  he  readily  forgave,  though  he  remarked 
that  it  was  a  little  hard,  when  I  had  not  given  him  the  chance  of 
being  punctual,  to  hold  him  up  before  the  congregation  as  the 
'  awful  example.' 

While  on  the  subject  of  infelicitous  sayings,  I  was  told  a  good 
story  the  other  day  of  an  organist  who  was  always  filled  with 
anxiety  to  say  the  pleasant  thing,  but  was  not  always  successful. 
At  a  choir  supper  he  was  put  up  to  propose  a  vote  of  thanks  to  the 
vicar,  who  had  presided.  '  What  I  always  feel  about  our  vicar  is 
this — if  anyone  can  get  on  with  him — well,  he  can  get  on  with 
anybody ' — a  somewhat  confused  statement  which  might  have 
several  interpretations. 

I  once  attended  a  mayoral  banquet  in  a  provincial  town  at 
which  the  vicar,  who  had  newly  arrived,  was  present.  An  alderman 
was  put  up  to  propose  his  health,  and  was  very  anxious  to  pay  a 
well-deserved  compliment  to  the  new  vicar's  popularity,  and  this 
was  his  manner  of  doing  it.  '  Mr.  Mayor,  our  new  vicar  has  not 
been  long  in  making  himself  liked  by  all  of  us.  As  1  was  remarking 
the  other  day  to  some  friends,  it's  a  good  thing  that  our  vicar  has 
not  got  the  face  of  an  Adonis,  or  we  should  have  to  look  out  for  our 
wives  and  daughters.'  It  was  well  meant,  but  one  felt,  of  course. 


MORE   HUMOURS   OF   CLERICAL   LIFE.  299 

that  the  expression  of  the  sentiment  could  have  been  improved 
upon. 

Writing  of  humour  reminds  me  of  the  lack  of  it — an  unhappy 
condition  with  which  one  meets  occasionally.  There  were  some 
dear  old  ladies  who  lived  in  a  large  house  in  a  certain  parish.  They 
were  very  much  opposed  to  anything  which  to  their  mind  savoured 
of  the  world ;  the  thought  even  of  '  patience '  filled  them  with 
horror.  They  had,  however,  heard  that  the  curate,  to  whom  they 
were  very  attached,  was  a  good  conjuror.  On  one  occasion,  when 
he  was  lunching  with  them,  they  asked  him  to  show  them  some  of 
his  tricks.  He  readily  consented,  and  in  the  extreme  innocence  of 
his  heart  asked  for  a  pack  of  cards.  '  We  have  never  had  a  pack 
of  cards  in  the  house  for  twenty  years,'  his  hostess  exclaimed  ;  and 
then,  feeling  she  owed  her  guest  some  reparation,  asked  him  whether 
visiting  cards  would  do  as  well !  Another  amusing  instance  occurred 
during  my  summer  holiday,  when  I  had  taken  a  locum-tenency  in  a 
small  parish  on  the  Yorkshire  moors.  My  first  Sunday  was 
August  12,  and,  to  my  astonishment,  a  brass  band  gave  forth  weird 
and  distracting  music  outside  the  church  before  the  beginning  of 
the  evening  service.  1  asked  the  parish  clerk  if  this  was  a  frequent 
occurrence.  '  No,'  he  said  ;  '  you  see,  it's  the  12th  of  August,  and 
we  always  have  a  band  at  Christmas,  Easter,  and  the  12th.' 
1  thought  this  inclusion  of  the  feast  of  St.  Grouse  with  Christmas 
and  Easter  distinctly  entertaining,  and,  meeting  the  vicar's  sister 
the  next  day,  told  her  with  mock  seriousness  of  the  clerk's  explana- 
tion of  the  brass  band — namely,  that  it  played  at  Christmas,  Easter 
and  the  12th.  My  astonishment  was  great  when  I  discovered  that 
she  saw  nothing  amusing  in  it ;  for,  without  a  smile,  she  added  : 
'  He  forgot  Whit  Sunday.' 

By  the  way,  I  shall  always  remember  those  particular  summer 
holidays,  because  I  was  guilty  of  my  first  and  last  practical  joke. 
We  had  arrived  in  the  Yorkshire  village  early  in  the  week  before 
my  first  Sunday,  and  two  days  afterwards  I  started  out  after  lunch 
to  try  and  catch  some  trout.  As  five  o'clock  drew  near  I  began  to 
long  for  tea,  and  returning  to  the  vicarage,  found  everyone  out 
and  the  house  locked  up.  However,  1  found  that  the  catch  on 
the  dining-room  window  was  not  fastened,  so  I  gained  an  entrance 
that  way.  It  was  only  after  tea  that  the  spirit  of  evil  suggested  to 
me  to  plan  a  burglary.  This,  however,  was  easily  done,  and  having 
taken  a  cheque  which  I  had  received  that  morning  and  left  on  the 
writing  table,  and  having  turned  a  few  of  the  drawers  of  the  bureau 


300  MORE    HUMOURS   OF   CLERICAL   LIFE. 

out,  I  departed  to  resume  my  fishing,  leaving  a  piece  of  paper  on 
the  table  with  this  inscription,  '  Why  don't  you  keep  whisky  ?  * 
It  was,  of  course,  a  foolish  thing  to  do,  but  I  was  young  and  the 
feeling  of  holidays  was  strong  upon  me.  I  was,  however,  destined 
to  pay  the  penalty.  When  the  family  returned,  they  pictured  a 
real  burglary,  sent  for  the  village  constable,  and  despatched  a 
child  to  find  me.  Like  a  coward,  I  refused  to  come,  but  sent  a 
message  as  to  the  true  state  of  affairs.  By  this  time  half  the  village 
was  assembled  at  the  vicarage,  filled  with  the  unprecedented 
excitement  of  the  news.  When  the  truth  was  at  last  told,  that  the 
minister  who  had  come  to  fill  their  vicar's  place  during  his  holidays 
had  burgled  his  own  house,  I  am  not  sure  whether  disappointment 
or  amazement  was  uppermost  in  their  minds.  But  I  made  one 
vow  as  a  result,  and  that  was — '  never  again  ! ' 

The  parish  clerk  in  this  out-of-the-way  Yorkshire  village  does 
not,  however,  stand  alone  in  his  strange  view  of  things  ecclesiastical. 
I  am  reminded  of  a  suggestion  made  to  me  by  another,  which  is 
only  amusing  because  of  the  seriousness  with  which  it  was  made. 
It  was  one  of  the  duties  of  the  said  clerk  to  tell  me,  at  the  close  of 
the  service,  as  nearly  as  possible  the  number  of  communicants 
who  had  been  present.  He  had  been  clerk  for  over  thirty  years,  and 
had  seen  many  changes  in  his  time.  One  Easter  morning  I  asked  if 
he  could  tell  me  roughly  how  many  had  been  present.  He  replied  : 
'  About  a  'undred  and  fifty.  If  they  goes  on  increasing  this  fashion, 
you'll  'ave'  to  'ave  a  turnstile.'  I  remained  lost  in  thought  as  I 
conjured  up  the  sight  (and  sound)  of  one's  congregation  pouring 
through  a  turnstile  at  the  chancel  gate.  Many  years  ago  I  was  in 
a  parish  where  the  clerk  considered  himself  indispensable  to  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  service.  Soon  after  my  arrival  my  vicar 
went  away  for  his  holiday,  and  I  was  left  alone  for  the  Sunday.  It 
was  a  large  town  parish  and  there  were  many  classes  and  services. 
Just  before  evensong,  my  friend  the  clerk  laid  his  hand  on  my 
shoulder  in  the  friendliest  way  possible,  saying  :  '  Well,  sir,  by  the 
time  me  and  you've  done,  we  shall  'ave  done  a  good  day's  work.' 

There  was  an  amusing  story  current  in  a  small  provincial  town 
where  I  was  once  curate,  concerning  the  trick  which  the  parish 
clerk  had  once  played  during  an  election  in  the  old  pre-ballot  days. 
There  was  a  small  body  of  freemen  whose  votes  were  most  impor- 
tant, as  the  result  of  the  election  often  turned  upon  their  acquisition 
by  one  or  other  side.  It  was  at  times  their  plan  to  hold  out  till  the 
last  few  minutes  before  the  poll  closed,  in  order  to  wring  the  largest 


MORE   HUMOURS   OF   CLERICAL   LIFE.  301 

bribe  from  the  respective  candidates.  On  the  occasion  of  a  certain 
election  it  was  known  that  everything  depended  on  the  votes  of  the 
freemen,  who  were  holding  back  in  the  approved  fashion.  The 
clerk  also  knew  that  his  party  were  probably  unable  or  unwilling  to 
pay  the  full  price.  So  he  fell  back  on  the  very  simple  device  of 
putting  back  the  church  clock,  from  which  the  average  townsman 
took  his  time.  The  result  was  that  the  freemen  held  out  a  little 
too  long,  and  being  too  late  to  record  their  votes,  victory  rested 
with  the  clerk's  party — whether  it  was  the  Blues  or  the  Reds,  1  am 
not  prepared  to  say. 

1  am  sure  that  a  speaker,  whether  he  is  preaching  or  making  a 
political  speech,  never  realises  how  little  his  long  words  or  rounded 
phrases  are  really  understood  by  some  in  his  audience.     A  clergy- 
man, at  the  close  of  some  Confirmation  classes  which  he  had  been 
giving  in  a  village  of  one  of  our  northern  towns,  proceeded  to  ask 
his  candidates  a  few  questions,  in  order  to  find  out  how  far  he  had 
made  himself   clear.     The   answer   to   his   first   question   rather 
astonished  him — '  What  is  grace  ?  '    Promptly  the  reply  came, 
'  All  manner  of  fat.'    The  answerer  had  had  plenty  of  experience 
of  it  as  kitchen-maid,  and  perhaps  '  grace  '  is  not  altogether  unlike 
in  sound  to  '  grease.'    That  reminds  me  of  the  story  of  an  old 
woman  who,  on  being  asked  why  she  had  such  a  rooted  objection 
to  the  new  rector,  replied  :   '  'Ow  could  I  'elp  it,  when  'e  uses  such 
bad  words  in  the  pulpit  ?  '    '  But   what  bad  words  ?  '  she  was 
asked.    '  Just  think,'  was  her  reply, '  'ow  often  'e  says  peradventure 
—and  you  knows  what  David  says  about  such-like — '•  if  I  shall  say 
peradventure,  the  darkness  shall  cover  me."  :     But  after  all,  it  was 
not  her  knowledge  of  Scripture  which  was  at  fault,  but  her  know- 
ledge of  stops. 

This  rendering  of  the  Psalm  is  scarcely  more  quaint  than  that 
of  the  104th.  It  was  noticed  on  board  ship  that  a  sailor  always 
rendered  verse  26  as  follows  :  '  there  go  the  ships  and  there  is  that 
live  thing  whom  thou  hast  made  to  take  his  passage  therein.' 
Asked  what  he  thought  the  '  live  thing '  meant,  he  replied  it  was 
the  stranger  who,  as  a  special  favour,  had  been  allowed  to  take 
his  passage  home  on  this  particular  tramp.  The  most  striking 
comment  on  the  Book  of  Psalms  was  once  made  to  me  by  a  parish 
clerk.  '  The  older  I  get,'  he  said,  '  the  more  1  like  the  Psalms, 
but  some  are  very  hard  to  follow ;  you  can't  tell  who  it  is  that's 
speaking.' 

The  names  proposed  by  parents  for  their  unhappy  children  are 


302  MORE   HUMOURS   OF   CLERICAL   LIFE. 

sometimes  particularly  weird.  I  was  called  to  privately  baptise  a 
child  the  day  after  peace  was  declared  at  the  close  of  the  Boer  War. 
My  request  '  Name  this  child '  produced  a  long  speech  from  the 
mother  :  '  We  want  to  commemorate  the  war  and  the  peace,  so 
we  want  to  call  him  "  Koberts  Pax."  :  The  unfortunate  child, 
whose  surname  was  Smith,  did  not  long  survive  such  a  name.  On 
one  occasion  a  man  gave  his  daughter's  name  as  Venus.  Rightly 
or  wrongly,  the  clergyman  vigorously  protested  against  the  name 
as  that  of  a  heathen  goddess,  to  which  the  father  pertinently 
replied,  '  What  about  your  own  gal  Diana  ?  ' 

Baptisms  remind  me  of  a  tragical  occurrence  which  happened 
soon  after  my  appointment  to  a  new  parish.  The  clerk,  who  had 
been  a  friend  of  the  family  for  many  years,  had  with  great  pride 
presented  me,  on  my  arrival,  with  a  new  burial  register.  During 
my  first  few  weeks  I  had  the  assistance  of  a  man  who  used  to  come 
down  from  Saturday  to  Monday.  In  taking  baptisms  he  had  a 
piece  of  private  ritual  which  consisted  in  kissing  each  baby  before 
returning  it  to  the  godmother.  On  the  first  occasion,  however, 
in  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  he  got  hold  of  my  new  burial 
register  and  entered  the  seven  unfortunate  children,  whom  he  had 
just  baptised  and  kissed,  as  having  been  buried.  The  wrath  of  the 
old  clerk  at  the  ruin  of  his  new  register  and  the  superstitious  dismay 
of  the  parents  added  to  the  comic  side  of  the  scene. 

Few,  1  expect,  realise  that  the  clergy  are  suspected  of  appro- 
priating the  offertories  to  their  own  use.  Some  years  ago,  how- 
ever, my  eyes  were  opened  to  this.  I  was  endeavouring  to  per- 
suade one  of  my  parishioners  not  to  keep  her  sweet-shop  open  on 
Sundays.  If  your  readers  know  the  scent  of  concentrated  pear- 
drops  with  which  a  church  vestry  will  sometimes  smell  before  a 
service,  they  will  sympathise  with  the  twofold  object  that  I  had  in 
remonstrating.  However,  I  suffered  for  my  temerity,  for  my  good 
lady  friend,  leaning  on  her  bare  and  very  red  arms  across  the  counter, 
addressed  me  in  a  confidential  voice.  '  Look  'ere,  sir,  just  as  you 
couldn't  live  at  the  vicarage  without  your  Sunday  collections,  no 
more  couldn't  I  without  my  Sunday  takings.'  It  would  be  trying 
to  the  temper  at  times  to  find  oneself  so  hopelessly  misunderstood, 
but  the  humorous  side  to  it  all  is  a  great  safeguard.  A  well-known 
bishop  once,  in  a  fit  of  confidence,  put  the  case  to  me  exactly — 
whether  it's  a  bishop  with  his  clergy,  or  the  clergy  with  their 
parishioners,  or  the  parishioners  with  one  another,  it  is  a  golden 
rule  to  '  suffer  fools  gladly  ! ' 

STEWART  F.  L.  BERNAYS. 


303 


THE   OSBORNES.^ 
BY  E.  F.  BENSON. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THOUGH  it  was  true  that  Claude's  kindness  in  lending  Austell  his 
flat  did  not  cost  him  anything,  it  conferred  a  great  convenience  on 
his  beneficiary,  and  Jim,  who  had  been  living  at  the  Bath  Club, 
had  his  luggage  packed  without  pause,  and  wrote  the  letter  of 
acceptance  and  thanks  to  Claude  from  the  flat  itself  on  Claude's 
writing  paper.  The  letter  was  quite  genuine  and  heart-felt,  or  at 
the  least  pocket-felt,  for  Jim  had  had  some  slight  difference  of 
opinion  with  his  mother  on  the  subject  of  being  seen  in  a  hansom 
with  a  young  lady  who  in  turn  was  sometimes  seen  on  the  stage, 
and  Eaton  Place,  where  he  had  meant  to  spend  those  weeks,  was 
closed  to  him.  But  Claude's  flat  filled  the  bill  exactly  ;  it  was  far 
more  comfortable  than  his  mother's  house,  and  there  was  nothing 
to  pay  for  lodging,  so  that  it  was  better  than  the  club.  His  satis- 
faction was  complete  when  he  found  that  Claude  had  left  his  cook 
there,  with  no  instructions  whatever  except  to  go  on  cooking,  nor 
any  orders  to  have  catering  bills  sent  to  the  tenant.  So  Jim  made 
himself  charming  to  the  cook,  gave  her  the  sovereign  which  he  had 
at  once  found  on  Claude's  dressing-table  when  he  explored  his 
bedroom,  and  said  he  would  be  at  home  for  lunch.  Plovers'  eggs  ? 
Yes,  by  all  means,  and  a  quail,  and  a  little  macedoine  of  fruit.  And 
by  way  of  burying  the  hatchet  with  his  mother,  and  incidentally 
making  her  green  with  envy  (for  it  would  have  suited  her  very  well 
if  Claude  had  offered  her  the  flat,  since  somebody  wanted  to  take 
her  house),  he  instantly  telephoned  asking  her  to  lunch,  and  men- 
tioned that  he  was  in  Mount  Street  till  the  end  of  July.  The  lunch 
she  declined,  and  made  no  comment  on  the  other,  but  Jim  heard 
her  sigh  into  the  telephone.  She  could  not  hear  him  grin. 

As  has  been  mentioned  before,  Jim  had  no  liking  for  Claude, 
and  up  till  the  present  he  had  done  little  living  upon  him.  But 
this  loan  of  the  flat — especially  since  there  was  free  food  going — 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  E.  F.  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


304  THE   OSBORNES. 

was  extremely  opportune,  for  at  the  present  moment  Jim  was 
particularly  hard  up,  having  been  through  a  Derby  week  of  the 
most  catastrophic  nature.  He  had  done  nothing  rash,  too,  which 
made  his  misfortunes  harder  to  bear  ;  he  had  acted  on  no  secret 
and  mysterious  tips  from  stables,  but  had  with  almost  plebeian 
respectability  backed  favourites  only.  But  the  favourites  had 
behaved  in  the  most  unaccountable  manner,  and  their  blighted 
careers  had  very  nearly  succeeded  in  completely  blighting  his. 
But  he  had  raised  money  on  the  rent  of  Grote  which  would  be  paid 
him  at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  had  paid  up  all  his  debts.  That 
process,  however,  had  made  fearful  inroads  on  his  receipts  for  the 
next  quarter,  and  strict  economy  being  necessary,  Claude's  kindness 
had  been  most  welcome.  And  as  he  ate  his  quail,  Jim  planned  two 
or  three  pleasant  little  dinner  parties.  He  would  certainly  ask 
Claude  and  Dora  to  one  of  them,  or  was  that  a  rather  ironical  thing 
to  do,  since  Claude  would  be  paying  for  the  food  that  they  all  ate  ? 
He  would  pay  for  the  wine  as  well  it  seemed,  for  a  bottle  of  excellent 
Moselle  had  appeared,  since  he  had  expressed  a  preference  that 
way,  coming,  he  supposed,  from  Claude's  cellar. 

Jim  looked  round  the  room  as  he  ate  and  drank,  pleased  to  find 
himself  in  this  unexpected  little  haven  of  rest,  but  feeling  at  the 
same  time  envious  of  and  rather  resentful  towards  its  possessor. 
He  quite  sympathised  with  the  doctrine  of  Socialism,  and  asked 
himself  why  it  should  be  given  to  Claude  to  live  perpetually  in  that 
diviner  air  where  financial  anxieties  are  unknown,  where  no  bills 
need  ever  remain  unpaid  except  because  it  was  a  nuisance  to  have 
to  dip  a  pen  in  the  ink,  and  draw  a  cheque,  whereas  he  himself  was  as 
perpetually  in  want  of  money.  The  particular  reason  why  he  was 
at  this  moment  in  want  of  it — namely,  because  he  had  had  a  very 
bad  week  at  Epsom — did  not  present  itself  to  his  mind,  or,  if  it  did, 
was  dismissed  as  being  an  ephemeral  detail.  Perhaps  in  this  one 
instance  that  was  the  reason  why  just  now  he  was  so  absurdly  hard 
up,  but  the  general  question  was  what  occupied  him.  Claude  was 
rich,  he  was  poor  ;  where  was  the  justice  of  it  ?  He  liked  prints, 
too,  and  why  should  Claude  be  able  to  cover  his  dining-room  walls 
with  these  delightful  first  impressions,  while  he  could  not  ?  Indeed, 
he  had  no  dining-room  at  all  in  which  he  could  hang  prints  even  if 
he  possessed  them.  His  dining-room  was  let  to  Mr.  Osborne,  who, 
it  was  said,  was  going  to  be  made  a  peer,  and  on  their  walls  hung 
the  stupendous  presentments  of  him  and  his  wife.  And  Claude 
had  married  his  sister  :  everything  came  to  those  who  had  cheque- 


THE   OSBORNES.  305 

books.  Well,  perhaps  the  Ascot  week  would  make  things  pleasanter 
again  ;  he  had  a  book  there  which  could  hardly  prove  a  disappoint- 
Iment.  If  it  did — but  so  untoward  a  possibility  presented  no 
features  that  were  at  all  attractive  to  contemplate. 

He  finished  his  lunch  and  then  made  a  more  detailed  tour  of  the 
flat.     It  was  delightfully  furnished  (probably  Uncle  ALE  was  respon  - 
sible  for  all  this,  since  it  was  clearly  out  of  the  ken  of  any  other 
lOsborne),  and  everything  breathed  of  that  luxurious  sort  of  sim- 
iplicity  which  is  so  far  beyond  the  reach  of  those  who  have  to  make 
sovereigns  exercise  their  utmost  power  of  purchase.     By  the  way, 
he  had  taken  a  sovereign  which  was  lying  about  on  Claude's  dressing- 
itable  and  given  it  to  the  cook  ;   he  must  remember  to  tell  Claude 
that  (for  Claude  might  remember,  if  he  did  not),  and  pay  him. 
iNext  that  room  was  the  bath-room,  white- walled  and  white- tiled, 
with  all  manner  of  squirts  and  douches  to  refresh  and  cool.     Then 
icame  a  second  bed-room,  then  the  dining-room  in  which  he  had 
just  now  so  delicately  fed,  then  the  drawing-room,  out  of  which 
opened  a  smaller  sitting-room,  clearly  Claude's.     There  was  a  big 
5 writing-table  in  it,  with  drawers  on  each  side,  and  Jim  amused 
himself  by  opening  these,  for  they  wece  all  unlocked,  and  looking 
at  their  contents.     Certainly  Claude  did  things  handsomely  when 
he  lent  his  flat,  for  in  the  first  drawer  that  Jim  opened  was  a  box  of 
cigarettes,  and  one  of  cigars.     These  latter  smelt  quite  excellent, 
i  and  Jim  put  back  the  cigarette  he  had  taken  from  the  other  box  and 
I  took  a  cigar  instead.     In  another  drawer  were  paper  and  envelopes 
stamped  with  a  crest  (no  doubt  the  outcome  of  the  ingenuity  of  the 
Heralds'  College),  in  another  a  pile  of  letters,  some  of  which  Jim 
recognised  to  be  in  Dora's  handwriting.     This  drawer  he  closed 
again  at  once  :  it  was  scarcely  a  temptation  not  to  do  so,  since  he 
only  cared  quite  vaguely  to  know  what  Dora  found  to  say  to  her 
promesso.     In  another  drawer  were  a  few  photographs,   a  few 
nvitation  cards,  an  engagement  book,  and  a  cheque-book.     This 
atter  was  apparently  an  old  one,  for  it  was  stiff  and  full  towards 
;he  back  with  counterfoils,   while  the  covers  drooped  together 
lalf  way  down  it. 

Jim  could  not  resist  opening  this,  nor  did  he  try  to  :  he  wanted 
o  know  (and  there  was  no  harm  done  if  he  did)  what  sort  of  sums 
Claude  spent.  But  on  opening  it  he  saw  that  it  was  not  quite 
3mpty  of  its  cheques  yet,  the  last  but  one  in  the  book  had  not  been 
born  out,  but  was  blank,  as  was  also  the  counterfoil.  Then  came 
the  last  counterfoil,  on  which  was  written  the  date,  which  was 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  164,  N.S.  20 


306  THE   OSBORNES. 

yesterday,  and  a  scrawled  '  Books,  Dora,'  and  an  item  of  some 
150Z.  Then  he  turned  over  the  earlier  counterfoils :  there  was  a  big 
cheque  to  Daimler,  no  doubt  for  his  car,  another  (scandalously 
large  it  seemed  to  Jim)  to  his  tailor,  more  '  Books,'  several  entered 
simply  as  '  Venice,'  and  several  on  which  there  was  nothing  written 
at  all.  Apparently,  in  such  instances,  Claude  had  just  drawn  a 
cheque  and  not  worried  to  fill  in  the  counterfoil.  That  again  was 
the  sort  of  insouciance  that  Jim  envied  :  it  was  only  possible  to 
very  rich  people  or  remarkably  careless  ones,  whereas  he  was  poor, 
but  remarkably  careful  as  to  the  payment  of  money.  The  blank 
cheque,  forgotten  apparently,  for  the  cheque-book,  tossed  away 
with  a  heap  of  old  invitation  cards,  looked  as  if  it  was  thought  to 
be  finished  with,  was  an  instance  the  more  of  this  enviable  security 
about  money  matters.  And  Jim  felt  more  Socialistic  than  ever. 

He  shut  the  drawer  up,  and  examined  the  rest  of  the  room, 
having  lit  the  cigar  which  he  had  taken  from  the  box  and  which  he 
found  to  be  as  excellent  to  the  palate  as  it  was  to  the  nostril.  The 
room  reeked  of  quiet  opulence  :  there  was  a  book-case  full  of 
well-bound  volumes,  a  pianola  of  the  latest  type,  two  or  three  more 
prints,  the  overflow  from  the  dining-room,  and  a  couple  of  Empire 
arm-chairs,  in  which  comfort  and  beauty  were  mated,  and  on  the 
floor  was  an  Aubusson  carpet.  And  though  feeling  envious  and 
Socialistic,  Jim  felt  that  it  would  be  quite  possible  to  be  very  com- 
fortable here  for  the  next  six  or  seven  weeks. 

Like  most  people  who  have  suffered  all  their  lives  from  want 
of  money,  and  have  yet  managed  to  live  in  a  thoroughly  extravagant 
manner,  Jim  had  been  so  often  under  obligations  to  others  that 
Heaven,  suiting,  we  must  suppose,  the  back  to  the  burden,  had 
made  him  by  this  time  unconscious  of  such.  He  accepted  such 
offers  as  this  of  the  flat  with  a  gay  light-heartedness  that  was  not 
without  its  charm,  and  made  also  the  undoubted  difficulty  of 
conferring,  no  less  than  accepting,  a  favour  gracefully,  easy  to  the 
giver.  But  he  did  not  like  Claude,  and  had  a  sufficiently  firm 
conviction  that  Claude  did  not  like  him,  to  take  the  edge  off  his 
enjoyment.  Why  Claude  should  not  like  him,  he  could  not  tell : 
he  had  always  been  more  than  pleasant  to  his  brother-in-law,  and 
when  they  met,  they  always,  owing  to  a  natural  and  easy  knack  of 
volubility  which  Jim  possessed,  got  on  quite  nicely  together. 

This  minute  inspection  of  the  flat  had  taken  Jim  some  time 
and  when  it  was  completed  he  strolled  out  to  pay  a  call  or  two,  se( 
if  there  was  any  racing  news  of  interest,  and  go  round  to  th( 


THE   OSBORNES.  307 

Osbornes  to  have  a  talk  to  Dora,  whom  he  had  not  seen  since  she 
had  returned  from  Venice,  and  in  person  express  his  gratitude  for 
the  timely  gift  of  the  flat.  He  found  her  in,  but  alone :  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Osborne  were  expected  from  Grote  that  afternoon. 

'  It  was  really  extremely  kind  of  Claude  to  think  of  it,'  he  said, 
'  and  most  opportune.  I  had  the  rottenest  Epsom,  and  really  was 
at  my  wits'  end.  You  are  probably  beginning  to  forget  what  that 
means.  Oh,  by  the  way,  I  found  a  sovereign  of  Claude's  on  his 
dressing-table  and  gave  it  to  the  cook  in  order  to  promote  good 
feeling — or  was  it  ten  shillings  ?  ' 

Dora  laughed.  This  was  characteristic  of  Jim,  but  she  was 
used  to  it,  and  did  not  make  sermon  to  him. 

'  I  feel  quite  certain  it  was  a  sovereign,  Jim,'  she  said.  '  I  will 
bet,  if  you  like.  We  will  ask  the  cook  what  you  gave  her.' 

'  I  dare  say  you  are  right.  Ah,  you  expect  Claude,  though. 
I  will  give  it  him  when  he  comes  in.  Have  you  seen  mother  ?  She 
and  I  are  not  on  terms  just  now.  But  it  does  not  matter,  as  I 
have  Claude's  flat.' 

'  What  have  you  beeen  doing  ?  ' 

'  Nothing  ;  she  did  it  all.  1  hadn't  the  least  wish  to  cut  her. 
In  fact,  I  wanted  to  stay  in  Eaton  Place,  until  the  flat  came  along, 
and  when  it  did,  I  wished  to  give  her  a  slice  of  my  luck,  and  I  asked 
her  to  lunch.  She  said  '  No,'  but  sighed.  The  sigh  was  not  about 
lunch  but  about  the  flat.  She  would  have  liked  it.  By  Jove, 
Dora,  you're  nicely  housed  here.  It's  a  neat  little  box,  as  Mr.  0. 
would  say.' 

Dora  gave  a  short  laugh,  not  very  merry  in  tone. 

'Ah,  that's  one  of  the  things  we  mustn't  say,'  she  observed. 
'  I've  been  catching  it  from  Claude.  He  says  he's  respectful  to  my 
family,  but  I'm  not  respectful  to  his.' 

Jim  paused  with  his  cup  in  his  hand. 

'  Been  having  a  row  ?  '  he  asked.  '  Make  it  up  at  once.  Say 
you  were  wrong.' 

'.  But  I  wasn't,'  said  she. 

'  That  doesn't  matter.  What  does  matter  is  that  you  should 
et  the  purse-holders  have  everything  all  their  own  way.  Then 
everything  slips  along  easily  and  comfortably.' 

'  Oh,  money  !  '  she  said.     '  Who  cares  about  the  money  ?  ' 

Jim  opened  his  eyes  very  wide. 

'  I  do  very  much,'  he  said,  '  and  so  did  you  up  till  a  year  ago. 

20—2 


308  THE   OSBORNES. 

It  is  silly  to  say  that  money  doesn't  matter  just  because  you  have  a 
lot.     It's  only  the  presence  of  a  lot  that  enables  you  to  say  so.' 

'  Yes,  that's  true,'  she  said,  '  and  it  adds  to  one's  pleasure. 
But  it  doesn't  add  to  one's  happiness,  not  one  jot.  I'm  just  as 
capable  of  being  unhappy  now  as  ever  I  was.  Not  that  I  am 
unhappy  in  the  least.' 

Jim  nodded  sympathetically. 

'  You  look  rather  worried,'  he  said.  '  So  you've  been  having  a 
bit  of  a  turn  up  with  Claude.  That's  the  worst  of  being  married ; 
if  I  have  a  shindy  with  anyone  I  walk  away,  and  unless  the  other 
fellow  follows,  the  shindy  stops.  But  you  can't  walk  away  from 
your  husband.' 

Dora  was  silent  a  moment,  considering  whether  she  should  talk 
to  her  brother  about  these  things  which  troubled  her  or  not.  She 
had  tried  to  find  a  solution  for  them  by  herself,  but  had  been 
unable,  and  she  had  a  great  opinion  of  his  practical  shrewdness.  It 
was  not  likely  that  he  would  suggest  anything  fine  or  altruistic, 
because  he  was  not  of  that  particular  build,  but  he  might  be  able  to 
suggest  something. 

'  Yes,  we've  been  having  a  bit  of  a  turn  up,  as  you  call  it,'  she 
said.  '  That  doesn't  matter  so  much  ;  but  what  bothers  me  rather 
is  our  totally  different  way  of  looking  at  things.  I'm  awfully  fond 
of  Dad,  I  am  really,  but  it  would  be  childish  if  I  pretended  that  I 
don't  see — well — humorous  things  about  him.  You  see  one  has 
either  to  be  amused  by  such  things — I  only  learned  that  yesterday 
from  Uncle  Alf — or  else  take  them  tragically.  At  Venice  I  took 
them  tragically.  I  thought  it  dreadful  that  he  liked  to  see  the 
sugar  factory  better  than  anything  else.  And  if  it  isn't  dreadful, 
it's  got  to  be  funny  :  it's  either  funny  or  vulgar.  There's  nothing 
else  for  it  to  be.  And  then  Claude — oh,  dear  !  I  told  him  he  was! 
at  liberty  to  laugh  at  you  and  mother  as  much  as  he  chose,  but  he1 
didn't  appear  to  want  to.  I  don't  think  he's  got  any  sense  of 
humour  :  there  are  heaps  and  heaps  of  ridiculous  things  about  you 
both.' 

'  Good  gracious  !     You  never  thought  he  had  any  sense  of 
humour,  did  you  ?  '  asked  Jim  earnestly. 

'  I  don't  know.     I  don't  think  I  thought  about  it  at  all.    And 
that's  not  the  worst.' 

Jim  put  his  head  on  one  side,  and  Dora's  estimate  of  his  shrewd- 
ness was  justified. 


THE   OSBORNES.  309 

'  Do  you  mean  that  you  are  beginning  to  mind  about  his  being 
— er — not  quite ?  '  he  asked  delicately. 

Dora  nodded. 

'  Yes,  that's  it,'  she  said. 

'  What  a  pity  !  I  hoped  you  wouldn't  mind.  You  appeared 
not  to  at  first.  One  hoped  you  would  get  used  to  it  before  it  got 
on  your  nerves.  Can't  you  put  it  away,  wrap  it  up  and  put  it 
away  ?  ' 

'  Do  you  suppose  1  keep  it  in  front  of  me  for  fun  ?  '  she  asked. 
'  Oh,  Jim,  is  it  beastly  of  me  to  tell  you  ?  There's  really  no  one  else 
to  tell.  I  couldn't  tell  mother,  because  she's — well,  she's  not  very 
jhelpful  about  that  sort  of  thing,  and  talks  about  true  nobility  being 
:the  really  important  thing,  that  and  truth  and  honour  and  kindness. 
That  is  such  parrot-talk,  you  know  ;  it  is  just  repeating  what  we 
jhave  all  heard  a  million  of  times.  No  doubt  it  is  true,  but  what  if 
one  can't  realise  it  ?  I  used  always  to  suppose  Shakespeare  was 
!a  great  author,  till  I  saw  "  Hamlet,"  which  bored  me.  And  I  had 
to  tell  somebody.  What  am  I  to  do  ?  ' 

'  Why,  apply  to  Claude  what  you've  been  saying  about  Mr. 
Osborne,'  said  he.  '  There  are  things  about  him  which  are  dreadful 
unless  you  tell  yourself  they  are  funny.  Well,  tell  yourself  they 
are  funny.  I  hope  they  are.  Won't  that  help  ?  ' 

'  1  don't  know.  Perhaps  it  might.  But  there  are  things  that 
are  funny  at  a  little  distance  which  cease  to  amuse  when  they  come 
quite  close.  Uncle  Alf  made  me  think  that  the  humorous  solution 
would  solve  everything.  But  it  doesn't  really ;  it  only  solves 
the  things  that  don't  really  matter.' 

Dora  dined  quietly  at  home  that  night  with  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Osborne  and  Claude,  and  after  dinner  had  a  talk  to  her  mother-in- 
law  while  the  other  two  lingered  in  the  dining-room. 

'  Why,  it  was  like  seeing  a  fire  through  the  window  to  welcome 
you  when  you  got  home  of  a  cold  evening,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne 
cordially,  '  to  see  your  face  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  my  dear. 
Mr.  Osborne's  been  wondering  all  the  way  up  whether  you  and 
Claude  would  be  dining  at  home  to-night.  Bless  you,  if  he's  said 
it  once  he's  said  it  fifty  times.' 

'  I  love  being  wanted,'  said  Dora  quickly. 

'  Well,  it's  wanted  that  you  are,  by  him  and  me  and  everyone 
e.  And,  my  dear,  I'm  glad  to  think  you'll  be  by  my  elbow  at 
all  my  parties,  to  help  me,  and  say  who's  who.  And  we  lead  off 


310  THE   OSBORNES. 

to-morrow  with  a  big  dinner.  There's  thirty  to  table,  and  a  recep- 
tion after,  just  to  let  it  be  known  as  how  the  house  is  open  again, 
and  all  and  sundry  will  be  welcome.  Of  course,  you'll  have  your 
own  engagements  as  well,  my  dear,  and  many  of  them,  I'm  sure,  and 
no  wonder,  and  there's  nothing  I  wish  less  than  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  them,  but  whenever  you've  an  evening  to  spare,  you  give  a 
thought  to  me,  and  say  to  yourself,  '  Well,  if  I'm  wanted  nowhere 
else,  there's  mother'll  be  looking  out  for  me  at  the  head  of  the  stairs.' 

Dora  laughed. 

'  I  accept  your  invitations  to  all  your  balls,  and  all  your  concerts, 
and  as  many  as  possible  of  your  dinners,'  she  said.  '  You'll  get 
sick  of  the  sight  of  my  face  before  the  season  is  over.' 

'  That  I  never  shall,  my  dear,'  said  Mrs.  Osborne,  '  nor  after- 
wards neither.  And  you'll  come  down  to  Grote,  won't  you,  after 
July,  and  stay  quiet  there  till  the  little  blessed  one  comes,  if  you 
don't  mind  my  alluding  to  it,  my  dear,  as  I'm  going  to  be  its  grand- 
mother, though  it's  a  thing  I  never  should  do  if  there  was  anybody 
else  but  you  and  me  present.  Lord,  and  it  seems  only  yesterday 
that  I  was  expecting  my  own  first-born,  and  Mr.  0.  in  such  a  taking 
as  you  never  see,  and  me  so  calm  and  all,  just  longing  for  my  time 
to  come,  and  thinking  nothing  at  all  of  the  pain,  for  such  as  there 
is  don't  count  against  seeing  your  baby.  But  you  leave  Claude  to 
me,  and  I'll  pull  him  through.  Bless  him,  I  warrant  he'll  need 
more  cheering  and  comforting  than  you.  And  are  you  sure  your 
rooms  are  comfortable  here,  dearie  ?  I  thought  the  suite  at  the 
back  of  the  house  would  be  more  to  your  liking  than  the  front, 
being  quieter,  for,  to  be  sure,  if  you  are  so  good  as  to  come  and  keep 
us  old  folks  company,  the  least  we  can  do  is  to  see  that  you  have 
things  to  your  taste  and  don't  get  woke  by  those  roaring  motor- 
buses  or  the  stream  of  vegetables  for  the  market.' 

'  But  they  are  delightful,'  said  Dora.  '  They've  given  me  the 
dearest  little  sitting-room  with  bed-room  and  bath-room  all 
together.' 

Mrs.  Osborne  beamed  contentedly.  She  had  had  a  couple  of 
days  without  any  return  of  pain,  and  as  she  said,  she  had  had  a 
better  relish  for  her  dinner  to-night  than  for  many  days. 

'  Well,  then,  let's  hope  we  shall  all  be  comfortable  and  happy,' 
she  said.  '  And  I  don't  mind  telling  you  now,  my  dear,  that  I've 
been  out  of  sorts  and  not  up  to  my  victuals  for  a  fortnight  past, 
but  to-day  I  feel  hearty  again,  though  I  get  tired  easily  still.  But 
don't  you  breathe  a  word  of  that,  promise  me,  to  Mr.  Osborne  or 


THE   OSBORNES.  311 

Claude,  for  what  with  the  honour  as  is  going  to  be  done  to  Mr.  0. 
and  the  thought  of  his  grandchild  getting  closer,  and  him  back  to 
work  again,  which,  after  all,  suits  him  best,  I  wouldn't  take  the 
edge  off  his  enjoyment  if  you  were  to  ask  me  on  your  bended  knees, 
which  1  should  do,  if  he  thought  I  was  out  of  sorts.  Lord,  there 
he  conies  now,  arm-in-arm  with  Claude.  I  declare  he's  like  a  boy 
again,  with  the  thought  of  all  as  is  coming.' 

The  evening  of  the  next  day,  accordingly,  saw,  with  flare  of 
light  and  blare  of  band,  the  beginning  of  the  hospitalities  of  No.  92 
Park  Lane,  the  doors  of  which,  so  it  appeared  to  Dora,  were  never 
afterwards  shut  day  or  night,  except  during  the  week-ends  when  the 
doors  of  Grote  flew  open  and  the  scene  of  hospitality  changed  to 
that  of  the  country.  Yet  cordial  though  it  all  was,  it  was  insensate 
hospitality — hospitality  gone  mad.  Had  some  hotel  announced 
that  anyone  of  any  consequence  could  dine  there  without  charge, 
and  ask  friends  to  dine  on  the  same  easy  terms,  such  an  offer  would 
have  diverted  the  crowds  of  carriages  from  Park  Lane,  and  sent 
them  to  the  hotel  instead.  Full  as  her  programme  originally 
was,  Mrs.  Osborne  could  not  resist  the  pleasure  of  added  hospitalities, 
and  little  dances,  got  up  in  impromptu  fashion  with  much  tele- 
phoning and  leaving  of  cards,  were  wedged  in  between  the  big  ones, 
and  became  big  themselves  before  the  night  arrived.  Scores  of 
guests,  utterly  unknown  to  their  hosts,  crowded  the  rooms,  and  for 
them  all,  known  and  unknown  alike,  Mrs.  Osborne  had  the  same 
genial  and  genuine  cordiality  of  welcome.  It  was  sufficient  for  her 
that  they  had  crossed  her  threshold  and  would  drink  Mr.  O.'s 
champagne  and  eat  her  capons  ;  she  was  glad  to  see  them  all.  She 
had  a  shocking  memory  for  faces,  but  that  made  no  difference,  since 
nothing  could  exceed  the  geniality  of  her  greeting  to  those  whom 
she  had  never  set  eyes  on  before.  It  was  a  good  moment,  too,  when, 
not  so  long  after  the  beginning  of  her  hospitalities,  her  secretary, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  enter  the  names  of  all  callers  in  the  immense 
volume  dedicated  to  that  purpose,  reported  that  a  second  calling 
book  was  necessary,  since  the  space  allotted  to  the  letters  with  which 
the  majority  of  names  began  was  full.  She  could  not  have  imagined 
a  year  ago  that  this  would  ever  happen,  yet  here  at  the  beginning 
of  her  second  season  only,  more  space  had  to  be  found.  And  Dora's 
name  for  the  second  volume,  '  Supplement  to  the  Court  Guide,' 
was  most  gratifying.  Alf's  allusion  to  the  '  London  Directory,' 
though  equally  true,  would  not  have  been  so  satisfactory. 

But  her  brave  and  cheerful  soul  needed  all  its  gallantry,  for  it 


312  THE   OSBORNES. 

was  an  incessant  struggle  with  her  to  conceal  the  weariness  and 
discomfort  which  were  always  with  her,  and  which  she  was  so  afraid 
she  would,  in  spite  of  herself,  betray  to  others.  There  were  days  of 
pain,  too,  not  as  yet  very  severe,  but  of  a  sort  that  frightened  her, 
and  her  appetite  failed  her.  This  she  could  conceal,  without 
difficulty  for  the  most  part,  since  the  times  were  few  on  which  her 
husband  was  not  sitting  at  some  distance  from  her,  with  many 
guests  intervening  ;  but  once  or  twice  when  they  were  alone  she 
was  afraid  he  would  notice  her  abstention,  and  question  her.  Her 
high  colour  also  began  to  fade  from  her  cheeks  and  lips,  and  she 
made  one  daring  but  tremulous  experiment  with  rouge  and  lip- 
salve to  hide  this.  She  sent  her  maid  out  of  the  room  before  the 
attempt,  and  then  applied  the  pigments,  but  with  disastrous 
results.  '  Lor,  Mr.  0.  will  think  it's  some  woman  of  the  music- 
halls  instead  of  his  wife,'  she  said  to  herself,  and  wiped  off  again 
the  unusual  brilliance. 

But  though  sometimes  her  courage  faltered,  it  never  gave  way. 
She  had  determined  not  to  spoil  these  weeks  for  her  husband.  It 
was  to  be  a  blaze  of  triumph.  Afterwards  she  would  go  to  the 
doctor  and  learn  that  she  had  been  frightening  herself  to  no  purpose, 
or  that  there  was  something  wrong. 

And  those  endless  hospitalities,  this  stream  of  people  who 
passed  in  and  out  of  the  house,  though  they  tired  her  they  also 
served  to  divert  her  and  take  her  mind  off  her  discomforts  and 
alarms.  She  had  to  be  in  her  place,  though  Dora  took  much  of 
the  burden  of  it  off  her  shoulders,  to  shake  hands  with  streams  of 
people  and  say — which  was  perfectly  true — how  pleased  she  was 
to  see  them.  Friends  from  Sheffield,  for  she  never  in  her  life  dropped 
an  old  acquaintance,  came  to  stay,  and  the  pleasurable  anticipation 
she  had  had  of  letting  them  see  '  a  bit  of  real  London  life  '  fell  short 
of  the  reality.  Best  of  all,  Sir  Thomas  and  Lady  Ewart  were  in 
the  house  when  the  list  of  honours  appeared  in  the  paper. 

It  happened  dramatically,  and  the  drama  of  it  was  planned 
and  contrived  by  Claude.  He  came  down  rather  late  to  breakfast, 
having  given  orders  that  this  morning  no  papers  were  to  be  put  in 
their  usual  place  in  the  dining-room,  and  went  straight  up  to  his 
father. 

'  Good-morning,  my  lord,'  he  said. 

'  Hey,  what  ?  '  said  Mr.  Osborne.  '  Poking  your  fun  at  ine, 
are  you  ?  ' 

'  There's  something  about  you  in  the  papers,  my  lord.' 


THE   OSBORNES,  313 

'  Well,  I  never  !     Let's  see,'  said  Mr.  Osborne. 

He  unfolded  the  paper  Claude  had  brought  him. 

'  My  lady,'  he  said  across  the  table  to  his  wife,  '  this'll  interest 
you.  List  of  honours.  Peerages,  Edward  Osborne,  Esquire,  M.P.' 

It  was  a  triumphant  success.  Sir  Thomas  actually  thought 
that  it  was  news  to  them  both,  and  went  so  far  as  to  lay  down  his 
knife  and  fork. 

'  Bless  my  soul ! '  he  said.  '  Well,  I'm  sure  there  was  never 
an  honour  more  deservedly  won,  nor  what  will  be  more  dignifiedly 
worn.' 

Mr.  Osborne  could  not  keep  it  up. 

*  Well,  well,'  he  said,  '  of  course  we've  known  all  along ;  but 
Claude  would  have  his  joke  and  pretend  it  was  news  to  us.  Thank 
ye,  Sir  Thomas,  I'm  sure.  Maria,  my  dear,  I'm  told  your  new 
coronet's  come  home.  Pass  it  to  my  lady,  Claude.' 

As  if  by  a  conjuring  trick,  he  produced  from  under  the  table- 
cloth an  all-round  tiara  of  immense  diamonds,  which  had  been 
previously  balanced  on  his  knees. 

Mrs.  Osborne  had  had  no  idea  of  this  ;  that  part  of  the  ceremony 
had  been  kept  from  her. 

'  Put  it  on,  Maria,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  and  if  there's  a  peeress 
in  the  land  as  better  deserves  her  coronet  than  you,  I  should  be 
proud  to  meet  her.  Let  the  Honourable  Claude  settle  it  comfort- 
able for  you,  my  dear.  Claude,  my  boy,  I'm  jealous  of  you  because 
you're  an  honourable,  which  is  more  than  your  poor  old  dad  ever 
was.' 

The  deft  hands  of  the  Honourable  adjusted  the  tiara  for  her 
and  she  got  up  to  salute  the  donor. 

'  If  it  isn't  the  measure  of  my  head  exactly  !  '  she  said.  '  Well, 
I  never,  and  me  not  knowing  a  word  about  it !  ' 

Meantime,  as  June  drew  to  its  close,  in  this  whirl  of  engage- 
ments and  socialities,  the  estrangement  between  Dora  and  Claude 
grew,  though  not  more  acute  in  itself,  more  of  a  habit,  and  the 
very  passage  of  time,  instead  of  softening  it,  rendered  it  harder 
to  soften.  Had  they  been  alone  in  their  flat,  it  is  probable  that 
some  intolerable  moment  would  have  come,  breaking  down  that 
which  stood  between  them,  or  in  any  case  compelling  them  to  talk 
it  out ;  or,  a  thing  which  would  have  been  better  than  nothing, 
bringing  this  cold  alienation  up  to  the  hot  level  of  a  quarrel,  which 
could  have  been  made  up,  and  which  when  made  up  might  have 
carried  away  with  it  much  of  the  cause  of  this  growing  constraint. 


314  THE   OSBORNES. 

As  it  was,  there  was  no  quarrel,  and  thus  there  was  nothing  to  make 
up.  Claude,  on  his  side,  believed  that  his  wife  still  rather  resented 
certain  remarks  he  had  made  to  her  at  Venice  and  here  on  the 
subject  of  her  attitude  towards  his  father,  contrasting  it  unfavour- 
ably with  the  appreciation  and  kindness  which  his  family  had  shown 
hers.  In  his  rather  hard,  thoroughly  well-meaning  and  perfectly 
just  manner  he  examined  and  re-examined  any  cause  of  complaint 
which  she  could  conceive  herself  to  have  on  the  subject,  and  entirely 
acquitted  himself  of  blame.  He  did  not  see  that  he  could  have 
done  differently  :  he  had  not  been  unkind,  only  firm,  and  his 
firmness  was  based  upon  his  sense  of  right. 

But  in  this  examination  he,  of  course,  utterly  failed  to  recognise 
the  real  ground  of  the  estrangement,  which  was,  as  Dora  knew, 
not  any  one  particular  speech  or  action  of  his,  but  rather  the 
spirit  and  the  nature  which  lay  behind  every  speech,  every  action. 
This  she  was  incapable  of  telling  him,  and  even  if  she  had  been  able 
to  do  so,  no  good  end  would  have  been  served  by  it.  She  had 
married  him,  not  knowing  him,  or  at  the  least  blinded  by  super- 
ficialities, and  now,  getting  below  those,  or  getting  used  to  them, 
she  found  that  there  were  things  to  which  she  could  not  get  used, 
but  which,  on  the  contrary,  seemed  to  her  to  be  getting  every 
day  more  glaringly  disagreeable  to  her.  He,  not  knowing  this, 
did  his  best  to  remove  what  he  believed  had  been  the  cause  of  their 
estrangement  by  praise  and  commendation  of  what  he  called  to 
himself  her  altered  behaviour.  For  there  was  no  doubt  whatever 
that  now,  at  any  rate,  Dora  was  behaving  delightfully  to  his 
parents.  She  took  much  of  the  work  of  entertaining  off  Mrs. 
Osborne's  hands  ;  made  but  few  engagements  of  her  own,  in  order 
to  be  more  actively  useful  in  the  house ;  and  was  in  every  sense 
the  most  loyal  and  dutiful  of  daughters-in-law.  She  also  very 
gently  and  tactfully  got  leave  to  revise  Mrs.  Osborne's  visiting  list, 
and  drew  a  somewhat  ruthless  lead  pencil  through  a  considerable 
number  of  the  names.  For  in  the  early  days  to  leave  a  card  meant, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  to  be  asked  to  the  house.  This  luxuriant  and 
exotic  garden  wanted  a  little  weeding. 

All  this  seemed  to  Claude  to  be  the  happy  fruits  of  his  criticism, 
and  the  consciousness  of  it  in  his  mind  did  not  improve  the  flavour 
of  his  speeches  to  Dora.  They  were  but  little  alone,  owing  to  the 
high  pressure  of  their  days  ;  but  one  evening,  about  a  fortnight 
after  they  had  moved  into  Park  Lane,  he  found  her  resting  in  her 
sitting-room  before  dressing. 


THE   OSBORNES.  315 

'  There  you  are,  dear,'  he  said.  '  How  right  of  you  to  rest  a 
little.'  What  have  you  been  doing  ?  ' 

4  There  were  people  to  lunch,'  said  she  ;  '  and  then  I  drove 
down  with  Dad  to  the  House.  He  was  not  there  long,  so  I  waited 
for  him,  and  we  had  a  turn  in  the  Park.  Then  a  whole  host  of 
people  came  to  tea,  and  I — I  multiplied  myself.' 

'  They  are  ever  so  pleased  with  you,'  said  Claude,  '  and  I'm  sure 
I  don't  wonder.  Ever  since  they  came  up  you  have  simply  devoted 
yourself  to  them.' 

In  his  mind  was  the  thought,  '  Ever  since  I  spoke  to  you  about 
it.'  It  was  not  verbally  expressed,  but  the  whole  speech  rang 
with  it.  Dora  tried  for  a  moment,  following  Uncle  Alf's  plan,  to 
find  something  humorous  about  it,  failed  dismally,  and  tried  instead 
to  disregard  it. 

'  I'm  glad,'  she  said,  '  that  one  is  of  use.' 

Then  she  made  a  further  effort. 

'  I  think  it  was  an  excellent  plan  that  we  should  come  here,' 
she  added.  '  It  suits  us,  doesn't  it  ?  and  it  suits  them.' 

Claude  smiled  at  her,  leaning  over  the  head  of  the  sofa  where 
she  lay. 

'  I  knew  you  would  find  it  a  success,'  he  said.  '  I  felt  quite 
certain  it  would  be.' 

Again  Dora  tried  to  shut  her  ears  to  the  personal  note — this 
ring  of  *  How  right  I  was  !  ' 

'  It  suits  Jim,  too,'  she  said.  '  It  really  was  kind  of  you  to  let 
him  have  the  flat.  May  tells  me  she  went  to  dine  there  last  night. 
He  had  a  bridge  party.' 

Claude  laughed. 

*  He's  certainly  making  the  most   of   it,'  he  said,  l  just  as  I 
meant  him  to  do.     I  think  I'm  like  Dad  in  that.     Do  you  remember 
how  he  treated  us  over  the  Venice  house  this  year  ?     Not  a  penny 
for  us  to  pay.     Jim's  giving  lots  of  little  parties,  I'm  told,  and 
Parker  came  round  to  me  yesterday  to  ask  if  he  should  order  some 
more  wine,  as  Jim's  nearly  finished  it.     Also  cigars  and  cigarettes. 
Of  course  I  told  him  to  order  whatever  was  wanted.     I  hate  doing 
things  by  halves.     The  household  books  will  be  something  to  smile 
at.    But  he's  having  a  rare  good  time.    It's  not  much  entertaining 
he  has  been  able  to  do  all  his  life  up  till  now.' 

Dora  sat  up. 

*  But,  Claude,  do  you  mean  he's  drinking  your  wine  and  letting 
you  pay  for  all  the  food  ?  '  she  asked. 


316  THE   OSBORNES. 

'  Yes.  It's  my  own  fault.  I  ought  to  have  locked  up  the  cellar, 
and  made  it  clear  that  he  would  pay  for  his  own  chickens.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  never  struck  me  that  he  wouldn't.  But  as  that 
hasn't  occurred  to  him,  I  can't  remind  him  of  it.' 

'  But  you  must  tell  him  he's  got  to  pay  for  things,'  said 
Dora.  '  Why,  he  might  as  well  order  clothes  and,  just  because  he 
was  in  your  flat,  expect  you  to  pay  for  them  !  ' 

'  Oh,  I  can't  tell  him,'  said  Claude.  '  It  would  look  as  if  I 
grudged  him  things.  I  don't  a  bit :  I  like  people  to  have  a  good 
time  at  my  expense.  Poor  devil !  he  had  a  rotten  Derby  week ; 
no  wonder  he  likes  living  on  the  cheap.  And  it  must  be  beastly 
uncomfortable  living  on  the  cheap,  if  it's  your  own  cheap,  so  to 
speak.  I  expect  you  and  I  would  be  just  the  same  if  we  were 
poor.' 

But  the  idea  was  insupportable  to  Dora,  and  the  more  so  because 
of  the  way  in  which  Claude  took  it.  Generous  he  was,  no  one  could 
be  more  generous,  but  there  was  behind  it  all  a  sort  of  patronising 
attitude.  He  gave  cordially  indeed,  but  with  the  cordiality  was 
a  self-conscious  pleasure  in  his  own  open-handedness  and  a  contempt 
scarcely  veiled  of  what  he  gave.  And  the  worst  of  all  was  that  Jim 
should  have  taken  advantage  of  this  insouciance  about  money 
affairs  that  sprang  from  the  fact  that  he  had  no  need  to  worry 
about  money.  Claude  did  not  like  Jim,  Dora  felt  certain  of  that, 
and  this  made  it  impossible  that  Jim  should  take  advantage  of 
his  bounty.  It  was  an  indebtedness  she  could  not  tolerate  in  her 
brother. 

'  What's  there  to  fuss  about  ?  '  Claude  went  on.  '  If  the  whole 
thing  runs  into  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  it  won't  hurt.  And, 
after  all,  he's  your  brother,  dear.  I  like  being  good  to  your  kin.' 

Dora  was  not  doing  Claude  an  injustice  when  she  told  herself 
that  his  irreproachable  conduct  to  her  family  was  in  his  mind.  It 
was  there ;  he  did  not  mean  it  to  be  in  evidence,  but  insensibly 
and  unintentionally  it  tinged  his  words.  The  whole  thing  was 
kind,  kind,  kind,  but  it  was  consciously  kind.  That  made  the 
whole  difference. 

'  But  it  can't  be,'  she  said.  '  If  you  won't  speak  to  Jim  about 
it,  I  will.  It  is  impossible  that  he  should  drink  your  wine  and  smoke 
your  cigars  and  have  dinner-parties  at  your  expense.  I  can't  let 
him  do  that  sort  of  thing,  if  I  can  possibly  help  it.  I  would  much 
sooner  pay  myself  than  that  you  should  pay  for  him.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  317 

'  My  dear,  what  a  fuss  about  nothing  !  '  said  Claude.  '  It  isn't 
as  if  it  mattered  to  me  whether  I  pay  for  his  soup  and  cutlet ' 

'  No,  that's  just  it,'  said  Dora  quickly.  '  That's  why  you 

mustn't.  If  it  cost  you  something Oh,  Claude,  I  don't  think 

I  can  make  you  understand,'  she  said.  '  Anyhow,  I  shall  tell  Jim 
what  I  think  ;  and  if  the  poor  wretch  hasn't  got  any  money,  then 
I  must  pay.' 

'  Oh,  I  don't  suppose  he's  got  any  money,'  said  Claude  ;  '  and 
as  for  your  paying,  my  dear,  what  difference  does  that  make  ? 
I  give  you  your  allowance — and  I  wish  you'd  say  you  wanted  more, 
for  Uncle  Alf's  always  wondering  whether  you've  got  enough — 
and  you  want  to  pay  me  out  of  that.  Well,  it's  only  out  of  one 
pocket  and  into  another.  Don't  fuss  about  it,  dear.  I  wish  I 
hadn't  told  you.' 

'  But  it  isn't  quite  like  that,'  said  Dora.  '  I  could  deny  myself 
something  in  order  to  pay,  if  Jim  can't.  I  can  tell  them  not  to 
send  me  the  dress ' 

And  then  the  hopelessness  of  it  all  struck  her.  She  was  in  the 
same  boat  as  her  husband  ;  she  could  not  deny  herself  anything 
she  wanted,  because  there  was  no  need  for  self-denial.  And  with- 
out that  she  could  not  make  atonement  for  Jim's  behaviour.  Nor 
could  she  say  to  herself  that  he  had  done  it  without  thinking  ;  Jim 
always  thought  when  there  was  a  question  of  money,  for  that  he 
took  seriously.  It  was  only  his  own  conduct,  his  own  character, 
and  other  little  trifles  of  that  sort  for  which  he  had  so  light  a  touch, 
so  easy  a  rein.  He  had  been  giving  little  dinners  at  his  flat,  instead 
of  dining  out,  as  he  usually  did.  He  would  never  have  done  that 
if  he  thought  he  was  going  to  pay  for  the  quails  and  the  peaches. 
That  he  should  do  it  was  the  thing  that  was  irremediable — that, 
and  the  contemptuous  kindness  of  Claude. 

Claude  saw  there  was  some  feeling  in  her  mind  of  which  he  did 
not  grasp  the  force.  She  wanted  to  pay  herself,  or  to  think  she 
paid,  for  Jim's  hospitalities.  It  did  not  make  a  pennyworth  of 
difference.  He  would  pay  a  cheque  into  her  account,  which  would 
make  her  square  again,  and  she  would  never  notice  it. 

'  Just  as  you  like,  dear,'  he  said ;  *  but  you  mustn't  tell  Jim 
you  are  doing  it.  He  would  think  that  I  was  reluctant  to  pay  for 
his  food  and  drinks  ;  and  I'm  not.  I  can't  stand  being  thought 
mean.  There's  no  excuse  for  a  fellow  with  plenty  of  shekels  being 


318  THE   OSBORNES. 

1  Oh,  you  are  not  that,'  said  Dora  quickly,  her  voice  without 
volition  following  the  train  of  thought  in  her  mind. 

'  No,  dear,  I  hope  not,'  said  he.  '  And,  believe  me,  I  haven't 
got  two  ill  feelings  to  rub  against  each  other  with  regard  to  Jim. 
It's  only  by  chance  I  knew.  If  there'd  been  another  box  of  cigars 
in  the  flat,  and  a  few  more  dozen  champagne,  Parker  would  never 

have  come  to  me.  And  as  for  the  household  books why,  dear, 

they'd  have  been  sent  up  to  you,  and  I  bet  you'd  never  have  seen. 
No,  it's  just  a  chance  as  has  put  us  in  the  knowledge  of  it  all,  and 
I  for  one  should  hate  to  take  advantage  of  it.  So  cheer  up,  dear ! 
Pay  me,  if  it  makes  you  feel  easier  ;  but  don't  say  a  word  to  Jim. 
I  like  doing  a  thing  thoroughly,  as  I'm  doing  this.' 

He  lingered  a  moment  by  the  door. 

4  Perhaps  that  clears  things  up  a  bit,  Dora,'  he  said,  with  a 
touch  of  wistfulness  in  his  voice. 

And  Dora  tried,  tried  to  think  it  did.  She  tried  also  to  put  all 
possible  simplicity  into  her  voice  as  she  answered  : 

'  But  what  is  there  to  clear  up,  dear  ?  '  she  asked. 

'  That's  all  right,  then,'  said  he,  and  left  her.  But  once  out- 
side the  door,  he  shook  his  head.  Bottled  simplicity,  so  to  speak, 
is  not  the  same  as  simplicity  from  the  spring.  He  was  quite 
shrewd  enough  to  know  the  difference. 

He  was  shrewd  enough  also  to  know  that  he  did  not  quite 
understand  what  had  gone  wrong.  Something  certainly  had,  and 
after  his  compliments  to  her  on  the  subject  of  the  admirable  way 
in  which  she  was  behaving  to  his  parents  he  knew  that  it  was  no 
longer  his  strictures  on  that  subject  that  made  this  barrier.  True 
it  was  that  during  these  past  weeks  neither  of  them  had  had  much 
leisure  or  opportunity  for  intimate  conversation ;  but  there  were 
glances,  single  words,  silences  even  that  had  passed  between  them 
when  they  were  in  Venice  first  that  had  taken  no  time  if  measured 
by  the  scale  of  minutes  or  seconds,  yet  which  had  been  enough  to 
fill  the  whole  day  with  inward  sunshine.  And  he  had  not  changed 
to  her  :  that  he  knew  quite  well ;  it  was  not  that  he  was  less 
sensitive  now,  less  receptive  of  signals  of  that  kind.  For  his  part, 
he  gave  them  in  plenty.  Just  now  he  had  leaned  over  her,  smiling, 
when  she  lay  on  her  sofa,  a  thing  that  in  early  days  would  have 
been  sufficient  to  make  her  glance  at  him,  with  perhaps  a  raised 
hand  that  just  touched  his  face,  with  perhaps  an  '  Oh,  Claude  !  ' 
below  her  breath.  Honestly,  as  far  as  any  man  can  be  honest  with 
himself,  he  was  as  hungry  for  that  as  ever ;  he  made  his  private 


THE   OSBORNES.  319 

code  just  as  before,  and  now  no  answer  came.  Something  was  out 
of  tune  :  the  vibrations,  wireless,  psychical,  did  not  pass  from  her 
to  him  as  they  had  done  ;  and  his  own  messages,  so  it  seemed, 
throbbed  themselves  out,  and  found  none  to  pick  them  up,  but 
were  lost  in  the  unanswering  air. 

Claude  was  of  a  very  simple  and  straightforward  nature,  but 
he  felt  none  the  less  keenly  because  he  was  not  capable  of  feeling 
in  any  subtle  or  complicated  manner.  Love  had  come  into  his 
life,  and  his  part  in  that  burned  within  him  still,  in  no  way  less 
ardently.  He  believed  that  Dora  had  loved  him  also  :  believed 
it,  that  is  to  say,  in  a  sacred  sense  :  it  had  been  a  creed  to  him, 
just  as  his  own  love  for  her  was  a  creed.  With  body  and  soul  he 
loved  her,  not  fantastically,  but  deeply,  and  as  he  left  her  this 
afternoon  it  semed  to  him  that  his  love  was  being  poured  into  a 
vessel  in  which  was  bitterness.  They  had  talked  only  about  what 
to  him  was  a  trivial  thing — namely,  the  completeness  with  which 
Jim  had  made  himself  at  home  in  the  flat ;  but  in  the  earlier  days 
it  made  no  difference  what  they  talked  about :  tenderness,  love 
came  through  it  all,  like  water  through  a  quicksand,  engulfing  them. 
Their  days  had  been  passed  in  such  a  quicksand  ;  they  were  always 
joyfully  foundering  in  it.  But  now  it  was  not  so.  Some  bitter 
incrustation  had  come  on  it  which  bore  their  weight  quite  easily, 
and  there  was  no  risk  of  going  through,  nor  any  chance  of  it. 
Honestly,  he  did  not  believe  that  he  was  responsible  for  the  forma- 
tion of  that  crust.  He  had  not  changed  :  was  not  other  than  he 
had  always  been.  Once  for  a  moment  his  mind  poised  and  hovered 
above  the  truth,  and  he  half  said  to  himself,  '  I  wonder  if  she  finds 
me  common  ?  '  But  he  rejected  that :  it  was  the  wildest  freak  of 
imagination.  Besides,  she  had  not  found  him  common  at  first, 
and  he  had  not  grown  commoner.  On  the  contrary,  she  had  taught 
him  much — little  things,  no  doubt,  but  many  of  them.  He  had 
noticed  she  was  always  polite  to  servants  and  shop-people,  and 
though  a  year  ago  his  tendency  had  been  to  be  rather  short  with 
them,  as  inferiors,  he  had  instinctively  followed  her  example.  That 
was  only  one  instance  out  of  many.  But,  so  the  poor  fellow  told 
himself,  they  were  all  little  things  like  that,  which  could  make  no 
real  difference  to  anybody. 

Yet  he  thought  over  this  a  little  longer.  He  himself,  for 
instance,  had  always  known  that  his  father  and  mother  and  Per 
were,  so  to  speak,  '  common '  beside  him.  That  seemed  perfectly 
natural,  for  he  had  been  sent  to  Eton  and  Oxford,  and  had  picked 


320  THE   OSBORNES. 

up  all  sorts  of  things  as  to  the  way  '  gentlemen  behaved,'  which 
they  did  not  know.  He  would  not  press  his  guests  to  have  more 
wine,  as  his  father  did,  when  they  had  refused,  nor  tempt  them  to  a 
second  helping,  as  his  mother  did.  There  were  little  tricks  of 
language,  too,  infinitesimal  affairs,  but  he,  so  he  thought,  had  got 
into  the  way  of  it,  whereas  they  had  not.  He,  for  instance,  never 
said  '  Lor,'  as  his  father  constantly  did,  and  his  mother,  if  she 
'  was  not  on  the  watch.'  But  he  said  '  Good  Lord,'  because  fellows 
said  that,  and  not  the  other.  But  what  did  that  really  matter  ? 
There  was  a  certain  boisterousness  of  manner  also  that  characterised 
them,  which  he  and  Mrs.  Per,  for  instance,  who  was  certainly  a 
perfect  lady,  did  not  practise.  Often,  half  in  jest,  his  father  had 
said, '  Old  Claude's  getting  too  much  of  a  swell  for  me  '  ;  and  though 
he  deprecated  such  a  conclusion,  he  understood  what  was  meant, 
and  knew  that  if  half  was  jest,  half  was  serious.  But  all  this 
made  it  the  more  impossible  that  Dora  should  find  him  common. 
Eton  and  Oxford,  he  felt  quite  sure,  had  taken  all  the  commonness 
out  of  him. 

And  how  little  it  mattered  !  He  saw  a  hundred  things,  day  by 
day,  in  which,  if  he  had  been  disposed  to  peer  and  dissect  and 
magnify,  he  would  have  felt  that  there  was  a  difference  between 
his  father  and  himself.  But  how  measure  so  small  a  thing? 
He  saw  the  kindness,  the  honour,  the  truth  of  his  parents,  and 
he  was  as  likely  to  cease  respecting  and  caring  for  them  because 
of  that  difference  as  he  was  likely  to  cease  to  love  Dora  because 
once  he  had  found  a  grey  hair  in  her  golden  head.  Besides— 
and  his  mind  came  back  to  that — if  she  found  him  common  now, 
she  must  always  have  found  him  common.  But  nothing  was 
short  of  perfection  in  their  early  weeks  in  Venice. 

Once,  on  his  way  downstairs  to  be  ready  to  greet  Per  and  his 
wife,  who  were  expected  that  evening,  he  half  turned  on  his  foot, 
intending  to  go  back  to  Dora  and  try  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  it  all. 
But  he  knew  that  he  would  find  nothing  to  say,  for  there  was 
nothing  he  could  suggest  in  which  he  had  fallen  short.  And  even 
as  he  paused,  wondering  if  it  would  be  enough  that  he  should  go 
back  and  say  '  Dora,  what  is  it  ?  '  he  heard  the  sound  of  the  hall 
door  opening.  That  was  Per,  no  doubt ;  he  must  go  down  and 
welcome  him. 

(To  be  continued.) 


THE 

COENHILL     MAGAZINE 


MARCH  1910. 

CANADIAN  BORN.1 
BY  MRS.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 

CHAPTEK  XL 

DAY  of  showers  and  breaking  clouds — of  sudden  sunlight,  and 
broad  clefts  of  blue  ;  a  day  when  shreds  of  mist  are  lightly  looped 
and  meshed  about  the  higher  peaks  of  the  Eockies  and  the  Selkirks, 
dividing  the  forest  world  below  from  the  ice  world  above.  .  .  . 

The  car  was  slowly  descending  the  Kicking  Horse  Pass,  at  the 
(•ear  of  a  heavy  train.  Elizabeth,  on  her  platform,  was  feasting  her 
yes  once  more  on  the  great  savage  landscape,  on  these  peaks  and 
''alleys  that  have  never  till  now  known  man,  save  as  the  hunter, 
reading  them  once  or  twice  perhaps  in  a  century.  Dreamily  her 
aind  contrasted  them  with  the  Alps,  where  from  all  time  man  has 
aboured  and  sheltered,  blending  his  life,  his  births  and  deaths,  his 
oves  and  hates  with  the  glaciers  and  the  forests,  wresting  his  food 
pom  the  valleys,  creeping  height  over  height  to  the  snow  line,  writing 
is  will  on  the  country,  so  that  in  our  thought  of  it  he  stands  first, 
nd  Nature  second.  The  Swiss  mountains  and  streams  breathe  a 
mighty  voice,'  lent  to  them  by  the  free  passion  and  aspiration  of 
lan ;  they  are  interfused  and  interwoven  for  ever  with  human 
te.  But  in  the  Rockies  and  the  Selkirks  man  counts  for  nothing 
their  past ;  and,  except  as  wayfarer  and  playfellow,  it  is  probable 
hat  he  will  count  for  nothing  in  their  future.  They  will  never  be  the 
imiliar  companions  of  his  work  and  prayer  and  love  ;  a  couple 
[  railways,  indeed,  will  soon  be  driving  through  them,  linking  the 

Copyright,  1910,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

VOL.  XXV1II.—NO.  165,  N.S.  21 


322  CANADIAN    BORN. 

life  of  the  prairies  to  the  life  of  the  Pacific  ;  but,  except  for  this 
conquest  of  them  as  barriers  in  his  path,  when  his  summer  camps 
in  them  are  struck,  they,  sheeted  in  a  winter  inaccessible  and 
superb,  know  him  and  his  puny  deeds  no  more,  till  again  the  lakes 
melt  and  the  trees  bud.  This  it  is  that  gives  them  their  strange 
majesty,  and  clothes  their  brief  summer,  their  laughing  fields  of 
flowers,  their  thickets  of  red  raspberry  and  slopes  of  strawberry, 
their  infinity  of  gleaming  lakes  and  foaming  rivers — rivers  that 
turn  no  mill  and  light  no  town — with  a  charm,  half  magical,  half 
mocking. 

And  yet,  though  the  travelled  intelligence  made  comparisons  of 
this  kind,  it  was  not  with  the  mountains  that  Elizabeth's  deepest 
mind  was  busy.  She  took  really  keener  note  of  the  railway  itself, 
and  its  appurtenances.  For  here  man  had  expressed  himself ;  had 
pitched  his  battle  with  a  fierce  nature  and  won  it ;  as  no  doubt 
he  will  win  other  similar  battles  in  the  coming  years.  Through  | 
Anderson  this  battle  had  become  real  to  her.  She  looked  eagerly 
at  the  construction  camps  in  the  pass  ;  at  the  new  line  that  is  soon  to 
supersede  the  old  ;  at  the  bridges  and  tunnels  and  snow-sheds,  by 
which  contriving  man  had  made  his  purpose  prevail  over  the  physical 
forces  of  this  wild  world.  The  great  railway  spoke  to  her  in  terms 
of  human  life  ;  and  because  she  had  known  Anderson  she  understood 
its  message. 

Secretly  and  sorely  her  thoughts  clung  to  him.  Just  as,  insensibly, 
her  vision  of  Canada  had  changed,  so  had  her  vision  of  Anderson. 
Canada  was  no  longer  mere  fairy  tale  and  romance  ;  Anderson  was 
no  longer  merely  its  picturesque  exponent  or  representative. 
She  had  come  to  realise  him  as  a  man,  with  a  man's  cares  and 
passions  ;  and  her  feelings  about  him  had  begun  to  change  her  life. 

Arthur  Delaine,  she  supposed,  had  meant  to  warn  her  that 
Mr.  Anderson  was  falling  in  love  with  her  and  that  she  had  no 
right  to  encourage  it.     Her  thoughts  went  back  intently  over  the 
last  fortnight — Anderson's  absences — his  partial  withdrawal  from 
the  intimacy  which  had  grown  up  between  himself  and  her — their 
last  walk  at  Lake  Louise.     The  delight  of  that  walk  was  still  in  her 
veins,  and  at  last  she  was  frank  with  herself  about  it !     In  his 
attitude  towards  her,  now  that  she  forced  herself  to  face  the  truth, ' 
she  must  needs  recognise  a  passionate  eagerness,  restrained  no  less  | 
passionately  ;  a  profound  impulse,  strongly  felt,  and  strongly  held 
back.     By  mere  despair  of  attainment  ? — or  by  the  scruple  of  an  j 
honourable  self-control  ? 


CANADIAN   BORN.  323 

Could  she — could  she  marry  a  Canadian  ?  There  was  the  central 
question,  out  at  last ! — irrevocable ! — writ  large  on  the  mountains 
and  the  forests,  as  she  sped  through  them.  Could  she,  possessed  by 
inheritance  of  all  that  is  most  desirable  and  delightful  in  English 
society,  linked  with  its  great  interests  and  its  dominant  class,  and 
through  them  with  the  rich  cosmopolitan  life  of  cultivated  Europe — 
could  she  tear  herself  from  that  old  soil,  and  that  dear  familiar 
environment  ?  Had  the  plant  vitality  enough  to  bear  transplanting  ? 
She  did  not  put  her  question  in  these  terms  ;  but  that  was  what 
her  sudden  tumult  and  distress  of  mind  really  meant. 

Looking  up,  she  saw  Delaine  beside  her.  Well,  there  was 
Europe,  and  at  her  feet !  For  the  last  month  she  had  been  occupied 
in  scorning  it.  English  country-house  life,  artistic  society  and 
pursuits,  London  in  the  season,  Paris  and  Rome  in  the  spring, 
English  social  and  political  influence — there  they  were  beside  her. 
She  had  only  to  stretch  out  her  hand. 

A  chill,  uncomfortable  laughter  seemed  to  fill  the  inner  mind 
through  which  the  debate  passed,  while  all  the  time  she  was 
apparently  looking  at  the  landscape,  and  chatting  with  her  brother 
or  Delaine.  She  fell  into  an  angry  contempt  for  that  mood  of 
imaginative  delight  in  which  she  had  journeyed  through  Canada 
so  far.  What !  treat  a  great  nation  in  the  birth  as  though  it  were 
there  for  her  mere  pleasure  and  entertainment  ?  Make  of  it  a 
mere  spectacle  and  pageant,  and  turn  with  disgust  from  the  notion 
that  you  too  could  ever  throw  in  your  lot  with  it,  fight  as  a  foot- 
soldier  in  its  ranks,  on  equal  terms,  for  life  and  death  ! 

She  despised  herself.  And  yet — and  yet !  She  thought  of  her 
mother — her  frail,  refined,  artistic  mother  ;  of  a  hundred  subtleties 
and  charms  and  claims,  in  that  world  she  understood,  in  which  she 
had  been  reared ;  of  all  that  she  must  leave  behind,  were  she 
asked,  and  did  she  consent,  to  share  the  life  of  a  Canadian  of 
Anderson's  type.  What  would  it  be  to  fail  in  such  a  venture  ! 
To  dare  it,  and  then  to  find  life  sinking  in  sands  of  cowardice  and 
weakness !  Very  often,  and  sometimes  as  though  by  design, 
A.nderson  had  spoken  to  her  of  the  part  to  be  played  by  women 
n  Canada  ;  not  in  the  defensive,  optimistic  tone  of  their  last  walk 
'Ogether,  but  forbiddingly,  with  a  kind  of  rough  insistence.  Sub- 
tantial  comfort,  a  large  amount  of  applied  science — that  could 
>e  got.  But  the  elegancies  and  refinements  of  English  rich  life  in 
t  prairie  farm — impossible  !  A  woman  who  marries  a  Canadian 
:armer,  large  or  small,  must  put  her  own  hands  to  the  drudgery  of 

21—2 


324  CANADIAN    BORN. 

life,  to  the  cooking,  sewing,  baking,  that  keep  man — animal  man- 
alive.  A  certain  amount  of  rude  service  money  can  command  in 
the  North- West ;  but  it  is  a  service  which  only  the  housewife's 
personal  co-operation  can  make  tolerable.  Life  returns,  in  fact, 
to  the  old  primitive  pattern ;  and  a  woman  counts  on  the  prairie 
according  as  '  she  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household  and 
eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness.' 

Suddenly  Elizabeth  perceived  her  own  hands  lying  on  her  lap. 
Useless  bejewelled  things  !  When  had  they  ever  fed  a  man  or 
nursed  a  child  ? 

Under  her  gauze  veil  she  coloured  fiercely.  If  the  housewife, 
in  her  primitive  meaning  and  office,  is  vital  to  Canada,  still  more  is 
the  house-mother.  '  Bear  me  sons  and  daughters ;  people  my 
wastes  !  '  seems  to  be  the  cry  of  the  land  itself.  Deep  in  Elizabeth's 
being  there  stirred  instincts  and  yearnings  which  life  had  so  far 
stifled  in  her.  She  shivered  as  though  some  voice,  passionate  and 
yet  austere,  spoke  to  her  from  this  great  spectacle  of  mountain  and) 
water  through  which  she  was  passing. 

*  There  he  is  !  '  cried  Philip,  craning  his  head  to  look  ahead 
along  the  train. 

Anderson  stood  waiting  for  them  on  the  Field  platform.     Ver) 
soon  he  was   seated    beside    her,   outside  the   car,   while  Philid 
lounged  in  the  doorway,  and  Delaine  inside,  having  done  his  dut 
to  the  Kicking  Horse  Pass,   was  devoting  himself  to  a  belatet 
number  of  the  '  Athenaeum  '  which  had  just  reached  him. 

Philip  had  stored  up  a  string  of  questions  as  to  the  hunting  o 
goat  in  the  Rockies,  and  impatiently  produced  them.  Anderso: 
replied,  but,  as  Elizabeth  immediately  perceived,  with  a  complet 
lack  of  his  usual  animation.  He  spoke  with  effort,  occasional! 
stumbling  over  his  words.  She  could  not  help  looking  at  hir 
curiously,  and  presently  even  Philip  noticed  something  wrong. 

'  I  say,  Anderson ! — what  have  you  been  doing  to  yourself 
You  look  as  though  you  had  been  knocking  up.' 

'  I  have  been  a  bit  driven  this  week,'  said  Anderson,  with 
start.  '  Oh,  nothing  !  You  must  look  at  this  piece  of  line.' 

And  as  they  ran  down  the  long  ravine  from  Field  to  Goldei 
beside  a  river  which  all  the  way  seems  to  threaten  the  gliding  traij 
by  the  savage  force  of  its  descent,  he  played  the  showman.  Trj 
epic  of  the  C.P.R. — no  one  knew  it  better,  and  no  one  could  recite  j 
more  vividly  than  he. 


CANADIAN   BORN  325 

So  also,  as  they  left  the  Rockies  behind ;  as  they  sped  along  the 
bolumbia  between  the  Rockies  to  their  right  and  the  Selkirks  to 
their  left ;  or  as  they  turned  away  from  the  Columbia,  and,  on  the 
Hanks  of  the  Selkirks,  began  to  mount  that  forest  valley  which 
feads  to  Rogers'  Pass,  he  talked  freely  and  well,  exerting  himself 
;o  the  utmost.  The  hopes  and  despairs,  the  endurances  and  ambi- 
ions  of  the  first  explorers  who  ever  broke  into  that  fierce  solitude, 
le  could  reproduce  them  ;  for,  though  himself  of  a  younger  genera- 
don,  yet  by  sympathy  he  had  lived  them.  And  if  he  had  not  been 
me  of  the  builders  of  the  line,  in  the  incessant  guardianship 
ch  preserves  it  from  day  to  day,  he  had  at  one  time  played  a 
prominent  part,  battling  with  Nature  for  it,  summer  and  winter. 

Delaine,  at  last,  came  out  to  listen.  Philip  in  the  grip  of  his  first 
lero-worship,  lay  silent  and  absorbed,  watching  the  face  and  gestures 
f  the  speaker.  Elizabeth  sat  with  her  eyes  turned  away  from 
Anderson  towards  the  wild  valley,  as  they  rose  and  rose  above  it. 
the  listened  ;  but  her  heart  was  full  of  new  anxieties.  What  had 
happened  to  him  ?  She  felt  him  changed.  He  was  talking 
purely  for  their  pleasure,  by  a  strong  effort  of  will ;  that  she  realised, 
phen  could  she  get  him  alone  ? — her  friend  ! — who  was  clearly  in 
listress. 

They  approached  the  famous  bridges  on  the  long  ascent.     Yerkes 

same  running  through  the  car  to  point  out  with  pride  the  place 

Inhere  the  Grand  Duchess  had  fainted  beneath  the  terrors  of  the  line. 

with  only  the  railing  of  their  little  platform  between  them  and  the 

pyss,  they  ran  over  ravines  hundreds  of  feet  deep — the  valley,  a 

bousand  feet  sheer,  below.     And  in  that  valley  not  a  sign  of  house, 

f  path  ;  only  black  impenetrable  forest — huge  cedars  and  Douglas 

ines,  filling  up  the  bottoms,  choking  the  river  with  their  debris, 

limbing  up  the  further  sides,  towards  the  gleaming  line  of  peaks. 

*  It  is  a  nightmare  ! '  said  Delaine  involuntarily,  looking  round 
im. 

Elizabeth  laughed,  a  bright  colour  in  her  cheeks.  Again  the 
vildness  ran  through  her  blood,  answering  the  challenge  of  Nature, 
'aint ! — she  was  more  inclined  to  sing  or  shout.  And  with  the 
xhilaration,  physical  and  mental,  that  stole  upon  her,  there  mingled 
ecretly,  the  first  thrill  of  passion  she  had  ever  known.  Anderson 
at  beside  her,  once  more  silent  after  his  burst  of  talk.  She  was 
ividly  conscious  of  him — of  his  bare  curly  head — of  certain  lines 
'f  fatigue  and  suffering  in  the  bronzed  face.  And  it  was  conveyed 
o  her  that,  although  he  was  clearly  preoccupied  and  sad,  he  was  yet 


326  CANADIAN   BORN. 

conscious  of  her  in  the  same  way.  Once,  as  they  were  passing  the 
highest  bridge  of  all,  where,  carried  on  a  great  steel  arch  that  has 
replaced  the  older  trestles,  the  rails  run  naked  and  gleaming,  without 
the  smallest  shred  of  wall  or  parapet,  across  a  gash  in  the  mountain 
up  which  they  were  creeping,  and  at  a  terrific  height  above  the 
valley,  Elizabeth,  who  was  sitting  with  her  back  to  the  engine,  bent 
suddenly  to  one  side,  leaning  over  the  little  railing  and  looking 
ahead — that  she  might  if  possible  get  a  clearer  sight  of  Mount 
Macdonald,  the  giant  at  whose  feet  lies  Kogers'  Pass.  Suddenly, 
as  her  weight  pressed  against  the  ironwork  where  only  that  morning 
a  fastening  had  been  mended,  she  felt  a  grip  on  her  arm.  She  drew 
back,  startled. 

'  I  beg  your  pardon  !  '  said  Anderson,  smiling,  but  a  trifle  paler 
than  before.  '  I'm  not  troubled  with  nerves  for  myself,  but — 

He  did  not  complete  the  sentence,  and  Elizabeth  could  find) 
nothing  to  say. 

'  Why,  Elizabeth's  not  afraid  ! '  cried  Philip,  scornfully. 

'  This  is  Rogers'  Pass,  and  here  we  are  at  the  top  of  the  Sel- 
kirks,'  said  Anderson,  rising.  '  The  train  will  wait  here  some  twenty 
minutes.  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  walk  about.' 

They  descended,  all  but  Philip,  who  grumbled  at  the  cold, 
wrapped  himself  in  a  rug  inside  the  car,  and  summoned  Yerkes  toj 
bring  him  a  cup  of  coffee. 

On  this  height  indeed,  and  beneath  the  precipices  of  Mount 
Macdonald,  which  rise  some  five  thousand  feet  perpendicularly 
above  the  railway,  the  air  was  chill  and  the  clouds  had  gathered.] 
On  the  right,  ran  a  line  of  glacier-laden  peaks,  calling  to  their  fellows 
across  the  pass.  The  ravine  itself,  darkly  magnificent,  made  a  guU 
of  shadow  out  of  which  rose  glacier  and  snow  slope,  now  veiled  anc 
now  revealed  by  scudding  cloud.  Heavy  rain  had  not  long  sincc| 
fallen  on  the  pass  ;  the  small  stream,  winding  and  looping  througl 
the  narrow  strip  of  desolate  ground  which  marks  the  summit 
roared  in  flood  through  marshy  growths  of  dank  weed  and  stunteci 
shrub ;  and  the  noise  reverberated  from  the  mountain  walls 
pressing  straight  and  close  on  either  hand. 

4  Hark  ! '  cried  Elizabeth,  standing  still,  her  face  and  her  ligh' 
dress  beaten  by  the  wind. 

A  sound  which  was  neither  thunder  nor  the  voice  of  the  strean| 
rose  and  swelled  and  filled  the  pass.  Another  followed  it.  Ander! 
son  pointed  to  the  snowy  crags  of  Mount  Macdonald,  and  there; 


CANADIAN   BORN.  327 

eaping  from  ledge  to  ledge,  they  saw  the  summer  avalanches 
descend,  roaring  as  they  came,  till  they  sank  engulfed  in  a 
vaporous  whirl  of  snow. 

Delaine  tried  to  persuade  Elizabeth  to  return  to  the  car — in 
vain.     He  himself  returned  thither  for  a  warmer  coat,  and  she 
Anderson  walked  on  alone. 

'  The  Eockies  were  fine  !— but  the  Selkirks  are  superb  ! ' 

She  smiled  at  him  as  she  spoke,  as  though  she  thanked  him 
personally  for  the  grandeur  round  them.  Her  slender  form  seemed 
to  have  grown  in  stature  and  in  energy.  The  mountain  rain  was 
on  her  fresh  cheek  and  her  hair  ;  a  blue  veil  eddying  round  her  head 
and  face  framed  the  brilliance  of  her  eyes.  Those  who  had  known 
I  Elizabeth  in  Europe  would  hardly  have  recognised  her  here.  The 
I  spirit  of  earth's  wild  and  virgin  places  had  mingled  with  her  spirit, 
|and  as  she  had  grown  in  sympathy,  so  also  she  had  grown  in  beauty, 
i  Anderson  looked  at  her  from  time  to  time  in  enchantment, 
grudging  every  minute  that  passed.  The  temptation  strengthened 
to  tell  her  his  trouble.  But  how,  or  when  ? 

As  he  turned  to  her  he  saw  that  she,  too,  was  gazing  at  him 
with  an  anxious,  wistful  expression,  her  lips  parted  as  though  to 
I  speak. 

He  bent  over  her. 

'  What  was  that  ?  '  exclaimed  Elizabeth,  looking  round  her. 

They  had  passed  beyond  the  station  where  the  train  was  at  rest. 
But  the  sound  of  shouts  pursued  them.  Anderson  distinguished 
his  own  name.  A  couple  of  railway  officials  had  left  the  station 
and  were  hurrying  towards  them. 

A  sudden  thought  struck  Anderson.  He  held  up  his  hand 
with  a  gesture  as  though  to  ask  Lady  Merton  not  to  follow,  and 
himself  ran  back  to  the  station. 

Elizabeth,  from  where  she  stood,  saw  the  passengers  all  pouring 
out  of  the  train  on  to  the  platform.  Even  Philip  emerged  and 
waved  to  her.  She  slowly  returned,  and  meanwhile  Anderson  had 
disappeared. 

She  found  an  excited  crowd  of  travellers  and  a  babel  of  noise. 
Delaine  hurried  to  her. 

It  appeared  that  an  extraordinary  thing  had  happened.  The 
train  immediately  in  front  of  them,  carrying  mail  and  express  cars 
but  no  passengers,  had  been  '  held  up  '  by  a  gang  of  train-robbers, 
at  a  spot  between  Sicamous  junction  and  Kamloops.  In  order  to 
break  open  the  mail- van  the  robbers  had  employed  a  charge  of 


328  CANADIAN   BORN 

dynamite,  which  had  wrecked  the  car  and  caused  some  damage  to 
the  line ;  enough  to  block  the  permanent  way  for  some  hours. 

'  And  Philip  has  just  opened  this  telegram  for  you.' 

Delaine  handed  it  to  her.  It  was  from  the  District  Superinten- 
dent, expressing  great  regret  for  the  interruption  to  their  journey, 
and  suggesting  that  they  should  spend  the  night  at  the  hotel  at 
Glacier. 

1  Which  I  understand  is  only  four  miles  off,  the  other  side  of 
the  pass,'  said  Delaine.  '  Was  there  ever  anything  more  annoying ! ' 

Elizabeth's  face  expressed  an  utter  bewilderment. 

'  A  train  held  up  in  Canada — and  on  the  C.P.B,. — impossible  ! ' 

An  elderly  man  in  front  of  her  heard  what  she  said,  and  turned 
upon  her  a  face  purple  with  wrath. 

'  You  may  well  say  that,  Madam  !  We  are  a  law-abiding  nation. 
We  don't  put  up  with  the  pranks  they  play  in  Montana.  They 
say  the  scoundrels  have  got  off.  If  we  don't  catch  them,  Canada's 
disgraced.' 

'  I  say,  Elizabeth,'  cried  Philip,  pushing  his  way  to  her  through 
the  crowd,  '  there's  been  a  lot  of  shooting.  There's  some  Mounted 
Police  here,  we  picked  up  at  Revelstoke,  on  their  way  to  help  catch 
these  fellows.  I've  been  talking  to  them.  The  police  from 
Kamloops  came  upon  them  just  as  they  were  making  off  with  a 
pretty  pile — boxes  full  of  money  for  some  of  the  banks  in  Vancouver. 
The  police  fired,  so  did  the  robbers.  One  of  the  police  was  killed, 
and  one  of  the  thieves.  Then  the  rest  got  off.  I  say,  let's  go  and 
help  hunt  them  ! ' 

The  boy's  eyes  danced  with  the  joy  of  adventure. 

*  If  they've  any  sense  they'll  send  bloodhounds  after  them,' 
said  the  elderly  man,  fiercely.     '  I  helped  catch  a  murderer  with 
my  own  hands  that  way,  last  summer,  near  the  Arrow  Lakes.' 

'  Where  is  Mr.  Anderson  ?  ' 

The  question  escaped  Elizabeth  involuntarily.  She  had  not 
meant  to  put  it.  But  it  was  curious  that  he  should  have  left  them 
in  the  lurch  at  this  particular  moment. 

*  Take  your  seats  ! '  cried  the  station-master,  making  his  way 
through  the  crowded  platform.     '  This  train  goes  as  far  as  Sicamous 
Junction  only.     Any  passenger  who  wishes  to  break  his  journey 
will  find  accommodation  at  Glacier — next  station.' 

The  English  travellers  were  hurried  back  into  their  car.  Still 
no  sign  of  Anderson.  Yerkes  was  only  able  to  tell  them  that  he 
had  seen  Anderson  go  into  the  station-master's  private  room  with  a 


CANADIAN   BORN.  329 

couple  of  the  mounted  police.  He  might  have  come  out  again,  or  he 
might  not.  Yerkes  had  been  too  well  occupied  in  exciting  gossip 
with  all  his  many  acquaintances  in  the  train  and  the  station  to 
notice. 

The  conductor  went  along  the  train,  shutting  the  doors.  Yerkes 
standing  on  the  inside  platform  called  to  him  : 

'  Have  you  seen  Mr.  Anderson  ?  ' 

The  man  shook  his  head,  but  another  standing  by,  evidently  an 
official  of  some  kind,  looked  round  and  ran  up  to  the  car. 

'  I'm  sorry,  madam,'  he  said,  addressing  Elizabeth,  who  was 
standing  in  the  doorway,  '  but  Mr.  Anderson  isn't  at  liberty  just 
now.  He'll  be  travelling  with  the  police.' 

And  as  he  spoke  a  door  in  the  station  building  opened,  and 
Anderson  came  out,  accompanied  by  two  constables  of  the  mounted 
police  and  two  or  three  officials.  They  walked  hurriedly  along  the 
train  and  got  into  an  empty  compartment  together.  Immediately 
afterwards  the  train  moved  off. 

*  Well,  I  wonder  what's  up  now  ! '  said  Philip  in  astonishment. 
'  Do  you  suppose  Anderson's  got  some  clue  to  the  men  ?  ' 

Delaine  looked  uncomfortably  at  Elizabeth.  As  an  old  adviser 
and  servant  of  the  railway,  extensively  acquainted  moreover  with 
the  population — settled  or  occasional — of  the  district,  it  was  very 
natural  that  Anderson  should  be  consulted  on  such  an  event.  And 
yet — Delaine  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  aspect  on  his  way  along 
the  platform,  and  had  noticed  that  he  never  looked  towards  the 
car.  Some  odd  conjectures  ran  through  his  mind. 

Elizabeth  sat  silent,  looking  back  on  the  grim  defile  the  train 
was  just  leaving.  It  was  evident  that  they  had  passed  the  water- 
shed, and  the  train  was  descending.  In  a  few  minutes  they  would 
be  at  Glacier. 

She  roused  herself  to  hold  a  rapid  consultation  over  plans. 

They  must  of  course  do  as  they  were  advised,  and  spend  the 
night  at  Glacier. 

The  train  drew  up. 

'  Well,  of  all  the  nuisances  ! ' — cried  Philip,  disgusted,  as  they 
prepared  to  leave  the  car. 

Yerkes,  like  the  showman  that  he  was,  began  to  descant  volubly 
on  the  advantages  and  charms  of  the  hotel,  its  Swiss  guides, 
and  the  distinguished  travellers  who  stayed  there  ;  dragging  rugs 
and  bags  meanwhile  out  of  the  car.  Nobody  listened  to  him. 


330  CANADIAN    BORN. 

Everybody  in  the  little  party,  as  they  stood  forlornly  on  the  plat- 
form, was  in  truth  searching  for  Anderson. 

And  at  last  he  came — hurrying  along  towards  them.  His  face, 
set,  strained,  and  colourless,  bore  the  stamp  of  calamity.  But  he 
gave  them  no  time  to  question  him. 

'  I  am  going  on,'  he  said  hastily  to  Elizabeth ;  '  they  will  look 
after  you  here.  I  will  arrange  everything  for  you  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  if  we  don't  meet  before,  perhaps — in  Vancouver — 

'  I  say,  are  you  going  to  hunt  the  robbers  ?  '  asked  Philip, 
catching  his  arm. 

Anderson  made  no  reply.  He  turned  to  Delaine,  drew  him 
aside  a  moment,  and  put  a  letter  into  his  hand. 

'  My  father  was  one  of  them,'  he  said,  without  emotion,  '  and  is 
dead.  I  have  asked  you  to  tell  Lady  Merton.' 

There  was  a  call  for  him.  The  train  was  already  moving.  He 
jumped  into  it,  and  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  station  and  hotel  at  Sicamous  junction,  overlooking  the  lovely 
Mara  lake,  were  full  of  people — busy  officials  of  different  kinds, 
or  excited  on-lookers — when  Anderson  reached  them.  The  long 
summer  day  was  just  passing  into  a  night  that  was  rather  twilight 
than  darkness,  and  in  the  lower  country  the  heat  was  great.  Far 
away  to  the  north  stretched  the  wide  and  straggling  waters  of 
another  and  larger  lake.  Woods  of  poplar  and  cotton-wood  grew 
along  its  swampy  shore,  and  hills,  forest  clad,  held  it  in  a  shallow 
cup  flooded  with  the  mingled  light  of  sunset  and  moonlight. 

Anderson  was  met  by  a  District  Superintendent,  of  the  name  of 
Dixon,  as  he  descended  from  the  train.  The  young  man,  with 
whom  he  was  slightly  acquainted,  looked  at  him  with  excitement. 

'  This  is  a  precious  bad  business  !  If  you  can  throw  any  light 
upon  it,  Mr.  Anderson,  we  shall  be  uncommonly  obliged  to  you 

Anderson  interrupted  him. 

'  Is  the  inquest  to  be  held  here  ?  ' 

'  Certainly.     The  bodies  were  brought  in  a  few  hours  ago.' 

His  companion  pointed  to  a  shed  beyond  the  station.  They 
walked  thither,  the  Superintendent  describing  in  detail  the  attack 
on  the  train  and  the  measures  taken  for  the  capture  of  the 
marauders,  Anderson  listening  in  silence.  The  affair  had  taken 


CANADIAN  BORN.  331 

place  early  that  morning,  but  the  telegraph  wires  had  been  cut  in 
several  places  on  both  sides  of  the  damaged  line,  so  that  no  precise 
news  of  what  had  happened  had  reached  either  Vancouver  on  the 
west,  or  Golden  on  the  east,  till  the  afternoon.  The  whole  country- 
side was  now  in  movement,  and  a  vigorous  man-hunt  was  pro- 
ceeding on  both  sides  of  the  line. 

'  There  is  no  doubt  the  whole  thing  was  planned  by  a  couple 
of  men  from  Montana,  one  of  whom  was  certainly  concerned  in  the 
hold-up  there  a  few  months  ago  and  got  clean  away.  But  there 
were  six  or  seven  of  them  altogether,  and  most  of  the  rest — we 
suspect — from  this  side  of  the  boundary.  The  old  man  who  was 
killed  ' — Anderson  raised  his  eyes  abruptly  to  the  speaker — '  seems 
to  have  come  from  Nevada.  There  were  some  cuttings  from  a 
Comstock  newspaper  found  upon  him,  besides  the  envelope 
addressed  to  you,  of  which  I  sent  you  word  at  Rogers'  Pass.  Could 
you  recognise  anything  in  my  description  of  the  man  ?  There  was 
one  thing  I  forgot  to  say.  He  had  evidently  been  in  the  doctor's 
hands  lately.  There  is  a  surgical  bandage  on  the  right  ankle.' 

'  Was  there  nothing  in  the  envelope  ?  '  asked  Anderson,  putting 
the  question  aside,  in  spite  of  the  evident  eagerness  of  the 
questioner. 

'  Nothing.' 

'  And  where  is  it  ?  ' 

'  It  was  given  to  the  Kamloops  coroner,  who  has  just  arrived.' 
Anderson  said  nothing  more.  They  had  reached  the  she$,  which 
his  companion  unlocked.  Inside  were  two  rough  tables  on  trestles 
and  lying  on  them  two  sheeted  forms. 

Dixon  uncovered  the  first,  and  Anderson  looked  steadily  down 
at  the  face  beneath.  Death  had  wrought  its  strange  ironic  miracle 
once  more,  and  out  of  the  face  of  an  outcast  had  made  the  face  of 
a  sage.  There  was  little  disfigurement ;  the  eyes  were  closed  with 
dignity  ;  the  mouth  seemed  to  have  unlearnt  its  coarseness.  Silently 
the  tension  of  Anderson's  inner  being  gave  way  ;  he  was  conscious 
of  a  passionate  acceptance  of  the  mere  stillness  and  dumbness  of 
death.  , 

'  Where  was  the  wound  ?  '  he  asked,  stooping  over  the  body. 

'  Ah,  that  was  the  strange  thing  !  He  didn't  die  of  his  wound  at 
all !  It  was  a  mere  graze  on  the  arm.'  The  Superintendent  pointed 
to  a  rent  on  the  coat-sleeve.  '  He  died  of  something  quite  different 
— perhaps  excitement  and  a  weak  heart.  There  may  have  to  be  a 
post-mortem.' 


332  CANADIAN   BORN. 

'  I  doubt  whether  that  will  be  necessary,'  said  Anderson. 

The  other  looked  at  him  with  undisguised  curiosity. 

'  Then  you  do  recognise  him  ?  ' 

'  I  will  tell  the  coroner  what  I  know.' 

Anderson  drew  back  from  his  close  examination  of  the  dead  face, 
and  began  in  his  turn  to  question  the  Superintendent.  Was  it 
certain  that  this  man  had  been  himself  concerned  in  the  hold- 
up and  in  the  struggle  with  the  police  ?  ' 

Dixon  did  not  see  how  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  it.  The 
constables  who  had  rushed  in  upon  the  gang  while  they  were  still 
looting  the  express  car — the  brakesman  having  managed  to  get  away 
and  convey  the  alarm  to  Kamloops — remembered  seeing  an  old 
man  with  white  hair,  apparently  lame,  at  the  rear  of  the  more 
active  thieves,  and  posted  as  a  sentinel.  He  had  been  the  first  to 
give  warning  of  the  police  approach,  and  had  levelled  his  revolver  at 
the  foremost  constable,  but  had  missed  his  shot.  In  the  free  firing 
which  had  followed  nobody  exactly  knew  what  had  happened. 
One  of  the  attacking  force,  Constable  Brown,  had  fallen,  and  while 
his  comrades  were  attempting  to  save  him,  the  thieves  had 
dropped  down  the  steep  bank  of  the  river  close  by,  into  a  boat 
waiting  for  them,  and  got  off.  The  constable  was  left  dead  upon 
the  ground,  and  not  far  from  him  lay  the  old  man,  also  lifeless. 
But  when  they  came  to  examine  the  bodies,  while  the  constable 
was  shot  through  the  head,  the  other  had  received  nothing  but 
the  trifling  wound  Dixon  had  already  pointed  out. 

Anderson  listened  to  the  story  in  silence.  Then  with  a  last 
long  look  at  the  rigid  features  below  him,  he  replaced  the  covering. 
Passing  on  to  the  other  table,  he  raised  the  sheet  from  the  face  of 
a  splendid  young  Englishman,  whom  he  had  last  seen  the  week 
before  at  Regina ;  an  English  public-school  boy  of  the  manliest 
type,  full  of  hope  for  himself,  and  of  enthusiasm,  both  for  Canada 
and  for  the  fine  body  of  men  in  which  he  had  been  just  promoted. 
For  the  first  time  a  stifled  groan  escaped  from  Anderson's  lips. 
What  hand  had  done  this  murder  ? 

They  left  the  shed.  Anderson  inquired  what  doctor  had  been 
sent  for.  He  recognised  the  name  given  as  that  of  a  Kamloops 
man  whom  he  knew  and  respected  ;  and  he  went  on  to  look  for 
him  at  the  hotel. 

For  some  time  he  and  the  doctor  paced  a  trail  beside  the  line 
together.  Among  other  facts  that  Anderson  got  from  this  con- 
versation, he  learnt  that  the  police  of  Nevada  had  been  telegraphed 


CANADIAN   BORN.  333 

to,  and  that  a  couple  of  constables  from  there  were  coming  to  assist 
the  Canadian  police.  They  were  expected  the  following  morning, 
when  also  the  coroner's  inquest  would  be  held. 

As  to  Anderson's  own  share  in  the  interview,  when  the  two  men 
parted,  with  a  silent  grasp  of  the  hand,  the  Doctor  had  nothing 
to  say  to  the  bystanders,  except  that  Mr.  Anderson  would  have 
some  evidence  to  give  on  the  morrow,  and  that,  for  himself,  he 
was  not  at  liberty  to  divulge  what  had  passed  between  them. 

It  was  by  this  time  late.  Anderson  shut  himself  up  in  his  room 
at  the  hotel ;  but  among  the  groups  lounging  at  the  bar  or  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  station  excitement  and  discussion  ran  high. 
The  envelope  addressed  to  Anderson,  Anderson's  own  demeanour 
since  his  arrival  on  the  scene — with  the  meaning  of  both  conjecture 
was  busy. 

Towards  midnight  a  train  arrived  from  Field.  A  messenger 
from  the  station  knocked  at  Anderson's  door  with  a  train  letter. 
Anderson  locked  the  door  again  behind  the  man  who  had  brought 
it,  and  stood  looking  at  it  a  moment  in  silence.  It  was  from 
Lady  Merton.  He  opened  it  slowly,  took  it  to  the  small  deal 
table,  which  held  a  paraffin  lamp,  and  sat  down  to  read  it. 

'  DEAR  MR.  ANDERSON, — Mr.  Delaine  has  given  me  your  message  and  read  me 
some  of  your  letter  to  him.  He  has  also  told  me  what  he  knew  before — we  under- 
stood that  you  worked  it.  Oh  !  I  cannot  say  how  sorry  we  are,  Philip  and  I,  for  your 
great  trouble.  It  makes  me  sore  at  heart  to  think  that  all  the  time  you  have 
been  looking  after  us  so  kindly,  taking  this  infinite  pains  for  us,  you  have  had 
this  heavy  anxiety  on  your  mind.  Oh,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  !  I  thought  we 
were  to  be  friends.  And  now  this  tragedy  !  It  is  terrible — terrible  !  Your 
father  has  been  his  own  worst  enemy — and  at  last  death  has  come — and  he  has 
escaped  himself.  Is  there  not  some  comfort  in  that  ?  And  you  tried  to  save  him. 
I  can  imagine  all  that  you  have  been  doing  and  planning  for  him.  It  is  not  lost, 
dear  Mr.  Anderson.  No  love  and  pity  are  ever  lost.  They  are  undying — for 
they  are  God's  life  in  us.  They  are  the  pledge — the  sign — to  which  He  is  eternally 
bound.  He  will  surely,  surely,  redeem — and  fulfil. 

'  I  write  incoherently,  for  they  are  waiting  for  my  letter.  I  want  you  to  write 
to  me,  if  you  will.  And  when  will  you  come  back  to  us  ?  We  shall,  I  think,  be 
two  or  three  days  here,  for  Philip  has  made  friends  with  a  man  we  have  met  here 
— a  surveyor,  who  has  been  camping  high  up,  and  shooting  wild  goat.  He  is 
determined  to  go  for  an  expedition  with  him,  and  I  have  had  to  telegraph  to  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  to  ask  him  not  to  expect  us  till  Thursday.  So  if  you  were 
to  come  back  here  before  then  you  would  still  find  us.  I  don't  know  that  I  could 
be  of  any  use  to  you,  or  any  consolation  to  you.  But,  indeed,  I  would  try. 

'  To-morrow  I  am  told  will  be  the  inquest.  My  thoughts  will  be  with  you 
constantly.  By  now  you  will  have  determined  on  your  line  of  action.  I  only 
know  that  it  will  be  noble  and  upright — like  yourself. 

*  I  remain,  yours  most  sincerely, 

'  ELIZABETH  MERTON.' 


334  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Anderson  pressed  the  letter  to  his  lips.  Its  tender  philosophising 
found  no  echo  in  his  own  mind.  But  it  soothed,  because  it  came 
from  her. 

He  lay  dressed  and  wakeful  on  his  bed  through  the  night,  and 
at  nine  next  morning  the  inquest  opened,  in  the  coffee-room  of  the 
hotel. 

The  body  of  the  young  constable  was  first  identified.  As  to 
the  hand  which  had  fired  the  shot  that  killed  him,  there  was  no 
certain  evidence  ;  one  of  the  police  had  seen  the  lame  man  with 
the  white  hair  level  his  revolver  again  after  the  first  miss  ;  but 
there  was  much  shooting  going  on,  and  no  one  could  be  sure  from 
what  quarter  the  fatal  bullet  had  come. 

The  court  then  proceeded  to  the  identification  of  the  dead  robber. 
The  coroner,  a  rancher  who  bred  the  best  horses  in  the  district, 
called  first  upon  two  strangers  in  plain  clothes,  who  had  arrived 
by  the  first  train  from  the  South  that  morning.  They  proved  to 
be  the  two  constables  from  Nevada.  They  had  already  examined 
the  body,  and  they  gave  clear  and  unhesitating  evidence,  identifying 
the  old  man  as  one  Alexander  McEwen,  well  known  to  the  police 
of  the  silver-mining  State  as  a  lawless  and  dangerous  character.* 
He  had  been  twice  in  jail,  and  had  been  the  associate  of  the 
notorious  Bill  Symonds  in  one  or  two  criminal  affairs  connected 
with  '  faked  '  claims  and  the  like.  The  elder  of  the  two  constables 
in  particular  drew  a  vivid  and  damning  picture  of  the  man's  life 
and  personality,  of  the  cunning  with  which  he  had  evaded  the 
law,  and  the  ruthlessness  with  which  he  had  avenged  one  or  two 
private  grudges. 

'  We  have  reason  to  suppose,'  said  the  American  officer  finally, 
'  that  McEwen  was  not  originally  a  native  of  the  States.  We 
believe  that  he  came  from  Dawson  City  or  the  neighbourhood 
about  ten  years  ago,  and  that  he  crossed  the  border  in  con- 
sequence of  a  mysterious  affair — which  has  never  been  cleared  up 
—in  which  a  rich  German  gentleman,  Baron  von  Aeschenbach, 
disappeared,  and  has  not  been  heard  of  since.  Of  that,  however, 
we  have  no  proof,  and  we  cannot  supply  the  court  with  any 
information  as  to  the  man's  real  origin  and  early  history.  But  we 
are  prepared  to  swear  that  the  body  we  have  seen  this  morning 
is  that  of  Alexander  McEwen,  who  for  some  years  past  has 
been  well  known  to  us,  now  in  one  camp,  now  in  another,  of  the 
Comstock  district.' 

The  American  police  officer  resumed  his  seat.    George  Anderson, 


CANADIAN    BORN.  335 

who  was  to  the  right  of  the  coroner,  had  sat,  all  through  this 
witness's  evidence,  bending  forward,  his  eyes  on  the  ground,  his 
hands  clasped  between  his  knees.  There  was  something  in  the 
rigidity  of  his  attitude,  which  gradually  compelled  the  attention 
of  the  onlookers,  as  though  the  perception  gained  ground  that  here 
— in  that  stillness — those  bowed  shoulders — lay  the  real  interest 
of  this  sordid  outrage,  which  had  so  affronted  the  pride  of  Canada's 
great  railway. 

The  coroner  rose.  He  briefly  expressed  the  thanks  of  the  court 
to  the  Nevada  State  authorities  for  having  so  promptly  supplied  the 
information  in  their  possession  with  regard  to  this  man  McEwen. 
He  would  now  ask  Mr.  George  Anderson,  of  the  C.P.R.,  whether 
he  could  in  any  way  assist  the  court  in  this  investigation.  An 
empty  envelope,  fully  addressed  to  Mr.  George  Anderson,  GinnelPs 
Boarding  House,  Laggan,  Alberta,  had,  strangely  enough,  been 
found  in  McEwen's  pocket.  Could  Mr.  Anderson  throw  any  light 
upon  the  matter  ? 

Anderson  stood  up  as  the  coroner  handed  him  the  envelope.  He 
took  it,  looked  at  it,  and  slowly  put  it  down  on  the  table  before 
him.  He  was  perfectly  composed,  but  there  was  that  in  his  aspect 
which  instantly  hushed  all  sounds  in  the  crowded  room,  and  drew 
the  eyes  of  everybody  in  it  upon  him.  The  Kamloops  doctor 
looked  at  him  from  a  distance  with  a  sudden  twitching  smile — 
the  smile  of  a  reticent  man  in  whom  strong  feeling  must  somehow 
find  a  physical  expression.  Dixon,  the  young  superintendent, 
bent  forward  eagerly.  At  the  back  of  the  room  a  group  of  Japanese 
railway  workers,  with  their  round,  yellow  faces  and  half -opened 
eyes,  stared  impassively  at  the  tall  figure  of  the  fair-haired 
Canadian;  and  through  windows  and  doors,  thrown  open  to 
the  heat,  shimmered  lake  and  forest,  the  eternal  background  of 
Canada. 

'  Mr.  Coroner,'  said  Anderson,  straightening  himself  to  his 
full  height, '  the  name  of  the  man  into  whose  death  you  are  inquiring 
is  not  Alexander  McEwen.  He  came  from  Scotland  to  Manitoba 
in  1869.  His  real  name  was  Robert  Anderson,  and  I — am  his 
son.' 

The  coroner  gave  an  involuntary  '  Ah  !  '  of  amazement,  which 
was  echoed,  it  seemed,  throughout  the  room. 

On  one  of  the  small  deal  tables  belonging  to  the  coffee-room, 
which  had  been  pushed  aside  to  make  room  for  the  sitting  of 
the  court,  lay  the  newspapers  of  the  morning — the  '  Vancouver 


336  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Sentinel '  and  the  '  Montreal  Star.'  Both  contained  short  and 
flattering  articles  on  the  important  Commission  entrusted  to 
Mr.  George  Anderson  by  the  Prime  Minister.  '  A  great  com- 
pliment to  so  young  a  man,'  said  the  '  Star,'  '  but  one  amply 
deserved  by  Mr.  Anderson's  record.  We  look  forward  on  his 
behalf  to  a  brilliant  career,  honourable  both  to  himself  and  to 
Canada.' 

Several  persons  had  already  knocked  at  Anderson's  dooi  early 
that  morning  in  order  to  congratulate  him  ;  but  without  finding 
him.  And  this  honoured  and  fortunate  person ? 

Men  pushed  each  other  forward  in  their  eagerness  not  to  lose 
a  word,  or  a  shade  of  expression  on  the  pale  face  which  confronted 
them. 

Anderson,  after  a  short  pause,  as  though  to  collect  himself, 
gave  the  outlines  of  his  father's  early  history,  of  the  farm  in  Mani- 
toba, the  fire  and  its  consequences,  the  breach  between  Robert 
Anderson  and  his  sons.  He  described  the  struggle  of  the  three 
boys  on  the  farm,  their  migration  to  Montreal  in  search  of  educa- 
tion, and  his  own  later  sojourn  in  the  Yukon,  with  the  evidence 
which  had  convinced  him  of  his  father's  death. 

'  Then,  only  a  fortnight  ago,  he  appeared  at  Laggan  and  made 
himself  known  to  me,  having  followed  me  apparently  from  Win- 
nipeg. He  seemed  to  be  in  great  poverty,  and  in  bad  health. 
If  he  had  wished  it,  I  was  prepared  to  acknowledge  him  ;  but  he 
seemed  not  to  wish  it ;  there  were  no  doubt  reasons  why  he  preferred 
to  keep  his  assumed  name.  I  did  what  I  could  for  him,  and  arrange- 
ments had  been  made  to  put  him  with  decent  people  at  Vancouver. 
But  last  Wednesday  night  he  disappeared  from  the  boarding- 
house  where  he  and  I  were  both  lodging,  and  various  persons  here 
will  know  ' — he  glanced  at  one  or  two  faces  in  the  ring  before  him — 
1  that  I  have  been  making  inquiries  since,  with  no  result.  As  to 
what  or  who  led  him  into  this  horrible  business,  I  know  nothing. 
The  Nevada  police  have  told  you  that  he  was  acquainted  with 
Symonds — a  fact  unknown  to  me — and  I  noticed  on  one  or  two  ! 
occasions  that  he  seemed  to  have  acquaintances  among  the  men  i 
tramping  west  to  the  Kootenay  district.  I  can  only  imagine  that 
after  his  success  in  Montana  last  year,  Symonds  made  up  his 
mind  to  try  the  same  game  on  the  C.P.R.,  and  that  during  the 
last  fortnight  he  came  somehow  into  communication  with  my 
father.  My  father  must  have  been  aware  of  Symonds'  plans— 
and  may  have  been  unable  at  the  last  to  resist  the  temptation 


CANADIAN   BORN.  337 

join  in  the  scheme.  As  to  all  that  I  am  entirely  in  the 
ark.' 

He  paused,  and  then,  looking  down,  he  added,  under  his 
reath,  as  though  involuntarily— 

' 1  pray — that  he  may  not  have  been  concerned  in  the  murder  of 
oor  Brown.  But  there  is — I  think — no  evidence  to  connect  him 
dth  it.  I  shall  be  glad  to  answer  to  the  best  of  my  power  any 
uestions  that  the  court  may  wish  to  put.' 

He  sat  down  heavily,  very  pale,  but  entirely  collected.  The 
oom  watched  him  a  moment,  and  then  a  friendly,  encouraging 
lurmur  seemed  to  rise  from  the  crowd — to  pass  from  them  to 
Anderson. 

I    The  coroner,  who  was  an  old  friend  of  Anderson's,  fidgeted  a 
Jttle  and  in  silence.     He  took  off  his  glasses  and  put  them  on  again, 
ffis  tanned  face,  long  and  slightly  twisted,  with  square  harsh  brows, 
,nd  powerful  jaw  set  in  a  white  fringe  of  whisker,  showed  an  unusual 
Imount  of  disturbance.     At  last  he  said,  clearing  his  throat : '  We  are 
[inch  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Anderson,  for  your  frankness  towards  this 
jourt.     There's  not  a  man  here  that  don't  feel  for  you,  and  don't 
idsh  to  offer  you  his  respectful  sympathy.     We  know  you — and  I 
ckon  we  know  what  to  think  about  you.     Gentlemen  : '  he  spoke 
th  nasal  deliberation,  looking  round  the  court, '  I  think  that's  so  ? ' 
A  shout  of  consent — the  shout  of  men  deeply  moved — went  up. 
.nderson,  who  had  resumed  his  former  attitude,  appeared  to  take 
notice,  and  the  coroner  resumed  : 
'  I  will  now  call  on  Mrs.  Ginnell  to  give  her  evidence.' 
The  Irishwoman  rose  with  alacrity — what  she  had  to  say  held 
$  audience.     The  surly  yet  good-hearted  creature  was  divided 
etween  her  wish  to  do  justice  to  the  demerits  of  McEwen,  whom 
le  had  detested,  and  her  fear  of  hurting  Anderson's  feelings  in 
ublic.    Beneath  her  rough  exterior,  she  carried  some  of  the  deli- 
acies  of   Celtic  feeling,  and  she  had  no  sooner  given  some  fact 
lat  showed  the  coarse  dishonesty  of  the  father,  than  she  veered 
f£  in  haste  to  describe  the  pathetic  efforts  of  the  son.    Her  homely 
alk  told  ;  the  picture  grew. 

Meanwhile  Anderson  sat  impatient  or  benumbed,  annoyed  with 
Irs.  Ginnell's  garrulity,  and  longing  for  the  whole  thing  to  end. 
Ee  had  a  letter  to  write  to  Ottawa  before  post-time. 

When  the  verdicts  had  been  given,  the  doctor  and  he  walked 
way  from  the  court  together.  The  necessary  formalities  were 
arried  through,  a  coffin  ordered,  and  provision  made  for  the  burial 

VOL.  XXVIII.—  NO.  165,  N.S.  22 


338  CANADIAN    BORN. 

of  Robert  Anderson.  As  the  two  men  passed  once  or  twice  through 
the  groups  now  lounging  and  smoking  as  before  outside  the  hotel, 
all  conversation  ceased,  and  all  eyes  followed  Anderson.  Sincere 
pity  was  felt  for  him  ;  and  at  the  same  time  men  asked  each  other 
anxiously  how  the  revelation  would  affect  his  political  and  other 
chances. 

Late  in  the  same  evening  the  burial  of  McEwen  took  place. 
A  congregational  minister  at  the  graveside  said  a  prayer  for  mercy 
on  the  sinner.  Anderson  had  not  asked  him  to  do  it,  and  felt  a 
dull  resentment  of  the  man's  officiousness,  and  the  unctuous  length 
of  his  prayer.  Half  an  hour  later  he  was  on  the  platform,  waiting  for 
the  train  to  Glacier. 

He  arrived  there  in  the  first  glorious  dawn  of  a  summer  morning. 
Over  the  vast  Illecillowaet  glacier  rosy  feather-clouds  were  floating 
in  a  crystal  air,  beneath  a  dome  of  pale  blue.    Light  mists  rose  from  j 
the  forests  and  the  course  of  the  river,  and  above  them  shone  the  I 
dazzling  snows,  the  hanging  glaciers,  and  glistening  rock  faces, 
ledge  piled  on  ledge,  of  the  Selkirk  giants — Hermit  and  Tupper, 
Avalanche  and  Sir  Donald — with  that  cleft  of  the  pass  between. 

The  pleasant  hotel,  built  to  offer  as  much  shelter  and  comfort  I 
as  possible  to  the  tired  traveller  and  climber,  was  scarcely  awake.  | 
A  sleepy-eyed  Japanese  showed  Anderson  to  his  room.    He  threw  | 
himself  on  the  bed,  longing  for  sleep,  yet  incapable  of  it.    He  was  j 
once  more  under  the  same  roof  with  Elizabeth  Merton— and  for 
the  last  time !     He  longed  for  her  presence,  her  look,  her  touch ; 
and  yet  with  equal  intensity  he  shrank  from  seeing  her.     That  very 
morning    through    the    length  and  breadth  of   Canada   and  the 
States  would  go  out  the  news  of  the  train-robbery  on  the  main 
line  of  the  C.P.R.,  and  with  it  the  '  dramatic  '  story  of  himself 
and  his  father,  made  more  dramatic  by  a  score  of  reporters.     And 
as  the  news  of  his  appointment,  in  the  papers  of  the  day  before, 
had  made  him  a  public  person,  and  had  been  no  doubt  telegraphed 
to  London  and  Europe,  so  also  would  it  be  with  the  news  of  the 
'  hold-up,'  and  of  his  own  connexion  with  it ;  partly  because  it  had 
happened  on  the  C.P.R.  ;  still  more  because  of  the  prominence  given  | 
to  his  name  the  day  before. 

He  felt  himself  a  disgraced  man  ;  and  he  had  already  put 
from  him  all  thought  of  a  public  career.  Yet  he  wondered,  not 
without  self-contempt,  as  he  lay  there  in  the  broadening  light, 
what  it  was  in  truth  that  made  the  enormous  difference  between  this 


CANADIAN   BORN.  339 

Monday  and  the  Monday  before.  His  father  was  dead,  and  had 
died  in  the  very  commission  of  a  criminal  act.  But  all  or  nearly 
all  that  Anderson  knew  now  about  his  character  he  had  known 
before  this  happened.  The  details  given  by  the  Nevada  police  were 
indeed  new  to  him  ;  but  he  had  shrewdly  suspected  all  along  that  the 
record,  did  he  know  it,  would  be  something  like  that.  If  such  a 
parentage  in  itself  involves  stain  and  degradation,  the  stain  and 
degradation  had  been  always  there,  and  the  situation,  looked  at 
philosophically,  was  no  worse  for  the  catastrophe  which  had  inter- 
vened between  this  week  and  last. 

And  yet  it  was  of  course  immeasurably  worse  !  Such  is  the 
'  bubble  reputation  ' — the  difference  between  the  known  and  the 
unknown. 

At  nine  o'clock  a  note  was  brought  to  his  room. 

'  Will  you  breakfast  with  me  in  half  an  hour  ?      You  will  find  me  alone. 

'E.  M.' 

Before  the  clock  struck  the  half-hour,  Elizabeth  was  akeady 
waiting  for  her  guest,  listening  for  every  sound.  She  too  had  been 
awake  half  the  night. 

When  he  came  in  she  went  up  to  him,  with  her  quick  tripping 
step,  holding  out  both  her  hands  ;  and  he  saw  that  her  eyes  were 
full  of  tears. 

'  I  am  so — so  sorry  ! '  was  all  she  could  say.  He  looked  into 
her  eyes,  and  as  her  hands  lay  in  his  he  stooped  suddenly  and 
kissed  them.  There  was  a  great  piteousness  in  his  expression, 
and  she  felt  through  every  nerve  the  humiliation  and  the  moral 
weariness  which  oppressed  him.  Suddenly !  she  recalled  that  first 
moment  of  intimacy  between  them  when  he  had  so  brusquely 
warned  her  about  Philip,  and  she  had  been  wounded  by  his  mere 
strength  and  fearlessness ;  and  it  hurt  her  to  realise  the  contrast 
between  that  strength  and  this  weakness. 

She  made  him  sit  down  beside  her  in  the  broad  window  of  her 
little  sitting-room,  which  overlooked  the  winding  valley  with  the 
famous  loops  of  the  descending  railway,  and  the  moving  light  and 
shade  on  the  forest ;  and  very  gently  and  tenderly  she  made  him 
tell  her  all  the  story  from  first  to  last. 

His  shrinking  passed  away,  soothed  by  her  sweetness,  her 
restrained  emotion,  and  after  a  little  he  talked  with  freedom, 
gradually  recovering  his  normal  steadiness  and  clearness  of  mind. 

At  the  same  time  she  perceived  some  great  change  in  him. 

22—2 


340  CANADIAN    BORN. 

The  hidden  spring  of  melancholy  in  his  nature,  which,  amid  all  his 
practical  energies  and  activities,  she  had  always  discerned,  seemed 
to  have  overleaped  its  barriers,  and  to  be  invading  the  landmarks 
of  character. 

At  the  end  of  his  narrative  he  said  something  in  a  hurried,  low 
voice  which  gave  her  a  clue. 

'  I  did  what  I  could  to  help  him — but  my  father  hated  me. 
He  died  hating  me.  Nothing  I  could  do  altered  him.  Had  he 
reason  ?  When  my  brother  and  I  in  our  anger  thought  we  were 
avenging  our  mother's  death,  were  we  in  truth  destroying  him  also — 
driving  him  into  wickedness,  beyond  hope  ?  Were  we — was  I — for 
I  was  the  eldest — responsible  ?  Does  his  death,  moral  and  physical, 
lie  at  my  door  ? ' 

He  raised  his  eyes  to  her — his  tired  appealing  eyes — and 
Elizabeth  realised  sharply  how  deep  a  hold  such  questionings  take 
on  such  a  man.  She  tried  to  argue  with  and  comfort  him — and  he 
seemed  to  absorb,  to  listen — but  in  the  middle  of  it,  he  said  abruptly, 
as  though  to  change  the  subject : 

'  And  I  confess  the  publicity  has  hit  me  hard.  It  may  be  cowardly, 
but  I  can't  face  it  for  a  while.  I  think  I  told  you  I  owned  some 
land  in  Saskatchewan.  I  shall  go  and  settle  down  on  it  at 
once.' 

'  And  give  up  your  appointment — your  public  life  ? '  she  criec 
in  dismay. 

He  smiled  at  her  faintly,  as  though  trying  to  console  her. 

'  Yes  ;  I  shan't  be  missed,  and  I  shall  do  better  by  myselj 
I  understand  the  wheat  and  the  land.  They  are  friends  that  don' 
fail  one.' 

Elizabeth  flushed. 

4  Mr.  Anderson ! — you  mustn't  give  up  your  work.  Canad 
asks  it  of  you.' 

'  I  shall  only  be  changing  my  work.  A  man  can  do  nothm 
better  for  Canada  than  break  up  land.' 

1  You  can  do  that — and  other  things  besides.  Please — please- 
do  nothing  rash  !  ' 

She  bent  over  to  him,  her  brown  eyes  full  of  entreaty,  he 
hand  laid  gently,  timidly  on  his. 

He  could  not  bear  to  distress  her — but  he  must. 

'  I  sent  in  my  resignation  yesterday  to  the  Prime  Minister.' 

The  delicate  face  beside  him  clouded. 

'  He  won't  accept  it.' 


CANADIAN  BORN.  341 

Anderson  shook  his  head.     *  I  think  he  must.' 

Elizabeth  looked  at  him  in  despair. 

'  Oh  !  no.  You  oughtn't  to  do  this — indeed,  indeed  you 
oughtn't !  It  is  cowardly — forgive  me  ! — unworthy  of  you.  Oh  ! 
can't  you  see  how  the  sympathy  of  everybody  who  knows — every- 
body whose  opinion  you  care  for — 

She  stopped  a  moment,  colouring  deeply,  checked  indeed  by 
the  thought  of  a  conversation  between  herself  and  Philip  of  the 
night  before.  Anderson  interrupted  her  : 

'  The  sympathy  of  one  person,'  he  said  hoarsely,  '  is  very 
precious  to  me.  But  even  for  her ' 

She  held  out  her  hands  to  him  again  imploringly — 

'  Even  for  her  ? ' 

But  instead  of  taking  the  hands  he  rose  and  went  out  on  the 
I  balcony  a  moment,  as  though  to  look  at  the  great  view.  Then 
he  returned,  and  stood  over  her. 

'  Lady  Merton,  I  am  afraid — it's  no  use.  We  are  not — we 
can't  be — friends.' 

'  Not  friends  ? '  she  said,  her  lip  quivering.     '  I  thought  I ' 

He  looked  down  steadily  on  her  upturned  face.  His  own 
I  spoke  eloquently  enough.  Turning  her  head  away,  with  fluttering 
breath,  she  began  to  speak  fast  and  brokenly  : 

'  I,  too,  have  been  very  lonely.  I  want  a  friend  whom  I  might 
I  help — who  would  help  me.  Why  should  you  refuse  ?  We  are  not 
either  of  us  quite  young  ;  what  we  undertook  we  could  carry  through. 
Since  my  husband's  death  I — I  have  been  playing  at  life.  I  have 
always  been  hungry,  dissatisfied,  discontented.  There  were  such 
splendid  things  going  on  in  the  world,  and  I — I  was  just  marking 
time.  Nothing  to  do ! — as  much  money  as  I  could  possibly  want — 
society  of  course — travelling — and  visiting — and  amusing  myself — 
but  oh  !  so  tired  all  the  time.  And  somehow  Canada  has  been  a 
revelation  of  real,  strong,  living  things — this  great  North- West — 
and  you,  who  seemed  to  explain  it  to  me ' 

'  Dear  Lady  Merton  !  '  His  tone  was  low  and  full  of  emotion. 
And  this  time  it  was  he  who  stooped  and  took  her  unresisting  hands 
in  his.  She  went  on  in  the  same  soft,  pleading  tone — 

'  I  felt  what  it  might  be — to  help  in  the  building  up  a  better 

uman  life — in  this  vast  new  country.     God  has  given  to  you  this 

task — such  a  noble  task  ! — and  through   your  friendship,   I  too 

seemed  to  have  a  little  part  in  it,  if  only  by  sympathy.     Oh,  no ! 

you  mustn't  turn  back — you  mustn't  shrink — because  of  what  has 


342  CANADIAN  BORN. 

happened  to  you.  And  let  me,  from  a  distance,  watch  and  help. 
It  will  ennoble  my  life  too.  Let  me  ! ' — she  smiled — '  I  shall  make 
a  good  friend,  you'll  see.  I  shall  write  very  often.  I  shall  argue 
— and  criticise — and  want  a  great  deal  of  explaining.  And  you'll 
come  over  to  us,  and  do  splendid  work,  and  make  many  English 
friends.  Your  strength  will  all  come  back  to  you.' 

He  pressed  the  hands  he  held  more  closely. 

'  It  is  like  you  to  say  all  this — but — don't  let  us  deceive  ourselves. 
I  could  not  be  your  friend,  Lady  Merton.  I  must  not  come  and 
see  you.' 

She  was  silent,  very  pale,  her  eyes  on  his — and  he  went  on  : 

'  It  is  strange  to  say  it  in  this  way,  at  such  a  moment ;  but  it 
seems  as  though  I  had  better  say  it.  I  have  had  the  audacity,  you 
see — to  fall  in  love  with  you.  And  if  it  was  audacity  a  week  ago, 

you  can  guess  what  it  is  now — now  when Ask  your  mother 

and  brother  what  they  would  think  of  it !  '  he  said  abruptly,  almost 
fiercely. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.     All  consciousness,  all  feeling  i 
each  of  these  two  human  beings  had  come  to  be — with  the  irrevo- 
cable swiftness  of  love — a  consciousness  of  the  other.    Under  the 
sombre  renouncing  passion  of  his  look,  her  own  eyes  filled  slowly— 
beautifully — with  tears.     And  through  all  his  perplexity  and  pair 
there  shot  a  thrill  of  joy,  of  triumph  even,  sharp  and  wonderful.    H( 
understood.     All  this  might  have  been  his — this  delicate  beauty 
this  quick  will,  this  rare  intelligence — and  yet  the  surrender  in  he 
aspect  was  not  the  simple  surrender  of  love  ;  he  knew  before  sh 
spoke  that  she  did  not  pretend  to  ignore  the  obstacles  betweei 
them  ;  that  she  was  not  going  to  throw  herself  upon  his  renunciation 
trying  vehemently  to  break  it  down,  in  a  mere  blind  girlish  im 
pulsiveness.     He  realised  at  once  her  heart,  and  her  common  sense 
and  was  grateful  to  her  for  both. 

Gently  she  drew  herself  away,  drawing  a  long  breath.  '  M] 
mother  and  brother  would  not  decide  those  things  for  me — ohj 
never  ! — I  should  decide  them  for  myself.  But  we  are  not  goin/ 
to  talk  of  them  to-day.  We  are  not  going  to  make  any — an^ 
rash  promises  to  each  other.  It  is  you  we  must  think  for — you 
future — your  life.  And  then — if  you  won't  give  me  a  friend'j 
right  to  speak — you  will  be  unkind — and  I  shall  respect  yoij 
less.' 

She  threw  back  her  little  head  with  vivacity.     In  the  gestur 
he  saw  the  strength  of  her  will  and  his  own  wavered. 


CANADIAN  BORN.  343 

'  How  can  it  be  unkind  ?  '  he  protested.  '  You  ought  not  to 
be  troubled  with  me  any  more.' 

'  Let  me  be  the  judge  of  that.  If  you  will  persist  in  giving  up 
this  appointment,  promise  me  at  least  to  come  to  England.  That  will 
break  the  spell  of  this — this  terrible  thing,  and  give  you  courage — 
again.  Promise  me  !  ' 

'  No,  no  ! — you  are  too  good  to  me — too  good ; — let  it  end  here. 
It  is  much,  much  better  so.5 

Then  she  broke  down  a  little. 

She  looked  round  her,  like  some  hurt  creature  seeking  a  means 
of  escape.  Her  lips  trembled.  She  gave  a  low  cry.  '  And  I 
have  loved  Canada  so  !  I  have  been  so  happy  here.5 

'  And  now  I  have  hurt  you  ? — I  have  spoilt  everything  ? 5 

'  It  is  your  unhappiness  does  that — and  that  you  will  spoil 
your  life.  Promise  me  only  this  one  thing — to  come  to  England  ! 
Promise  me  !  ' 

He  sat  down  in  a  quiet  despair  that  she  would  urge  him  so.  A 
long  argument  followed  between  them,  and  at  last  she  wore  him 
down.  She  dared  say  nothing  more  of  the  Commissionership ;  but 
he  promised  her  to  come  to  England  some  time  in  the  following 
winter  ;  and  with  that  she  had  to  be  content. 

Then  she  gave  him  breakfast.  During  their  conversation,  which 
Elizabeth  guided  as  far  as  possible  to  indifferent  topics,  the  name 
of  Mariette  was  mentioned.  He  was  still,  it  seemed,  at  Vancouver. 
Elizabeth  gave  Anderson  a  sudden  look,  and  casually,  without  his 
noticing,  she  possessed  herself  of  the  name  of  Mariette5s  hotel. 

At  breakfast  also  she  described,  with  a  smile  and  sigh,  her 
brother's  first  and  last  attempt  to  shoot  wild  goat  in  the  Rockies,  an 
expedition  which  had  ended  in  a  wetting  and  a  chill — '  luckily 
nothing  much  ;  but  poor  Philip  won't  be  out  of  his  room  to-day.' 

' 1  will  go  and  see  him,5  said  Anderson,  rising. 

Elizabeth  looked  up,  her  colour  fluttering. 

'  Mr.  Anderson,  Philip  is  only  a  boy,  and  sometimes  a  foolish 
boy ' 

'  I  understand,5  said  Anderson  quietly,  after  a  moment,  '  Philip 
thinks  his  sister  has  been  running  risks.  Who  warned  him  ?  5 

Elizabeth  shrugged  her  shoulders  without  replying.  He  saw  a 
touch  of  scorn  in  her  face  that  was  new  to  him. 

'  I  think  I  guess,'  he  said.  '  Why  not  ?  It  was  the  natural 
thing.  So  Mr.  Delaine  is  still  here  ?  ' 


344  CANADIAN   BORN. 

'  Till  to-morrow.' 

*  I  am  glad.  I  shall  like  to  assure  him  that  his  name  was  not 
mentioned — he  was  not  involved  at  all ! ' 

Elizabeth's  lip  curled  a  little,  but  she  said  nothing.     During 
the  preceding  forty-eight  hours  there  had  been  passages  between 
herself    and    Delaine    that    she    did    not    intend    Anderson    to  | 
know  anything  about.     In  his  finical  repugnance  to  soiling  his 
hands  with  matters  so  distasteful,  Delaine  had  carried  out  the 
embassy  which  Anderson  had  perforce  entrusted  to  him  in  such  a  i 
manner  as  to  rouse  in  Elizabeth  a  maximum  of  pride  on  her  own 
account  and  of    indignation  on  Anderson's.     She  was  not  even 
sorry  for  him  any  more ;  being,  of  course,  therein  a  little  unjust  to 
him,  as  was  natural  to  a  high-spirited  and  warm-hearted  woman. 

Anderson,  meanwhile,  went  of?  to  knock  at  Philip's  door,  and 
Philip's  sister  was  left  behind  to  wonder  nervously  how  Philip  I 
would  behave  and  what  he  would  say.  She  was  still  smarting  under  j 
the  boy's  furious  outburst  of  the  night  before  when,  through  a  I 
calculated  indiscretion  of  Delaine's,  the  notion  that  Anderson  had, 
presumed  and  might  still  presume  to  set  his  ambitions  on  Elizabeth 
had  been  presented  to  him  for  the  first  time. 

1  My  sister  marry  a  mining  engineer  ! — with  a  drunken  old  robber 
for  a  father  !  By  Jove  !  Anybody  talking  nonsense  of  that  kind 
will  jolly  well  have  to  reckon  with  me  !  Elizabeth  ! — you  may  say 
what  you  like,  but  I  am  the  head  of  the  family  ! ' 


Anderson  found  the  head  of  the  family  in  bed,  surrounded 
by  novels,  and  a  dozen  books  on  big  game  shooting  in  the 
Rockies.  Philip  received  him  with  an  evident  and  ungracious 
embarrassment. 

'  I  am  awfully  sorry — beastly  business.  Hard  lines  on  you,  of 
course — very.  Hope  they'll  get  the  men.' 

'  Thank  you.     They  are  doing  their  best.' 

Anderson  sat  down  beside  the  lad.  The  fragility  of  his  look 
struck  him  painfully,  and  the  pathetic  contrast  between  it  and  the 
fretting  spirit — the  books  of  travel  and  adventure  heaped  round  him. 

'  Have  you  been  ill  again  ?  '  he  asked  in  his  kind,  deep  voice. 

'  Oh,  just  a  beastly  chill.  Elizabeth  would  make  me  take  too 
many  wraps.  Everyone  knows  you  oughtn't  to  get  overheated 
walking.' 

'  Do  you  want  to  stay  on  here  longer  ?  ' 


CANADIAN  BORN.  345 

'  Not  I !  What  do  I  care  about  glaciers  and  mountains  and  that 
sort  of  stuff  if  I  can't  hunt  ?  But  Elizabeth's  got  at  the  doctor 
somehow,  and  he  won't  let  me  go  for  three  or  four  days  unless 
I  kick  over  the  traces.  I  daresay  I  shall.' 

'  No  you  won't — for  your  sister's  sake.  I'll  see  all  arrangements 
are  made.' 

Philip  made  no  direct  reply.  He  lay  staring  at  the  ceiling — till 
at  last  he  said — 

'  Delaine's  going.  He's  going  to-morrow.  He  gets  on 
Elizabeth's  nerves.' 

*  Did  he  say  anything  to  you  about  me  ?  '  said  Anderson. 
Philip  flushed. 

'  Well,  I  dare  say  he  did.' 

'  Make  your  mind  easy,  Gaddesden.  A  man  with  my  story  is  not 
going  to  ask  your  sister  to  marry  him.' 

Philip  looked  up.  Anderson  sat  composedly  erect,  the  traces  of 
his  nights  of  sleeplessness  and  revolt  marked  on  every  feature,  but  as 
much  master  of  himself  and  his  life — so  Gaddesden  intuitively  felt — 
as  he  had  ever  been.  A  movement  of  remorse  and  affection  stirred 
in  the  young  man  mingled  with  the  strength  of  other  inherited 
things. 

'  Awfully  sorry,  you  know,'  he  said  clumsily,  but  this  time 
sincerely.  '  I  don't  suppose  it  makes  any  difference  to  you  that 
your  father — well,  I'd  better  not  talk  about  it.  But  you  see — 
Elizabeth  might  marry  anybody.  She  might  have  married  heaps  of 
times  since  Merton  died,  if  she  hadn't  been  such  an  icicle.  She's 
got  lots  of  money,  and — well,  I  don't  want  to  be  snobbish — but  at 
home — we — our  family ' 

*  I  understand,'  said  Anderson,  perhaps  a  little  impatiently — 
'  you  are  great  people.     I  understood  that  all  along.' 

Family  pride  cried  out  in  Philip.     '  Then  why  the  deuce — 
But  he  said  aloud  in  some  confusion,   '  I  suppose  that  sounded 
disgusting  ' — then  floundering   deeper — '  but  you  see — well,   I'm 
very  fond  of  Elizabeth  !  ' 

Anderson  rose  and  walked  to  the  window  which  commanded  a 
view  of  the  railway  line. 

'  I  see  the  car  outside.  I'll  go  and  have  a  few  words  with 
Yerkes.' 

The  boy  let  him  go  in  silence — conscious  on  the  one  hand  that 
he  had  himself  played  a  mean  part  in  their  conversation,  and  on  the 
other  that  Anderson,  under  this  onset  of  sordid  misfortune,  was 


346  CANADIAN   BORN. 

somehow  more  of  a  hero  in  his  eyes,  and  no  doubt  in  other  people's, 
than  ever. 

On  his  way  downstairs  Anderson  ran  into  Delaine,  who  was 
ascending  with  an  armful  of  books  and  pamphlets. 

'  Oh,  how  do  you  do  ?  Had  only  just  heard  you  were  here.  May 
I  have  a  word  with  you  ? ' 

Anderson  remounted  the  stairs  in  silence,  and  the  two  men 
paused,  seeing  no  one  in  sight,  in  the  corridor  beyond. 

'  I  have  just  read  the  report  of  the  inquest,  and  should  like  to 
offer  you  my  sincere  sympathy  and  congratulations  on  your  very 

straightforward  behaviour '  Anderson  made  a  movement. 

Delaine  went  on  hurriedly — 

'  I  should  like  also  to  thank  you  for  having  kept  my  name  out 
of  it.' 

'  There  was  no  need  to  bring  it  in,'  said  Anderson  coldly. 

'  No,  of  course  not — of  course  not !  I  have  also  seen  the  news 
of  your  appointment.  I  trust  nothing  will  interfere  with  that.' 

Anderson  turned  towards  the  stairs  again.  He  was  conscious 
of  a  keen  antipathy — the  antipathy  of  tired  nerves — to  the 
speaker's  mere  aspect,  his  long  hair,  his  too  picturesque  dress,  the 
antique  on  his  little  finger,  the  effeminate  stammer  in  his  voice. 

'  Are  you  going  to-day  ?  What  train  ? '  he  said,  in  a  careless 
voice  as  he  moved  away. 

Delaine  drew  back,  made  a  curt  reply,  and  the  two  men  parted. 

'  Oh,  he'll  get  over  it ;  there  will  very  likely  be  nothing  to  get 
over,'  Delaine  reflected  tartly,  as  he  made  his  way  to  his  room. 
'  A  new  country  like  this  can't  be  too  particular.'  He  was  thankful, 
at  any  rate,  that  he  would  have  an  opportunity  before  long — for 
e  was  going  straight  home  and  to  Cumberland — of  putting  Mrs. 
Gaddesden  on  her  guard.  '  I  may  be  thought  officious ;  Lady 
Merton  let  me  see  very  plainly  that  she  thinks  me  so — but  I  shall 
do  my  duty  nevertheless.' 

And  as  he  stood  over  his  packing,  bewildering  his  valet  with  a 
number  of  precise  and  old-maidish  directions,  his  sore  mind  ran 
alternately  on  the  fiasco  of  his  own  journey  and  on  the  incredible 
folly  of  nice  women. 

Delaine  departed ;  and  for  two  days  Elizabeth  ministered  to 
Anderson.  She  herself  went  strangely  through  it,  feeling  between 
them,  as  it  were,  the  bared  sword  of  his  ascetic  will — no  less  than 


CANADIAN   BORN.  347 

her  own  terrors  and  hesitations.  But  she  set  herself  to  lift  him 
from  the  depths  ;  and  as  they  walked  about  the  mountains  and 
the  forests,  in  a  glory  of  summer  sunshine,  the  sanity  and  sweetness 
of  her  nature  made  for  him  a  spiritual  atmosphere  akin  in  its 
healing  power  to  the  influence  of  pine  and  glacier  upon  his  physical 
weariness. 

On  the  second  evening,  Mariette  walked  into  the  hotel.  Ander- 
son, who  had  just  concluded  all  arrangements  for  the  departure  of 
the  car  with  its  party  within  forty- eight  hours,  received  him  with 
astonishment. 

'  What  brings  you  here  ?  ' 

Mariette's  harsh  face  smiled  at  him  gravely. 

'  The  conviction  that  if  I  didn't  come,  you  would  be  committing 
a  folly.' 

'  What  do  you  mean  ?  ' 

'  Giving  up  your  Commissionership,  or  some  nonsense  of  that 
sort.' 

'  I  have  given  it  up.' 

'  H'm  !     Anything  from  Ottawa  yet  ?  ' 

It  was  impossible,  Anderson  pointed  out,  that  there  should 
be  any  letter  for  another  three  days.  But  he  had  written  finally 
and  did  not  mean  to  be  over-persuaded. 

Mariette  at  once  carried  him  off  for  a  walk  and  attacked 
him  vigorously.  '  Your  private  affairs  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  your  public  work.  Canada  wants  you — you  must 

go-' 

*  Canada  can  easily  get  hold  of  a  Commissioner  who  would  do 
her  more  credit,'  was  the  bitter  reply.  '  A  man's  personal  circum- 
stances are  part  of  his  equipment.  They  must  not  be  such  as  to 
injure  his  mission.' 

Mariette  argued  in  vain. 

As  they  were  both  dining  in  the  evening  with  Elizabeth  and 
Philip,  a  telegram  was  brought  in  for  Anderson  from  the  Prime 
Minister.  It  contained  a  peremptory  and  flattering  refusal  to 
accept  his  resignation.  '  Nothing  has  occurred  which  affects  your 
public  or  private  character.  My  confidence  quite  unchanged. 
Work  is  best  for  yourself,  and  the  public  expects  it  of  you.  Take 
time  to  consider,  and  wire  me  in  two  days.' 

Anderson  thrust  it  into  his  pocket,  and  was  only  with  difficulty 
persuaded  to  show  it  to  Mariette. 

But  in  the  course  of  the  evening  many  letters  arrived — letters 


348  CANADIAN    BORN. 

of  sympathy  from  old  friends  in  Quebec  and  Manitoba,  from 
colleagues  and  officials,  from  navvies  and  railwaymen  even,  on 
the  C.P.R.,  from  his  future  constituents  in  Saskatchewan — drawn 
out  by  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  inquest  and  of  Anderson's 
evidence.  For  once  the  world  rallied  to  a  good  man  in  distress ! 
and  Anderson  was  strangely  touched  and  overwhelmed  by  it. 

He  passed  an  almost  sleepless  night,  and  in  the  morning  as  he 
met  Elizabeth  on  her  balcony  he  said  to  her,  half  reproachfully, 
pointing  to  Mariette  below — 

'  It  was  you  sent  for  him.' 

Elizabeth  smiled. 

'  A  woman  knows  her  limitations !  It  is  harder  to  refuse  two 
than  one.' 

For  twenty-four  hours  the  issue  remained  uncertain.  Letters 
continued  to  pour  in ;  Mariette  applied  the  plain-spoken,  half- 
scornful  arguments  natural  to  a  man  holding  a  purely  spiritual 
standard  of  life  ;  and  Elizabeth  pleaded  more  by  look  and  manner 
than  by  words. 

Anderson  held  out  as  long  as  he  could:  He  was  assaulted  by 
that  dark  midway  hour  of  manhood,  that  distrust  of  life  and  his  own 
powers,  which  disables  so  many  of  the  world's  best  men  in  these 
heightened,  hurrying  days.  But  in  the  end  his  two  friends 
saved  him — as  by  fire. 

Mariette  himself  dictated  the  telegram  to  the  Prime  Minister 
in  which  Anderson  withdrew  his  resignation ;  and  then,  while 
Anderson,  with  a  fallen  countenance,  carried  it  to  the  post,  the 
French  Canadian  and  Elizabeth  looked  at  each  other — in  a  common 
exhaustion  and  relief. 

'  I  feel  a  wreck,'  said  Elizabeth.  *  Monsieur,  you  are  an  excel- 
lent ally.'  And  she  held  out  her  hand  to  her  colleague.  Mariette 
took  it,  and  bowed  over  it  with  the  air  of  a  grand  seigneur  of  1680. 

'  The  next  step  must  be  yours,  Madame, — if  you  really  take  an 
interest  in  our  friend.' 

Elizabeth  rather  nervously  inquired  what  it  might  be. 

'  Find  him  a  wife ! — a  good  wife.  He  was  not  made  to  live 
alone.' 

His  penetrating  eyes  in  his  ugly  well-bred  face  searched  the 
features  of  his  companion.  Elizabeth  bore  it  smiling,  without 
flinching. 

A  fortnight  passed — and  Elizabeth  and  Philip  were  on  their 
way  home  through  the  heat  of  July.  Once  more  the  railway  which 


CANADIAN   BORN.  349 

had  become  their  kind  familiar  friend  sped  them  through  the 
prairies,  already  whitening  to  the  harvest,  through  the  Ontarian 
forests  and  the  Ottawa  valley.  The  wheat  was  standing  thick  on 
the  illimitable  earth  ;  the  plains  in  their  green  or  golden  dress 
seemed  to  laugh  and  sing  under  the  hot  dome  of  sky.  Again  the 
great  Canadian  spectacle  unrolled  itself  from  west  to  east,  and  the 
heart  Elizabeth  brought  to  it  was  no  longer  the  heart  of  a  stranger. 
The  teeming  Canadian  life  had  become  deeply  interwoven  with  her 
life  ;  and  when  Anderson  came  to  bid  her  a  hurried  farewell  on  the 
platform  at  Kegina,  she  carried  the  passionate  memory  of  his  face 
with  her,  as  the  embodiment  and  symbol  of  all  that  she  had  seen 
and  felt. 

Then  her  thoughts  turned  to  England,  and  the  struggle  before 
her.  She  braced  herself  against  the  Old  World  as  against  an 
enemy.  But  her  spirit  failed  her  when  she  remembered  that  in 
Anderson  himself  she  was  like  to  find  her  chief est  foe. 


(To  be  continued.) 


350 


THE   OXFORD  MUSEUM  AND  ITS  FOUNDERS. 
BY  A.  VERNON  HARCOURT,   HoN.D.Sc.,  F.R.S. 

THE  following  paper  was  given  as  an  address  at  the  celebration  of  the  Jubilee  of 
the  Oxford  University  Museum  in  October  1908.  It  related  almost  wholly  to  a 
period  which  was  fifty  or  more  years  ago,  and  it  is  hoped  that  it  may  still  be  of 
interest,  especially  to  old  Oxford  men,  though  the  interval  has  been  lengthened 
by  more  than  a  year. 

FIFTY  years  ago  the  position  occupied  by  the  natural  sciences 
among  educational  subjects  both  in  schools  and  colleges  was  in 
most  cases  a  quite  subordinate  position.  Especially  was  this  the 
case  at  the  large  public  schools  to  which  the  sons  of  the  better- 
to-do  classes  were  sent,  and  at  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge.  The  study  of  two  dead  languages  was  regarded  as 
having  a  far  higher  educational  value  than  the  study  of  the  struc- 
ture and  changes  of  our  own  bodies  and  of  the  world  we  live  in. 
A  man  with  little  Latin  and  less  Greek  was  regarded  in  the  high 
places  of  education  as  seriously  deficient,  but  no  unfamiliarity  with 
the  arts  of  observation  and  experiment,  and  with  the  various 
knowledge  they  had  brought,  hindered  a  man  from  being  credited 
with  a  thoroughly  good  school  and  college  education. 

But  already  Faraday,  Tyndall,  and  Huxley,  and  other  lecturers 
on  other  branches  of  science,  were  filling  the  benches  of  the  Eoyal 
Institution  ;  the  British  Association  had  been  advancing  science 
during  a  quarter  of  a  century  by  visiting  the  large  provincial 
towns ;  gas-lighting,  the  steam-engine,  and  more  recently  the 
electric  telegraph,  had  illustrated  the  uses  of  science  ;  and  pro- 
vincial colleges  were  rising  to  meet  a  demand  for  teaching  which 
Oxford  supplied  scantily  and  did  not  encourage. 

It  has  been  boasted  that  what  Lancashire  thinks  to-day  Eng- 
land will  think  to-morrow,  and  we  in  Oxford  may  claim  that  what 
England  thinks  to-day  Oxford  will  think  a  few  days  hence.  Thus 
it  might  safely  have  been  predicted  that  in  the  course  of  the  second 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  University  would  admit  some 
branches  of  natural  science  among  the  subjects  for  a  knowledge  of 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS.     351 

which  a  degree  was  conferred,  and  would  make  provision  for  the 
teaching  of  the  new  subjects. 

The  movement  began  within  the  University,  though  a  visit  of 
the  British  Association  in  1847  may  have  stimulated  and  encouraged 
those  who  were  the  first  to  move.  In  July  of  that  year  Dr.  Acland 
drew  up  a  Memorandum,  which  was  signed  by  Dr.  Daubeny, 
Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Botany,  P.  B.  Duncan,  Keeper  of  the 
Ashmolean  Museum,  Robert  Walker,  Reader  in  Experimental 
Philosophy,  and  Dr.  Acland  himself  as  Lee's  Reader  in  Anatomy. 
It  proposed  that  the  contents  of  the  Ashmolean  Museum  and  of 
the  Anatomical  Museum  in  Christ  Church,  and  the  geological 
collection  in  the  Clarendon,  should  be  transferred  to  an  edifice  to 
be  erected  within  the  precincts  of  the  University,  where  there 
should  be  also  lecture-rooms  and  an  apartment  to  serve  as  a 
library  and  for  scientific  meetings. 

Unfortunately  Dr.  Buckland,  Professor  of  Geology  and  Dean 
of  Westminster,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  geological  collection, 
refused  to  sign  on  the  ground  that  any  progress  of  natural  history 
in  Oxford  was  hopeless.  '  It  was,'  he  wrote,  '  a  detriment  to  a 
candidate  for  a  degree  or  a  Fellowship  to  have  given  any  portion 
of  his  time  and  attention  to  objects  so  alien  from  what  is  thought 
to  be  the  proper  business  of  the  University  as  natural  history  in 
any  of  its  branches.' 

This  reply  was  a  great  discouragement  to  Dr.  Acland,  and  may 
have  turned  his  attention  to  the  other  of  the  two  objects  which 
he  and  his  fellow-workers  were  pursuing  concurrently — namely, 
the  development  of  natural  science  education  in  Oxford.  In 
November  of  the  following  year  he  put  together  his  views  on  this 
subject  in  the  form  of  a  published  letter  addressed  to  Dr.  Jacobson. 
The  first  part  of  the  letter  relates  to  '  The  duty  of  introducing  the 
elements  of  certain  branches  of  natural  knowledge  into  the  list  of 
studies  necessary  for  all  persons  taking  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Arts.' 

The  reasons  for  this  change  are  well  stated  in  a  connected 
argument,  from  which  I  will  quote  a  few  sentences.  '  In  all  sound 
schemes  for  education  there  are  two  distinct  parts  and  objects  ; 
the  discipline  of  the  mind  and  the  communication  of  knowledge. 
These  may  be  carried  on  in  more  or  less  intimate  connection  ;  for 
though  they  may  be  different  they  are  not  opposed ;  and  any 
scheme  which  does  not  combine  a  fair  proportion  of  each  is  a 
defective  one.'  .  .  .  '  It  is  not  many  years  since  there  arose  in  this 


352    THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS. 

country  a  great  cry  for  what  was  called  "  useful  knowledge  "  ; 
because  it  was  noticed  that  men  who  had  spent  ten  or  twelve  years 
in  the  usual  routine  of  the  schools  and  Universities  emerged  in 
entire  ignorance  of  things  which  have  an  immediate  bearing  on 
their  daily  life  ;  and  though  they  might  be  good  scholars  or  good 
logicians  (which  all  were  not),  it  was  found  that  this  advantage  did 
not  make  up  for  their  other  deficiencies.'  .  .  .  '  Those  who  refuse 
to  admit  into  our  necessary  course  of  studies  any  which  they  do 
not  believe  to  be  purely  instrumental  in  training  the  mind  by  way 
of  discipline,  are  unconsciously  depriving  themselves  of  an  engine 
most  powerful  for  their  own  object ;  for  of  all  studies  none  is  more 
efficient  for  such  object  than  that  of  the  chief  laws  of  the  natural 
world.' 

Dr.  Acland  subsequently  quotes  with  approval  '  a  clear  state- 
ment made  by  Dr.  Daubeny  of  the  departments  of  natural  know- 
ledge, an  elementary  acquaintance  with  which  "  ought  to  be 
regarded  as  part  of  every  complete  system  of  education,"  namely : 

'  First,  "  Those  which  comprehend  the  knowledge  of  the 
general  laws  common  to  all  matter  whatsoever,"  or  "  Natural 
Philosophy." 

*  Secondly,  "  The  special  properties  and  relations  of  those 
bodies,  which  are  either  most  familiar  to  us,  most  useful,  or  most 
generally  diffused  throughout  nature,"  or  "  Chemistry." 

'  Thirdly,  "  The  general  laws  which  govern  life  as  it  exists  both 
in  the  animal  and  in  the  vegetable  creation,"  or  "  General  Physio- 

logy." ' 

On  each  of  these  subjects  Dr.  Acland  proposes  that  a  course  of 
twenty-four  lectures  should  be  given  in  separate  terms  which 
all  undergraduates  should  be  required  to  attend. 

He  anticipates  two  objections,  that  the  instruction  must  be 
superficial,  and  that  undergraduates  should  not  be  compelled  to 
attend  professors'  lectures.  This  latter  objection  was  urged  by 
some  college  tutors,  who  were  willing  that  their  labours  should  be 
shared  by  '  coaches,'  but  not  by  professors,  and  regarded  the  new 
developments  with  disfavour.  The  number  of  professors  was  then 
multiplying  fast,  and  most  of  them,  at  least,  wished  to  have  a  class. 
A  Christ  Church  tutor,  Osborne  Gordon,  proposed  a  way  out  of  the 
difficulty.  Every  professor  should  be  required  by  statute  to 
attend  the  lectures  of  each  of  his  colleagues.  In  this  way,  he  said, 
all  would  be  satisfied,  and  the  education  given  by  the  colleges 
would  proceed  as  before.  But  the  University  adopted  another 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND    ITS   FOUNDERS.     353 

view,  and  certificates  of  having  attended  two  courses  of  professors' 
lectures  were  required  for  a  degree.  The  number  of  lectures  in  a 
course  was  not  specified.  Dr.  Daubeny,  who  held  the  chair  of 
rural  economy,  as  well  as  those  of  botany  and  chemistry,  gave 
notice  of  two  lectures  on  rural  economy.  In  spite  of  his  scientific 
eminence  his  classes  were  habitually  very  small,  but  on  this  occa- 
sion the  lecture-room  was  full.  On  entering  the  room,  he  thought, 
according  to  Osborne  Gordon,  that  rural  economy  was  looking  up. 
But  the  illusion,  if  it  existed,  was  destroyed  when,  at  the  close  of 
the  second  lecture,  each  of  his  hearers  asked  for  a  certificate  of 
having  attended  the  course. 

The  creation  of  the  Natural  Science  School  and  extension  of 

natural  science  teaching  would  no  doubt  have  taken  place,  and 

might  not  have  been  much  postponed,  if  it  had  lacked  the  aid  of 

Dr.  Acland's  advocacy  and  his  influence  with  his  many  friends. 

But  it  was  not  so  with  his  other  object,  the  building  of  the  Museum. 

Separate  places  of  work  might  have  been  found,  and  enlarged  from 

!  time  to  time,  for  medical  studies,  for  biology,  for  geology,  for 

chemistry,  and  for  mechanical  philosophy,  as  now  for  astronomy 

,  and  botany.     One  advantage  this  separation  would  have  had. 

The  requisite  grants  would  have  been  more  easily  obtained  from 

the  University,  and  might  even  have  amounted  to  less.     As  it  was, 

j  the  opponents  of  change  and  expenditure  were  presented  with  the 

|  advantage  that  all  whom  they  wished  to  strike  were  grouped  under 

one  head. 

But  the  balance  of  advantage,  it  cannot  be  doubted,  was  with 
the  plan  which  Dr.  Acland  advocated,  of  uniting  all  the  natural 
sciences  as  far  as  possible  in  one  place.  Many  others  were  con- 
vinced and  helped,  but  Dr.  Acland  led  the  way  with  excellent 
judgment  and  an  infinite  willingness  to  take  pains.  For  the  task 
which  he  undertook  he  had  extraordinary  qualifications.  He  was 
smphatically  a  man  of  large  views,  and  able  to  '  fancy  the  fabric ' 
as  a  beautiful  building  worthy,  and  adapted,  to  be  the  home  of  the 
assembled  sciences ;  and  thus  he  became  enthusiastic  on  its  behalf. 
With  helpful  accidents  of  person  and  position  he  united  a  sympa- 
hetic  nature  and  a  conversational  eloquence,  which  bestowed 
upon  him  exceptional  powers  of  persuasion.  His  friendship  with 
3r.  Pusey  turned  the  scale  when  Convocation  was  nearly  divided 
on  a  Museum  grant ;  his  intimacy  with  Kuskin  and  other  artists 
gained  for  the  University  the  best  advice  on  matters  of  taste  ;  and 
his  geniality  in  dealing  with  such  a  wayward  artist  as  O'Shea,  the 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  165,  N.S.  23 


354     THE   OXFORD    MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS. 

stone-carver,  retained  services  of  high  value  which  less  sympa- 
thetic treatment  would  soon  have  lost. 

Six  years  elapsed  between  the  proposals  of  1847  and  the  first 
definite  steps  taken  by  Convocation  towards  the  establishment  of 
the  Museum  in  1853.  During  these  years  many  interesting  efforts 
were  made,  and  no  doubt  the  mind  of  the  University  was  being 
prepared.  In  May  1849  a  meeting  was  held  in  the  lodgings  of 
Dr.  Williams,  Warden  of  New  College,  at  which  Dr.  Harington, 
Dr.  Jeune,  Dr.  Daubeny,  Mr.  Robert  Walker,  Mr.  Richard  Gres- 
well,  Dr.  Hill,  and  Dr.  Acland,  with  twelve  others,  were  present ; 
and  it  was  resolved  '  That  in  order  to  enable  the  University  to 
carry  into  effect  the  vote  of  Convocation  which  established  a  School 
of  Natural  Science  it  is  desirable  that  a  general  University  Museum 
be  formed  with  distinct  departments  under  one  roof,  together  with  I 
lecture-rooms  and  all  such  appliances  as  may  be  found  necessary 
for  teaching  and  studying  the  natural  history  of  the  earth  and  its 
inhabitants.' 

At  a  second  meeting  in  the  same  month  the  attendance  was 
trebled,  others  who  joined  the  committee  being  Bishop  Wilberforce, 
Dean  Buckland,  the  Heads  of  Oriel,  St.  John's,  Corpus,  Exeter, 
and  All  Souls,  Baden-Powell,  and  Manuel  Johnson,  with  many 
other  well-known  men. 

An  estimate  of  probable  cost  was  obtained  from  Mr.  Underwood 
of  Beaumont  Street,  being  from  25,000/.  to  30,000?.  In  the  fol- 
lowing month  a  meeting  of  graduates  was  held  in  the  Sheldonian ; 
subscriptions  were  promised  amounting  to  3000/.  ;  and  it  was 
announced  that  Merton  College  was  prepared  to  receive  an  applica- 
tion for  part  of  the  parks. 

Resolutions  similar  to  that  already  quoted  were  adopted  at  al 
these  meetings.  Then  came  a  pause  ;  3000L  had  been  promised 
but  30,000?.  were  needed.  The  only  chance,  as  one  would  suppose 
must  have  been  foreseen  from  the  first,  was  to  appeal  to  the  Uni 
versity.  The  application  was  delayed  for  a  year,  probably  lest  i< 
should  interfere  with  the  passing  of  the  statute  establishing,  amon£ 
others,  the  School  of  Natural  Science.  This  statute  was  passed  01! 
April  23,  1850,  and  in  June  the  Museum  Committee  made  its  appea 
to  the  University.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  proposal  by  Lor(| 
John  Russell,  then  Prime  Minister,  of  a  Royal  Commission  to] 
inquire  into  the  University  was  made  on  the  very  day  on  whicJ 
the  examination  statute  passed.  The  proposal  was  an  amend! 
inent,  and  not  expected  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  thus  thi; 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND    ITS   FOUNDERS.     355 

extension  of  University  studies  was  not  made  by  pressure  from 
without.  Also  the  desirability  of  introducing  the  study  of  natural 
science  was  hardly  referred  to  on  either  day  of  the  debate. 

At  this  time  the  University  had  in  hand  a  sum  of  nearly 
60,000?.  derived  from  the  profits  of  the  Clarendon  Press.  A  year 
elapsed.  In  June  1851  it  was  proposed  in  Convocation  to  allot 
53,000?.  to  the  erection  or  repairs  of  examination  schools,  lecture- 
rooms,  and  a  museum.  The  proposal  was  rejected.  In  1852  the 
Museum  Committee  received  the  support  of  the  University  Com- 
missioners, who  recommended  '  That  the  University  should  proceed 
with  the  plan  for  building  a  Museum  for  all  departments  of  physical 
science,  and  that  the  trustees  of  the  general  collections  of  various 
kinds  should  be  empowered  to  transfer  their  collections  to  this 
Museum.5 

The  Museum  Committee  worked  on.  On  February  17,  1853, 
the  first  official  step  was  taken.  It  was  proposed  in  Convocation, 
and  carried,  '  That  a  delegacy  be  nominated  by  the  proctors  to 
consider  what  museums,  lecture-rooms,  and  other  buildings  are 
required  for  the  study  of  natural  history  and  physiology,  and  to 
give  such  a  description  of  them,  both  in  kind  and  extent,  as  may  be 
sufficient  to  be  laid  before  an  architect.'  The  report  was  to  be 
printed  for  the  use  of  members  of  Convocation,  together  with  an 
estimate  of  the  probable  expense  of  the  buildings  recommended. 
In  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  Museum  Committee,  of  which  the 
Warden  of  New  College  continued  to  be  chairman  with  the  same 
band  of  supporters,  things  moved  slowly.  In  December  four  acres 
at  the  south-west  corner  of  the  parks  were  purchased  from  Merton 
College  to  be  the  site  of  the  Museum  ;  and  on  January  23,  1854,  it 
was  resolved  that  a  delegacy  should  be  appointed  to  consider  the 
question  of  erecting  a  Museum,  with  reference  to  the  principle  that 
the  building  should  surround  three  sides  of  an  area  and  receive 
light  from  the  roof ;  and  on  April  8  the  delegates  were  appointed. 
They  prepared  a  statement  of  requirements  for  the  use  of  architects, 
and  reported  in  December.  Prizes  of  150?.,  100?.,  and  50?.  had 
been  offered  for  the  three  best  designs  ;  the  estimated  cost  was  not 
to  exceed  30,000?.  ;  the  competing  architects  were  informed  that 
no  plan  would  be  selected  which  had  not  been  submitted  to  the 
scrutiny  of  competent  professional  judges.  Thirty- two  designs 
were  sent  in  ;  they  were  exhibited  to  members  of  Convocation  in 
the  gallery  of  the  RadclifEe  Library.  The  delegacy  made  a  first 

23—2 


356     THE   OXFORD    MUSEUM    AND   ITS    FOUNDERS. 

selection  of  six  of  the  designs,  which  had  met  with  general  and 
decided  approval  and  represented  different  styles  of  architecture. 

To  judge  of  the  accuracy  of  the  estimates,  and  general  prac- 
ticability of  the  designs,  the  delegates  obtained  the  assistance  of 
two  gentlemen  having  professional  eminence,  a  character  for 
impartiality,  and  experience  in  such  competitions.  These  judges 
reported  that  none  of  the  designs  could  be  executed  for  the  sum 
stated,  but  that  by  certain  alterations  one  of  them  could  be  brought 
within  that  sum.  To  guide  them  in  further  selection  the  delegacy 
employed  four  of  their  number,  Dr.  Wellesley,  Dr.  Acland,  Pro- 
fessor Phillips  (who  had  recently  come  to  Oxford  after  having  had 
charge  of  the  York  Museum),  and  Mr.  George  Butler,  an  authority 
on  matters  of  art.  By  them  first  four,  then  two,  were  chosen, 
which  two  were  left  by  the  delegacy  to  the  choice  of  Convocation. 
That  with  the  motto  '  Fiat  Justitia '  is  described  as  Palladian  ; 
that  with  the  motto  '  Nisi  Dominus  '  as  Rhenish  Gothic.  On  the 
eve  of  the  vote  a  letter  appeared  signed  EPFATH^,  giving  reasons, 
which  appear  conclusive,  for  preferring  the  latter,  and  the  vote 
went  accordingly.  The  first  stone  was  laid  on  June  20,  1855. 

The  parks  at  this  time  consisted  of  two  square  fields,  side  by 
side,  separated  by  a  ditch,  with  a  gravel  walk  round  them.  We 
used,  when  training  for  the  Torpid,  to  run  round  the  parks  before 
breakfast,  starting  from  a  stone  in  front  of  Wadham.  The  distance 
was  said  to  be  a  mile.  Our  coach,  whom  we  regarded  with  the 
respect  due  to  a  famous  oar  from  Eton,  told  us  once  that  we  could 
run  faster  if  we  kept  all  together.  Our  cox  offered  to  race  us  if  he 
might  run  separately  and  we  all  together.  I  do  not  remember  the 
answer,  probably  a  deserved  rebuke,  but  he  would  certainly  have 
won. 

Please  let  this  illustrate  that  I  was  in  1856,  and  for  two  years 
afterwards,  a  mere  undergraduate,  and  have  now  only  such 
irrelevant  memories  of  this  spot  as  that  of  which  I  have  given  an 
example.  Everything  was  new  and  strange,  and,  I  may  add, 
delightful,  to  me ;  and  it  was  not  more  noteworthy  than  many 
other  things  when  building  began  in  the  parks.  It  never  occurred 
to  me  that  that  was  an  epoch-making  time,  when  the  University 
was  recognising  at  last  the  educational  value  of  the  natural  sciences 
and  was  providing  for  their  reception. 

In  1853  there  appeared  a  pamphlet  by  Dr.  Daubeny,  entitled 
'  Can  Physical  Science  obtain  a  home  in  an  English  University  ?  ' 
being  an  inquiry  suggested  by  some  remarks  contained  in  a  late 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS  FOUNDERS.     357 

number  of  the  '  Quarterly  Keview.'  It  is  difficult  either  to  abstract 
or  to  sample  this  excellent  statement,  which  is  a  model  of  clear 
reasoning  and  courteous  controversy.  The  contrast  between  the 
impressions  produced  by  Dr.  Daubeny,  at  this  date,  as  a  lecturer 
and  as  a  writer,  reminds  one  of  Garrick's  well-known  exaggeration — 
'  Oliver  Goldsmith,  for  shortness  called  Noll,  who  wrote  like  an 
Angel  but  talked  like  poor  Poll.' 

It  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  respect  with  which  Dr.  Daubeny's 
wide  knowledge  and  amiable  character  inspired  all  who  knew  him, 
to  recall  an  incident  of  his  lectures.  He  had  an  assistant,  whose 
light  hair  and  beaming  countenance  I  well  remember,  called  John 
Harris.  Occasionally,  as  happens  to  all  lecturers  on  chemistry, 
and  more  frequently  no  doubt  as  they  grow  older,  an  experiment 
gave  a  result  different  from  that  which  had  been  predicted.  Dr. 
Daubeny  was  equal  to  the  occasion.  He  called  for  John  Harris,  and 
said  '  John,  when  we  tried  this  experiment  before  the  lecture  the 
results  were  so  and  so.'  John  assented  ;  and  the  Professor  turned 
to  his  audience  and  remarked  '  You  see,  gentlemen.'  This 
method  raises  an  interesting  question  as  to  the  difference  between 
what  experimentalists  and  what  lawyers  call  '  proof.'  If  the 
lawyers  are  right,  the  Professor  was  justified,  for  doubtless  John 
Harris's  word  was  as  good  as  his  oath. 

To  return  to  Dr.  Daubeny's  pamphlet :  the  '  Quarterly  '  reviewer 
thinks  that  physical  science  has  of  necessity  been  transferred 
from  the  Universities  to  the  metropolis  and  other  great  cities. 
His  reasons  are  :  (1)  that,  since  the  introduction  of  the  inductive 
philosophy,  facts  are  no  longer  sought  to  be  arrived  at  by  logical 
reasoning  from  a  few  abstract  principles,  but  are  collected  by  obser- 
vation and  experiment ;  and  (2)  because  the  natural  sciences  inevit- 
ably flow  in  the  train  of  medicine,  and  because  the  latter  can  only 
be  satisfactorily  taught  in  localities  where  the  diseases  engendered 
by  an  overflowing  population  supply  a  large  amount  of  clinical 
instruction.  The  reviewer  attributes  the  principal  share  in  the 
erection  of  the  Natural  Science  School  to  Dr.  Daubeny,  who  replies  : 
'  My  influence  in  the  University  would  have  been  too  limited  for 
such  an  achievement,  had  I  not  been  supported  by  others  equal 
to  myself  in  zeal  and  authority.' 

Nearly  all  Dr.  Daubeny's  views  would  be  read  with  hearty  con- 
currence by  those  who  have  succeeded  to  his  work,  but  from  one 
observation  many,  though  not  all,  would  dissent. 

He  writes,  '  It  would  manifestly  be  quite  foreign  to  the  purpose, 


358     THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS. 

and  fatal  to  the  genius,  of  a  School  of  Physical  Science,  to  encourage 
the  introduction  of  any  subjects  that  are  treated  mathematically ; 
and  no  temptation  can  exist  for  admitting  them,  when  there  is 
already  provided  another  independent  school  in  which  honours  are 
expressly  given  for  mathematical  distinction.'  Without  going  so 
far  as  this,  a  successor  of  Dr.  Daubeny  might  raise  the  question 
whether  every  candidate  for  honours  in  the  School  of  Natural 
Science,  even  a  man  who  had  already  been  placed  in  the  Modera- 
tions class-list,  should  not  be  required  to  have  studied  some  natural 
phenomena,  and  to  have  gained  some  acquaintance  with  the  elements 
of  more  than  one  branch  of  science. 

May  I  add  here  two  reminiscences  of  Dr.  Daubeny,  whose 
interest  in  chemistry  continued  to  the  end  of  his  life  ? 

Soon  after  the  investigation  begun  by  Davy  had  been  extended 
to  the  production  by  electrolysis  of  metallic  lithium — an  element 
whose  compounds  are  now  stated  to  rival  those  of  sodium  in 
distribution  though  not  in  abundance — Dr.  Daubeny  invited  me 
to  his  laboratory  in  Magdalen  to  see  the  metal,  whose  light  globules 
rose  to  the  surface  of  the  molten  salt  in  which  they  were  formed. 
Whether  we  succeeded  in  catching  and  preserving  any  of  them 
I  cannot  remember. 

Later  on  Dr.  Daubeny  did  me  the  honour  of  consulting  me  as 
to  sending  an  account  to  the  Chemical  Society,  of  which  I  was  then 
a  secretary,  of  some  observations  most  fitting  for  a  professor  of  both 
botany  and  chemistry,  which  he  interpreted  as  showing  the  pro- 
duction of  ozone  by  the  action  on  the  atmosphere  of  a  growing 
plant.  The  effects  of  a  change  of  this  kind,  happening  all  the 
world  over,  have  doubtless  been  studied  since  then.  I  know  only 
that  the  fact  of  the  presence  in  the  air  which  had  passed  over  the 
plant,  of  an  oxydising  agent  which  was  not  there  before,  seemed 
to  be  proved. 

One  of  those  who  supported  Dr.  Daubeny  with  equal  zeal  and 
authority,  in  establishing  a  School  of  Natural  Science  and  founding 
the  Museum,  was  Mr.  Robert  Walker,  Professor  of  Experimental 
Philosophy.  He  used  to  lecture  in  the  Old  Clarendon  in  Broad 
Street,  and  was  an  excellent  lecturer.  A  syllabus  giving  the  subjects 
of  each  lecture  of  his  course  used  to  appear  on  the  notice-board 
outside  the  hall,  now  the  library,  of  Balliol  College.  It  was  very 
attractive.  Whether  these  notices,  or  a  personal  acquaintance 
with  the  lecturer,  influenced  Dr.  Gaisford,  I  know  not ;  but  for 
some  time,  at  his  behest,  Christ  Church  undergraduates  w 


ere 

i 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS    FOUNDERS.     359 

required  to  attend  a  course  of  these  lectures  and  to  present  an 
abstract  of  them  at  collections. 

At  an  earlier  date,  in  1848,  Professor  Walker,  as  he  would 
now  be  called,  had  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Vice-Chancellor 
on  '  Improvements  in  the  present  Examination  Statutes  and 
the  Studies  of  the  University,'  from  which  a  few  sentences  may 
be  quoted.  '  Whatever  may  be  the  opinions  of  others  as  to 
the  importance  of  requiring  attendance  on  professorial  lectures, 
it  is  conceived  that  some  acquaintance  with  physical  science 
ought  to  be  required  of  everyone  who  seeks  the  degree  of  B.A.  in 
our  Universities.' 

'  It  is,  to  say  the  least,  discreditable  that  anyone  should  go 
forth  from  us  in  utter  ignorance  of  the  laws  which  have  been  im- 
pressed on  matter,  and  unable  to  explain  the  commonest  pheno- 
mena ;  that  he  should  gaze  on  the  starry  heavens  without  knowing 
how  the  motions  of  the  planets  are  governed  ;  that  he  should 
look  upon  the  bow  in  the  cloud  in  ignorance  of  the  way  in  which 
the  effect  is  produced ;  or,  again,  that  he  should  suppose  that  earth, 
air,  fire,  and  water  are  the  four  elements  of  which  the  world  is 
composed  ;  and  that  the  communications  of  the  electric  telegraph 
are  made  by  pulling  the  wires.' 

While  agreeing  with  a  tolerant  dictum  of  Henry  Smith,  that  it 
is  pedantic  to  find  fault  with  anyone  for  not  knowing  any  particular 
thing,  I  may  mention  another  example  of,  one  may  hope,  singular 
ignorance,  told  me  by  the  late  Mr.  H.  G.  Madan.  Pictures,  and 
other  objects  hanging  on  the  walls  of  his  common  room,  were  being 
rearranged.  Among  these  was  an  ordinary  mercurial  barometer. 
One  of  the  Fellows  suggested  that  the  barometer  would  fit  in  better 
if  it  were  placed  horizontally  instead  of  vertically. 

Henry  Smith,  whose  memory  must  be  still  green  among  all 
those  old  enough  to  remember  him,  was  the  first  teacher  of  chemistry 
in  Balliol.  When  Salvin's  Buildings,  facing  the  Martyrs'  Memorial, 
were  constructed  early  in  the  fifties,  two  cellars  were  appropriated 
to  the  study  of  chemistry  ;  and,  to  provide  a  teacher,  Henry  Smith, 
ablest  of  Oxford  men,  was  deputed  to  take  some  lessons  in  the 
subject.  He  went  for  a  few  months  to  Dr.  Hofmann  at  the  College 
of  Chemistry,  near  the  Kegent  Circus.  Montgomerie,  of  Balliol, 
Hertford  Scholar  in  1854,  and  I  were  his  first  pupils.  Once,  I 
remember,  a  stick  of  phosphorus  took  fire  on  the  bench.  Mont- 
gomerie was  for  pouring  water  over  it,  which  might  have  caused  a 
dangerous  scattering  of  the  fiercely  burning  liquid.  Henry  Smith 


360     THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS. 

stopped  him,  and  extinguished  the  blaze  by  pouring  over  it  a  little 
sand  from  the  sand-bath,  remarking  in  his  soft  tones  : 

Pulveris  exigui  iactu  compressa  quiescet. 

As  to  the  desirability  of  a  knowledge  of  the  elements  of  some 
branches  of  natural  science  being  required  of  everyone  admitted 
to  the  B.A.  degree,  whether  such  knowledge  were  gained  at  school 
or  subsequently,  Henry  Smith  was  of  the  same  opinion  as  Mr. 
Walker.  It  ought,  he  would  say,  to  be  put  on  the  same  footing  as 
arithmetic. 

During  the  many  debates  in  Congregation  and  Convocation  on 
museum  grants,  Henry  Smith's  skilful  advocacy  must  have  been 
of  the  greatest  service  to  those  who  were  still  concerned  with 
the  structure  and  embellishment  of  the  Museum  building,  and  to 
the  professors  needing  cases,  or  apparatus,  or  assistants. 

Especially  was  this  advocacy  needed  for  grants  to  the  chemical 
department,  not  that  they  exceeded  others  in  magnitude  or  fre- 
quency (and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  goodwill  of  the  Univer- 
sity was  sorely  tried),  but  because  the  Professor  of  Chemistry, 
who  within  a  few  years  of  his  appointment  became  Sir  Benjamin 
Brodie,  found  his  entrance  to  the  Convocation  House  barred  by 
the  requirement,  which  then  existed,  of  signing  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles. 

None  of  the  many  services  rendered  at  this  time  by  Dr.  Acland 
was  more  important  than  that  of  obtaining  from  the  Radcliffe 
Trustees,  whose  librarian  he  was,  leave  to  transfer  their  scientific 
library  from  the  Camera  to  the  Museum,  and  also  leave  from  the 
curators  of  the  Bodleian  to  supplement,  with  books  which  they  had, 
some  deficiencies  which  a  reduced  allowance  for  the  purchase 
of  books  had  recently  occasioned  in  the  Radcliffe  Library.  The 
happy  suggestion  of  a  change,  by  which  the  Bodleian  Curators 
were  repaid  for  the  favour  they  granted,  that  of  making  the 
Camera  into  a  reading-room  for  the  Bodleian,  was  also  due  to 
Dr.  Acland. 

Christ  Church  made  two  important  contributions  to  the  Museum, 
that  of  the  biological  collection  accumulated  by  successive  Lee's 
Readers  in  Anatomy,  which  was  lent  by  the  Trustees,  and  that  of  the 
then  Lee's  Reader  himself,  Dr.  George  Rolleston,  who  was  at  that  j 
time  appointed  Linacre  Professor.  Dr.  Rolleston  was  an  admirable 
lecturer  and  teacher,  full  of  knowledge  and  enthusiasm.  He  would 
illustrate  his  lectures  on  natural  history  and  comparative  anatomy 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS.     361 

with  apt  quotations.  For  example,  in  speaking  of  the  pre-eminence 
of  mankind,  he  would  declaim  : 

Pronaque  dum  spectant  animalia  cetera  terrain, 

Os  homini  sublime  dedit  coelumque  tueri. 

Or  again,  when  he  had  to  tell  his  class  that  the  hippocampus 
minor  (a  lobe  of  the  brain),  on  which  great  hopes  had  been  based, 
did  not  serve  as  a  distinguishing  feature  between  man  and  the  ape, 
he  would  repeat  with  a  sigh  of  regret : 

Simla  quam  similis,  turpissima  bestia,  nobis  ! 

He  was  long  one  of  the  chief  pillars  of  natural  science  in  the 
University.  His  bust,  which  stands  in  the  court  of  the  Museum, 
is  an  excellent  portrait. 

My  own  early  recollections  of  the  Museum  are  almost  limited 
to  the  chemical  department,  where  for  seven  years  I  was  very  fully 
occupied,  first  as  lecture  assistant  and  then  as  demonstrator.  In 
the  autumn  of  1855  Brodie,  having  been  elected  by  Convocation 
Professor  of  Chemistry,  came  into  residence  at  Mason's  Lodgings, 
near  Balliol.  Early  in  the  following  year  he  and  his  family  moved 
into  Cowley  House  (now  St.  Hilda's  Hall)  which  he  had  purchased 
from  Dr.  Tuckwell.  The  chemical  laboratory  at  Balliol  was  placed 
by  the  College  at  his  disposal,  together  with  a  lecture-room  on  the 
same  staircase.  He  had  two  assistants,  Dr.  Atkinson,  who  has 
lately  been  well  represented  in  Oxford  by  a  son  and  a  daughter,  and 
Mr.  A.  H.  Church,  who  some  fifteen  years  later  became  Professor  of 
Chemistry  to  the  Royal  Academy.  In  the  October  term  of  1858, 
Brodie  gave  his  first  course  of  lectures  in  the  lecture-room  of  his 
department  and  began  research  in  his  private  laboratory.  Since  the 
extension  of  the  chemical  department  these  two  rooms  and  the 
sitting-room  beyond  them  have  been  made  over  to  mineralogy. 
Brodie's  lectures  and  research  were  alike  excellent.  He  was  a  man 
of  great  originality  and  wide  range  of  interests.  He  was  an  inde- 
fatigable worker  at  chemical  problems,  and  his  love  of  literature, 
and  of  poetry  in  particular,  was  as  great  as  his  love  of  science. 
Already  in  Balliol  he  had  begun  an  investigation  which  resulted 
in  the  discovery  of  a  new  class  of  organic  compounds,  the  peroxides 
of  the  acid  radicles.  They  were  highly  explosive.  A  drop  heated 
on  a  watch-glass  gave  a  report  like  a  pistol.  The  glass  was  shattered ; 
and  he  would  recall  the  practice  of  his  former  master,  Bunsen,  who 
was  also  fond  of  heating  watch-glasses,  and  when  the  fragments 
fell  on  the  bench  pronounced  over  them  the  words — '  That  was  a 
watch-glass.' 


362     THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS. 

He  worked  also  on  the  compound  formed  by  the  union  of 
carbonic  oxide  and  potassium,  and  on  graphitic  acid,  a  yellow 
body  got  from  graphite  by  the  action  of  nitric  acid  and  potassium 
chlorate.  Both  these  substances  are  explosive.  The  graphitic 
acid  had  to  be  heated,  and  then  exploded  gently,  yielding  a  soft 
and  very  black  variety  of  carbon.  The  carbonic  oxide  compound, 
when  not  quite  saturated,  would  often  explode  violently  on  taking 
into  the  hand  the  glass  bulb  which  contained  it ;  fortunately  the 
glass  was  thin.  He  did  some  work  also  on  a  chromic  compound,  and 
made  an  investigation  of  great  value  into  the  constitution  of  ozone. 

Nor  did  his  devotion  to  research  interfere  with  his  interest  in 
his  pupils.  He  would  come  round  the  laboratory  from  time  to  time, 
and  talk  or  lend  a  hand  to  those  who  were  working.  Unfortunately 
at  this  time  he  read  Boole's  '  Logic,'  which  inspired  him  with  a 
desire  to  invent  a  new  symbolic  method  of  representing  the  facts  of 
chemistry  which  should  be  purely  mathematical  and  independent  of 
the  atomic  hypothesis.  I  cannot  explain  the  method,  for  I  could 
never  understand  it.  That  was  not  surprising  ;  but  Henry  Smith, 
a  great  mathematician,  could  not  understand  it  either  ;  and  used  to 
remark  pensively — '  Depend  upon  it,  you  can  never  get  anything 
out  of  symbols  which  you  have  not  first  put  in.'  Brodie  may  have 
been  in  the  right  for  all  that.  But  I  am  afraid  he  was  saddened  by 
the  non-reception  of  his  ideas  (though  two  papers  by  him  on  the' 
subject  were  printed  in  the  'Philosophical  Transactions'),  and  it 
partly  withdrew  him  from  the  experimental  work  in  which  he 
excelled. 

Brodie  had  at  this  time  two  German  assistants,  Sprengel  and 
Schickendantz,  both  good  men  ;  but  one  had  belonged  to  a  club 
at  their  German  University  and  the  other  had  not,  and  this  pro- 
duced a  coolness  between  them.  At  one  time  they  would  com- 
municate, when  necessary,  by  notes,  but  not  by  word  of  mouth. 
Sprengel  was  an  excellent  manipulator  and  particularly  skilful  in 
working  glass.  Among  other  things  he  was  already  occupied  with 
the  moving  of  air  by  the  fall  of  liquids,  and  fitted  up  a  blowpipf 
whose  air-current  was  maintained  by  a  stream  of  water  falling 
through  a  tube  into  a  Woulfe's  bottle.  His  great  invention,  th< 
mercurial  air-pump,  was  not  brought  out  till  he  had  left  Oxforc 
and  had  gone  as  an  assistant  to  Professor  Odling  at  Guy's  Hospital, 

Exactly  fifty  years  ago  '  I  was  getting  together  the  apparatus 
for  Brodie's  first  course  of  lectures  in  the  Museum,  having  become 
1  [October  1858.— ED.] 


THE   OXFORD   MUSEUM   AND   ITS   FOUNDERS.     363 

Ibis  lecture  assistant,  though  I  had  not  yet  taken  my  degree.     A 

lear  later  I  was  made  demonstrator  in  the  students'  laboratory, 

known  from  its  prototype  as  the  Glastonbury  kitchen.     In  my 

(first  year  as  a  teacher  I  had  the  honour  of  having  the  Prince  of 

Nales,  now  his  Gracious  Majesty,  as  a  pupil.     How  far  I  succeeded 

n  interesting  him  in  the  great  science  of  chemistry  I  cannot  tell. 

remember  only  that  he  was  a  most  amiable  pupil.     At  the  end 

f  that  year  I  was  elected  to  a  studentship  and  readership  in 

Chemistry  at  Christ  Church.    Six  years  later  I  left  the  Museum 

o  occupy  the  Lee's  Laboratory  in  that  House  which  Dr.  Kolleston 

had  recently  vacated. 

Though  the  principal  part  of  the  teaching  of  natural  science  in 
Oxford  has  been  done  and  will  continue  to  be  done  at  the  Museum, 
|it  is  right  to  add  an  expression  of  sympathy  with,  and  belief  in  the 
great  advantage  of,  college  laboratories,  a  welcome  and  splendid 
Addition  to  which  has  recently  been  made  by  Jesus  College.  In  the 
Museum,  sometimes  one  study  advances  more  rapidly  and  attracts 
piore  pupils,  sometimes  another.  At  the  present  time  the  studies 
imore  immediately  connected  with  the  medical  profession  are  in  the 
iascendant ;  but,  when  '  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking,  Seem 
here  no  painful  inch  to  gain,'  the  college  laboratories  with  young 
land  eager  teachers  are  prepared  to  supply  any  deficiency  that  may 
joccur. 

After  six  years'  absence  from  Oxford  I  have  been  invited,  as 
(belonging  to  a  past  generation,  to  place  on  record  what  I  could 
jremember  or  learn  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Museum,  and  of  the  men 
jwho  first  worked  for  it  and  in  it.  They  laboured  and  those  who 
now  work  in  the  Museum  have  entered  into  their  labours.  The 
great  additions  which  have  been  made  recently  to  the  buildings 
both  mark  the  advance  of  scientific  teaching  and  show  that  the 
University  is  still  ready  to  make  provision  for  that  teaching  with 
open  hand. 

Let  us  all  join  in  hoping  that  that  which  is  done  here  in  the  two 
directions  of  increasing  knowledge  and  of  handing  it  down  may 
be  worthy  of  the  efforts  made  by  those  who  planned  and  have 
added  to  this  building.  They  have  aimed  at  providing  investigators 
and  students  with  every  facility  for  rapid  and  successful  work. 
Those  who  now  visit  the  departments  of  the  Museum  will  be  able  to 
judge  how  far  that  aim  has  been  accomplished  or  is  in  course  of 
accomplishment. 


364 


THE    SEINE  IN  FLOOD. 

AT  ten  minutes  to  eleven  on  the  morning  of  Friday,  January  21, 
1910,  almost  the  very  hour  at  which  on  another  January  21 
Louis  XVI  mounted  the  scaffold,  the  power  station  from  which 
all  the  public  clocks  of  Paris  are  worked  by  compressed  air  was 
flooded  by  the  Seine  :  all  the  clocks  stopped  simultaneously  with 
military  exactitude,  and  with  a  start  of  surprise  Parisians  began 
to  realise  that  the  Seine  in  flood  was  not  a  harmless  spectacle  that 
could  be  watched  with  the  cheerful  calm  of  philosophic  detach- 
ment, and  that  the  river  in  revolt  was  an  enemy  to  be  feared 
even  by  the  most  civilised  city  in  Europe.  Crowds,  it  is  true,  had 
gathered  on  the  embankments,  admiring  the  headlong  rush  of  the 
silent  yellow  river  that  carried  with  it  logs  and  barrels,  broken 
furniture,  the  carcases  of  animals,  and  perhaps  sometimes  a  corpse, 
all  racing  madly  to  the  sea  :  they  had  watched  cranes,  great  piles 
of  stones,  and  the  roofs  of  sheds  emerge  for  a  time  from  the 
flooded  wharves  and  then  vanish  in  the  swirl  of  the  rising  water, 
while  barges  and  pontoons,  generally  hidden  from  sight  far  below, 
rose  gradually  above  the  level  of  the  streets,  notably  one  great 
two-storied  bathing  barge,  a  vision  of  unsuspected  hideousness, 
that  threatened  at  any  moment,  triply  moored  as  it  was,  to  crash 
into  the  parapet.  But  it  was  in  the  order  of  things  that  wharves 
should  be  flooded  ;  it  was  sad  that  the  little  suburban  towns  by 
the  river  should  be  swamped,  but  these  incidents  could  be  re- 
garded with  altruistic  sympathy.  The  stopping  of  clocks,  however, 
and  the  irritating  obsession  of  '  onze  heures  moins  dix  '  which 
confronted  the  Parisian  from  every  street  and  cafe  clock  was 
something  new  and  alarming  ;  with  its  suggestion  that  time  had 
stopped  dead  at  the  most  ill-chosen  of  moments,  this  petty  but 
perpetually  repeated  annoyance  was  the  symbol  of  all  the  manifold 
inconveniences  wrought  by  the  flood,  the  failure  of  electric  light, 
the  disorganisation  of  trams  and  'buses,  the  bursting  of  drains, 
and  the  swamping  of  houses,  and  perhaps  none  of  them  was  more 
demoralising. 

By  the  time  that  Paris  woke  up  to  the  fact  that  it  was  war 
with  water,  the  most  evasive  and  insidious  of  enemies,  the  Seine 


THE   SEINE    IN   FLOOD.  365 

lad  made  the  low-lying  suburbs  its  own.  From  visits  to  outlying 
jlistricts  I  retain  a  vague  impression  of  thick  black  slime,  abject 
shivering  misery,  and  great  lakes  of  yellow  water,  with  here  and 
;here  the  upper  story  of  a  house  rising  like  an  island  from  the 
lesolate  waste.  From  the  He  de  la  Grande  Jatte,  where  the  little 
•estaurants  were  six  feet  deep  in  water,  I  watched  a  rescue  party 
:ow  back  with  difficulty  across  the  river.  They  had  saved  a  few 
Bathetic  sticks  of  furniture  and  a  great  mattress  which,  as  its  owner 
idth  exultation  pointed  out  to  the  sympathetic  crowd,  was  per- 
'ectly  dry.  A  covered  cart  was  in  waiting,  but  the  inside  was 
ilready  full,  and  the  mattress  was  hoisted  on  to  the  roof.  Alas 
'or  the  vanity  of  human  exultation  !  Hardly  had  it  been  tied  in 
)lace  when  a  storm  of  torrential  rain  swept  down  and  drenched 
the  mattress  and  its  poor  despairing  owner  as  thoroughly  as  though 
they  had  fallen  in  the  Seine.  All  the  time  the  Seine  was  rising 
(remorselessly,  and  those  whose  houses  were  threatened  gathered 
along  the  banks  in  the  rain  watching  the  river  with  the  silence 
pf  utter  dejection,  though  some  of  the  braver  spirits  were  building 
Ualls  of  masonry  across  their  thresholds,  walls  over  which  a  few 
fiours  later  the  river  had  risen. 

At  Bercy,  within  the  fortifications,  the  quay  was  under  water, 
ffhe  scene  was  indescribably  desolate ;  a  long  row  of  cheerless 
houses  three  feet  deep  in  water,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see  ;  a  double 
row  of  lighted  gas-lamps  burning  pale  and  absurd  in  the  gray 
daylight,  because  the  flood  had  made  it  impossible  to  extinguish 
ithem ;  a  punt  conveying  a  workman  to  his  flooded  home,  poled 
slowly  along  by  two  policemen,  and  bumping  monotonously  against 
the  poplars  and  sunken  railings  ;  two  soldiers  on  a  flimsy  raft 
that  the  most  destitute  of  mariners  would  have  scorned,  steering 
kn  erratic  course  as  one  of  them  paddled  desperately  with  a  tin 
|pan  ;  and  only  one  bright  touch.  From  the  sixth  story  of  one  of 
phe  beleaguered  houses  a  scarlet  duster  shaken  by  some  careful 
housewife  waved  defiance  to  the  river. 

A  day  or  two  later  and  the  Seine  was  working  havoc  in  the  very 
peart  of  the  city.  On  the  left  bank  the  defences  were  weakened 
by  the  low-level  railway  lines  running  from  the  great  Orleans 
terminus  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay  to  the  Austerlitz  station,  and  from 
the  Esplanade  des  Invalides  to  the  Auteuil  viaduct.  The  whole 
[length  of  these  lines  was  flooded  twenty  feet  deep.  The  Seine 
actually  flowed  through  the  Orsay  terminus  as  the  water  poured 
on  to  the  line  higher  up  the  river  and  then  fell  back  into  the  Seine 


366  THE   SEINE    IN   FLOOD. 

through  the  ventilation  shafts  of  the  station,  which  looked  for 
all  the  world  like  a  swimming  bath.  Only  the  iron  gallery,  on  a 
level  with  the  entrance  from  the  road,  was  left  unsubmerged ;  the 
central  depth  had  been  converted  into  a  huge  tank  of  muddy  water, 
while  the  sightseer  looked  vainly  for  the  engines  and  carriages  that 
lay  drowned  beneath.  The  unfinished  works  of  the  Metropolitan 
railway  running  from  north  to  south  had  been  converted  into  a 
subterranean  river  at  right  angles  to  the  Seine  two  miles  long, 
and  were  flooding  squares  and  streets  a  mile  away  near  the 
St.  Lazare  Station.  On  the  right  bank  the  river  was  threatening 
to  overflow  the  embankments,  and  the  problem  of  defence  became 
a  difficult  one  ;  for  the  damage  done  by  the  inundation  of  the 
Saint  Germain  quarter  by  the  water  from  the  Orsay  station,  and 
of  many  streets  in  the  central  districts  by  percolation,  would  have 
been  nothing  to  the  havoc  that  would  have  been  wrought  by  the 
direct  sweep  of  the  Seine  over  the  embankments  on  the  right  bank. 
One  of  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  was  the  Pont  de  1'Alma,  which, 
with  its  low  arches,  was  almost  submerged,  and  held  back  in  the 
centre  of  Paris  great  masses  of  water  that  threatened  to  sweep  over 
the  quays. 

One  evening  while  the  river  was  still  rising,  the  last  of  the 
traditional  Boulevard  cafes  where  the  foreign  tourist  is  still  regarded! 
as  an  interloper  was  rilled  with  its  usual  crowd  of  habitues  ;  mostly 
journalists  or  literary  men,  they  all  knew  one  another  at  least  by 
sight,  and  conversation  went  on  merrily  at  the  little  tables  despite 
the  stifling  atmosphere,  while  an  eccentric  band  jerked  out  the 
latest  tunes  that  had  come  down  from  Montmartre.  The  only 
topic  of  conversation  was  the  flood  ;  and  it  was  discussed  with  the 
true  Parisian  air  of  persiflage  and  detachment,  though  some  of  the 
wildest  jesters  would  have  later  in  the  evening  to  take  boats  tc 
reach  their  homes.  Suddenly,  no  one  knew  how  or  whence,  a 
rumour  ran  through  the  cafe  that  the  central  span  of  the  Pont 
de  1'Alma  had  been  blown  up  to  allow  the  river  to  pass  more  freely. 
Everyone  there  seemed  to  learn  it  at  the  same  instant  from  some! 
invisible  agency,  and  for  a  few  seconds  there  was  a  silence  that 
suggested  dismay.  A  journalist  hurriedly  gulped  down  the  coffoj 
that  had  been  standing  for  the  last  hour  before  him,  paid  thf 
waiter,  and  rushed  out  into  the  snowy  night.  Then  the  bandj 
struck  up  a  new  tune  and  the  buzz  of  conversation  burst  out  anew  :| 
the  tone  was  the  same,  but  the  gaiety  was  rather  forced,  andj 
witticisms  at  the  expense  of  the  Pont  de  1'Alma  fell  flat,  for 


THE   SEINE   IN   FLOOD.  367 

every  true  Parisian  felt  that  a  little  piece  of  his  beloved  city  had 
perished. 

The  rumour  was  a  false  one,  and  the  Pont  de  1'Alma  was  still 
standing  sturdily  as  ever  against  the  flood.  On  the  approaches  to 
the  bridge  a  whispering  crowd  had  gathered  waiting  to  see  how 
dynamite  and  the  river  would  work  its  destruction,  or  failing  that 
strong  sensation,  curious  as  to  what  would  happen  when  the  river 
reached  the  keystone  of  the  highest  span.  The  bridge  was  closed 
to  the  public,  but  for  the  privileged  observer  whom  the  police  officer 
in  charge  allowed  to  pass  with  a  whispered  '  A  vos  propres  risques 
et  perils — mefiez-vous' !  '  the  scene  was  terrible  and  splendid. 

Standing  over  the  central  span  of  the  deserted  bridge  I  watched 
that  night  the  yellow  river,  too  turbid  to  reflect  the  scattered  lights 
on  the  half-submerged  embankments,  as  it  swept  down  '  too  full 
for  sound  or  foam  '  between  the  snow-covered  barges  and  pontoons. 
The  Seine  was  silent,  absolutely  silent,  but  the  impression  of  irre- 
sistible might  and  headlong  speed  gave  its  silence  the  quality  of  a 
song  of  triumph,  the  triumph  of  a  malignant  deity  over  the  works 
of  man.  The  stillness  was  only  broken  by  the  continuous  boom 
of  the  driftwood  as  it  struck  the  masonry  beneath  with  a  sound  like 
distant  musketry.  At  a  little  distance  the  river  seemed  higher 
than  the  keystone,  though  there  was  a  foot  or  two  to  spare,  and  as 
it  rushed  on  its  waters  were  sucked  down  through  the  arches  into 
an  unfathomable  gulf.  In  the  wicked  yellow  light  that  proceeded 
mysteriously  from  the  river  itself  the  colossal  stone  soldiers  of  the 
Second  Empire  that  guard  the  piers  of  the  Pont  de  FAlma,  shoulder- 
deep  in  the  angry  river,  their  caps  white  with  snow,  stood  motion- 
less at  their  posts  as  befitted  veterans  of  the  Crimea,  and  bore  up 
with  heroic  indifference  great  masses  of  driftwood  which  swayed 
uneasily  in  the  current. 

Down  by  the  river  one  realised  that  the  Boulevards  themselves, 
with  their  brilliance  and  gaiety,  their  rich  shops,  cafes,  and  theatres, 
were  almost  within  the  river's  reach  ;  there  were  only  a  few  sand- 
bags and  a  plank  or  two  between  the  Boulevardier  sipping  his  coffee 
in  the  cafe  half  a  mile  away,  and  the  cold,  foul  water,  which,  though 
it  had  not  yet  swept  over  the  earthworks  of  defence,  was  finding  its 
treacherous  way  through  hidden  channels  into  the  best-defended 
quarters  of  the  town,  flooding  basements  and  cellars,  tearing  up 
drains  and  electric  cables,  and  working  mischief  with  all  the 
malicious  caprice  of  Nature  uncontrolled. 

Up  the  Seine  on  the  right  bank  men  were  working  for  dear  life 


368  THE   SEINE    IN   FLOOD. 

by  the  light  of  naphtha  flares  to  raise  the  earthworks  along  tht 
parapet  of  the  embankment.  The  Quai  de  la  Conference  and  the 
fashionable  avenue  of  Cours-la-Reine  were  deep  in  water,  but  a  thin 
line  of  sandbags  backed  here  and  there  by  wooden  screens  still  kept 
back  the  surface  flood.  As  the  river  rose,  and  it  rose  eventually 
over  five  feet  above  the  level  of  the  embankment,  the  military 
engineers  raised  the  height  of  the  barrier,  which  was  half  a  mile 
long.  That  night  the  water  was  steadily  creeping  higher  and 
higher,  while  a  civil  engineer,  mud-bespattered,  with  the  red  ribbon 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour  in  his  button-hole,  was  standing  on  the 
corner  of  the  sandbag  bastion  by  the  Pont  de  la  Concorde  and 
measuring  its  advance.  He  turned  to  a  stranger  beside  him  and 
said  :  '  The  river  is  still  rising  as  fast  as  ever.  If  the  barrier  goes, 
five  feet  of  water  will  sweep  across  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  the 
Boulevards — over  everywhere,'  he  added  with  an  expressive 
gesture,  '  until  it  meets  the  flood  that  the  Metropolitan  is  pouring 
out  round  the  Saint  Lazare  Station.'  Then  abruptly  he  turned 
to  a  non-commissioned  officer  awaiting  orders  behind  him,  '  Give 
me  another  tier  of  sandbags.'  Orders  were  hoarsely  shouted,  and 
a  crowd  of  little  black  figures,  each  shouldering  a  sandbag,  swarmed 
like  ants  along  the  narrow  earthwork,  on  the  one  side  a  few  inches 
above  the  river,  on  the  other  a  foot  or  so  above  the  flood  that  lay 
deep  on  the  embankment  and  on  the  Avenue  of  Cours-la-Reine. 
Weary  as  they  were  after  three  days'  unceasing  toil,  each  man 
swung  his  sandbag  into  its  place  with  a  will,  and  burst  into  a 
soldiers'  chorus  that  sounded  strangely  merry  amid  the  desolation 
around. 

That  night  the  Quai  du  Louvre  was  barred  off  by  the  police,  and 
a  silent  crowd  gathered  at  the  barrier  though  nothing  could  be  seen, 
anxious  for  the  safety  of  the  collections  that  are  the  pride  of  France. 
In  the  mist  the  Seine  seemed  as  broad  as  the  Rhine  at  Cologne, 
and  the  eye  of  fancy  could  descry  Notre  Dame  between  two  raging 
floods,  splendid  and  fearless  in  the  majesty  of  its  builders'  faith. 
At  this  point  the  river  flows  beneath  the  Pont  des  Arts,  and  as  its 
water  poured  through  the  iron  supports  of  the  bridge  it  made  the 
little  rippling  noise  of  a  hundred  small  cascades,  a  sound  like 
malicious  laughter  even  more  terrible  than  its  silence. 

The  roadway  along  the  southern  facade  of  the  Louvre  was  all 
uneven  with  the  pressure  of  the  overflowing  drains  beneath  it,  as 
though  an  earthquake  had  passed,  and  it  sagged  down  suddenly 
just  beneath  the  balcony  of  the  splendid  Jean-Goujon  door.  Here, 


THE    SEINE   IN    FLOOD.  369 

ut  of  sight  of  the  anxious  crowd,  there  was  a  scene  of  feverish 
Activity.  Men  were  tearing  up  cobbles  from  the  road  and  building 
i  rough  wall  across  a  gap  in  the  parapet,  where  a  flight  of  steps 
*oes  down  to  the  river.  There  was  need  of  haste  ;  for  the  water 
hat  looked  black  and  stagnant  in  the  glare  of  the  naphtha  flares 
as  creeping  up  apace  and  licking  the  lowest  tier  of  cobbles.  Others 
yere  recklessly  digging  great  holes  in  the  footpath  between  the 
)oplars,  and  ramming  the  earth  into  bags,  or  nailing  together  great 
)ieces  of  driftwood,  fished  from  the  river,  to  form  a  screen  behind 
he  sandbags  on  the  parapet  and  hold  them  against  the  pressure  of 
he  current,  while  carts  kept  rumbling  in  and  unloading  piles  of 
tone  and  rubble  against  the  wall  and  screen.  I  glanced  over  the 
|creen  that  reached  my  chin,  expecting  to  see  the  river  five  feet  or 
o  below  me,  and  drew  back  with  a  start  of  alarm  when  I  saw  the 
learn  of  water  above  the  stone  parapet  and  realised  that  it  was 
nly  held  back  by  the  flimsy  barrier.  A  few  hours  later  and  the 
liver  would  have  won  ;  all  the  basements  of  the  Louvre  would  have 
een  flooded,  and  the  water  would  have  carried  ruin  across  the  Kue 
e  Bivoli  and  the  Palais  Royal. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  a  sense  of  impending  disaster  hung  over 

'aris  ;  yet  there  was  much  in  the  situation  that  was  simply  comic. 

the  special  envoys  of  the  King  of  the  Belgians,  invited  to  a  lunch  at 

he  Foreign  Office,  were  carried  there  in  a  large  flat-bottomed  boat 

ioled  by  a  couple  of  watermen.     Naval  boats  of  the  collapsible 

tarthon  pattern  were  to  be  seen  on  waggons  in  the  Avenue  de 

(Opera,  while  bare-footed  sailors  splashed  contentedly  in  the  lake 

>posite  the  Saint  Lazare  Station.     At  the  time  the  incongruity  of 

ese  things  was  scarcely  realised. 

Bridge  after  bridge  was  closed  to  the  public  as  great  masses  of 
riftwood  that  could  not  be  dislodged  formed  against  them,  until 
one  moment  traffic  was  forbidden  over  all  the  nine  bridges 
lat  lie  between  the  Pont  Neuf  and  the  Pont  de  Grenelle.  Cabs, 
irts,  and  every  kind  of  vehicle  concentrated  in  the  unflooded  streets, 
ere  blocked  into  a  solid  mass  that  surpassed  the  wildest  night- 
ares  of  congested  traffic.  Part  of  the  Place  de  FOpera  began  to 
)llapse,  and  a  cab  might  take  two  hours  to  get  from  the  Opera  to 
ie  Madeleine,  five  minutes'  walk.  An  unreasoning  panic  seized 
ie  cabmen  and  chauffeurs  ;  they  were  possessed  with  the  fixed 
ea  that  no  bridge  across  the  Seine  was  safe,  and  no  bribe  would 
irsuade  them  to  cross  the  river  ;  while  they  refused  to  take  fares 
)r  even  the  shortest  distance.  Men  left  their  homes  dry-shod  in 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  165,  N.S.  24 


370  THE   SEINE   IN   FLOOD. 

the  morning,  and  returning  from  business  had  to  wade  up  to  their 
knees  through  unlighted  streets  or  creep  perilously  along  a  narrow 
plank  gangway,  only  to  find  that  it  stopped  short  just  where  the 
water  was  deepest.  One  evening  I  was  walking  down  a  street 
which  a  few  hours  before  had  been  thick  with  traffic.  A  single  cart 
passed  down  beside  me,  and  at  once,  without  the  slightest  warning, 
the  road  began  to  undulate  ;  the  next  minute  I  was  in  water  up  to 
the  knees,  and  one  wheel  of  the  cart  had  sunk  through  the  wood 
pavement  up  to  the  axle.  Once  wet,  I  plodded  on  through  the  water 
and  in  the  darkness  blundered  against  a  plank  which  formed  part 
of  a  trestle  bridge  some  five  feet  from  the  ground ;  then,  climbing  up, 
found  myself  at  a  perilous  elevation  on  two  exceedingly  narrow 
planks.  After  cautiously  venturing  forward  some  little  way,  a 
woman's  shriek  sounded  so  close  to  me  that  I  almost  lost  my 
balance.  Then  in  the  obscurity  a  long  row  of  black  figures  was 
discernible  all  on  the  bridge  and  coming  in  the  opposite  direction  to! 
myself.  I  succeeded  in  helping  the  young  woman  who  had  shrieked) 
to  pass  me ;  then  an  elderly  business  man  slipped  between  the ' 
two  planks  at  my  feet,  and  was  hauled  up  with  difficulty ;  them 
finally  there  was  a  crack,  a  plank  broke,  and  some  unfortunate 
person  fell  flat  on  his  face  in  two  feet  of  filthy  water.  At  last, 
somehow  or  other,  I  reached  higher  ground,  and  found  a  pathetic 
group  of  men  and  women,  lighted  by  a  policeman's  lantern,  waiting 
to  take  their  turn  on  the  remains  of  the  gangway.  They  werej 
returning  to  their  homes  in  the  street  which  had  been  flooded  since 
they  went  out. 

On  Saturday,  January  29,  Paris  awoke  to  a  bright  sunny 
morning  and  the  end  of  its  nightmare.     Early  in  the  morningj 
crowds  gathered  along  the  embankment,  no  longer  murmuring  in 
melancholy  chorus  '  Qa  monte,  §a  monte,'  but  laughing  and  chatter-) 
ing  as  they  watched  with  uproarious  satisfaction  the  broadening 
of  the  thin  dark  line  which  showed  that  the  Seine  was  no  longer 
rising  or  stationary  but  slowly  falling.      Sunshine  restored,  ever! 
in  the  flooded  quarters,  the  true  Parisian  gaiety  that  had  for  at 
time  been  overclouded  with  a  terrible  sense  of  powerlessness  andj 
insecurity.     The  flooded  streets  were  bright  and  gay  in  the  sun- 
light, as  boats  plied  to  and  fro,  carrying  men  and  women  to  theb 
work.     Everyone  was  good-humoured,  and  even  a  portly  business 
man  swarming  down  a  rope  from  a  first-story  window  into  a  police 
boat,  while  his  wife  and  children  watched  his  gymnastic  prowesf, 
with  undisguised  horror,  was  laughing  heartily,  and  fully  conscious 


THE   SEINE   IN   FLOOD.  371 

of  the  humour  of  the  situation.  Throughout  the  day  crowds  flocked 
bo  all  the  quarters  that  the  river  had  attacked.  To  make  the 
fecene  more  gay,  soldiers  were  everywhere,  standing  on  guard  at 
Dangerous  points  or  gathered  round  fires  of  wood-paving  blocks 
^nd  drinking  coffee  and  hot  wine.  Everyone  had  an  air  of  triumph  ; 
for  the  Seine  had  at  last  confessed  itself  defeated,  and  it  only 
remained  for  Paris  to  show  once  again  its  superiority  to  disaster, 
in  almost  every  street  between  Montmartre  and  the  river  pumps 
e  hard  at  work :  encouragement  came  from  the  news  that  the 
seine  was  falling  to  resume  what  had  been  before  the  hopeless  task  of 
jmptying  cellars  and  basements  ;  there  were  pumps  of  every  kind, 
large  and  small,  hand-pumps,  smart  electric  pumps,  steam  pumps, 
jind  monstrous  indescribable  pieces  of  machinery  that  took  up  half 
;he  roadway,  obscured  the  sunshine  with  clouds  of  filthy  smoke, 
iind  looked  as  if  they  had  been  rescued  from  the  scrap-heap.  Half 
Paris  was  in  the  streets  gaping  at  the  excavations,  where  the  water 
Had  entangled  planks  and  masonry,  pipes  and  cables  in  inextricable 
ionfusion,  and  examining  the  barricades  with  eager  interest  while 
iheir  elders  compared  them  with  the  barricades  of  the  Commune. 

H.  WAENER  ALLEN. 


24—2 


372 


THE  ARROW   THAT  FLIETH. 

THE  life  of  the  guide-book  writer  has,  like  most  careers,  its  dis- 
advantages and  compensations.  One  sees  much  that  is  beautiful 
and  interesting  ;  one  learns  much  ;  and,  if  one  has  any  literary 
capacity,  one  picks  up  a  good  deal  of  copy  ;  on  the  other  hand,  one 
has  to  stay  occasionally  at  fashionable  watering  places,  take  the 
regular  charabanc  excursions,  &c.,  &c.,  which  is  real  suffering. 

Guide-book  duty  led  me  to  Spabeck,  amongst  all  the  horrors  of 
fashionable  costumes,  bath-chairs  containing  green  or  purple-faced 
invalids,  evil-smelling,  evil-tasting  waters,  functions,  motor  and 
coach  excursions,  kursaals,  and  similar  repugnant  items.  Never- 
theless Duty — with  a  capital  D — compelled.  Accordingly  my 
journey  thither  was  spent  in  studying  some  half-dozen  Spabeck 
guides,  and  trying  to  puzzle  out  a  programme  which  should  be 
complete  and  yet  compressed. 

'  Hermanby  House  and  Park  '  (10  miles.  Public  coach,  Wednes- 
day, morning  and  afternoon,  return  fare  3s.  6d.)  .  .  .  HERMANBY 
HOUSE  .  .  .  fine  collection  of  china  and  glass.  .  .  .  Picture 
Gallery  .  .  .  Joshua  Keynolds.  Hobbema.  Cuyp.  Corot,  &c., 
HERMANBY  PARK.  Topiary  Garden,  second  only  to  that  at  Levens 
Hall.  .  .  .  The  river  Herman,  which  passes  through  the  Park,  was 
artificially  broadened  by  the  present  Lord  Hermanby's  grand- 
father. .  .  .  Swannery.  .  .  .  Heronry  .  .  .  &c.,  &c. 

I  knew  Hermanby  House  and  Park  ;  I  had  been  thoroughly 
over  them  some  five  years  before,  but  I  also  knew  that  if  you  revisit 
an  important  show  place,  you  will  find  it  unchanged  in  all  essentials, 
but,  if  you  do  not  revisit  it,  something  of  importance  will  have 
altered  or  vanished,  and  by  and  bye  you  will  hear  of  it,  particularly 
should  the  item  be  the  closing  up  of  a  neighbouring  hostelry.  I 
recollected,  too,  that  I  had  been  at  Harrow  with  Menston  before  he 
became  Lord  Hermanby,  and  that  he  would  probably  allow  me  a  , 
private  view  on  the  strength  of  old  association,  but  he  was  almost 
certain  to  be  away,  far  from  the  madding  trippers'  ignoble  incur- 
sions. So  it  was  Wednesday  or  no  day,  so  far  as  my  visit  was 
concerned,  and  the  morrow  would  be  Wednesday. 

Accordingly,  the  following  morning  saw  me  starting  after  an 


THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH.  373 

early  breakfast.  The  distance  being  short,  I  preferred  to  walk  so 
as  to  escape  the  objectionable  camaraderie  of  a  charabanc,  an 
instrument  of  torture,  which  I  noticed  with  some  horror  had  been 
supplemented  by  huge  motor  conveyances,  run  by  the  railway 
company.  I  contemplated  with  disgust  the  prospect  of  being 
overtaken,  smothered,  and  choked  by  these,  yet  the  alternative 
of  a  drive  with  its  human  concomitants  was  more  disagreeable 
still. 

I  had  so  timed  my  walk  that  I  reckoned  on  being  passed  about 
half  way,  at  the  little  village  of  Posford,  where  I  could  escape  for 
welcome  refreshment  from  the  discomfort  of  the  road,  whilst  the 
procession  of  vehicles  rolled  by.  Posford,  however,  was  passed  and 
Hermanby  in  sight,  and  yet  no  public  conveyance  had  overtaken 
me.  I  congratulated  myself,  ironically,  on  having  been  such  a 
fool  as  to  start  off  without  making  inquiries.  Without  doubt 
the  show-day  had  been  altered,  and  I  should  only  have  my  pains 
for  my  labour.  I  arrived  at  the  Park  Lodge  in  no  very  amiable 
temper. 

Just  as  I  reached  the  gates,  who  should  come  out  of  the  lodge 
but  Lord  Hermanby  himself,  accompanied,  rather  to  my  surprise, 
by  a  police-inspector.  He  looked  at  me  keenly  for  a  moment,  then 
held  out  his  hand. 

'  Civis  Hergensis  sum,'  he  exclaimed  cordially,  '  Weren't  we 
at  Harrow  together  ?  You're  Dutton,  aren't  you  ?  You  remember 
me— Menston  senior  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  I  remember  you  all  right,'  I  replied,  shaking  hands 
warmly,  *  You  had  not  come  into  your  kingdom  then — 

'  Well,  you  come  into  it  now,'  he  said,  genially,  taking  me  by 
the  arm.  '  I  insist  on  your  stopping  to  lunch.  What  brings  you 
here  ?  What  are  you  doing  ?  How  come  you  to  look  so  dis- 
gustingly young  ?  Tell  me  all  about  everything.' 

'  Please,  sir,'  I  replied,  woefully,  '  I'm  a  pore  Fleet  Street  scribe, 
and  I  put  a  little  jam  on  my  hard-earned  bread  and  butter  by 
writing  guide-books.  That  is  what  brings  me  here.  I  am  pretty 
fit,  thank  goodness,  because  I  always  walk  if  I  can  possibly  avoid 
driving  or  tubeing.  Moreover,  I  will  come  with  thee  to  lunch.' 

He  laughed  merrily. 

'  I'm  afraid  you've  come  here  on  a  wild  goose  chase  so  far  as 
your  work  is  concerned.  I've  been  obliged  to  close  Hermanby 
to  the  public.  Haven't  you  seen  it  ?  The  local  papers  have  been 
full  of  the  business.' 


374  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

'  Eh  ?  '  I  demanded,  stopping  short.  '  And  what  do  the  public 
say?  ' 

'  Oh  yes,'  he  rephed, '  I've  brought  a  pretty  peck  of  troubles  about 
my  ears.  It  is  rough  on  the  public,  and  especially  on  the  motor  and 
coach  proprietors.  I  am  besieged  by  letters  daily.  But  that's 
not  all.  I  am  expecting  a  siege  of  another  kind.  Look  there.' 

He  led  me  round  a  bend  in  the  walk,  and  there,  under  the  green- 
wood tree,  very  much  at  their  ease,  were  half  a  dozen  policemen, 
lolling  on  the  turf.  I  looked  a  question. 

'  It's  perfectly  true,'  continued  Hermanby,  '  I'm  in  a  state  of 
siege,  and,  as  the  attack  may  very  well  come  to-day,  you  are  one 
of  the  garrison.  However,  there's  no  good  beginning  at  the  wrong 
end  of  the  story.  Come  with  me,  and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.' 

Hermanby  Lake  is  one  of  the  prettiest  little  spectacles  in 
England,  and  is  in  many  respects  unique.  As  at  Studley  Royal, 
it  is  bounded  on  one  side  by  a  magnificent  hedge  of  trimmed  yew, 
and  surrounded  on  all  others  by  varied  and  beautiful  timber  ;  and 
as  at  Studley  Royal  the  river  has  been  artificially  broadened  and 
spread  out  into  a  lake,  but  there  the  resemblance  ends.  At  Her- 
manby there  are  none  of  the  trim  grass  lawns,  none  of  the  statues 
and  temples  that  distinguish,  and,  in  my  opinion,  disfigure  the 
early  portion  of  the  approach  to  Fountains  Abbey.  All  is  cultured 
wildness,  broken  banks,  beds  of  lush  reeds,  pretty  islets  covered 
with  wild  flowers  and  ferns.  But  the  feature  of  the  scene  is  the 
multitude  of  feathered  life.  Ducks  and  other  aquatic  birds  of  all 
climates  and  colours  cover  the  water.  Here  an  English  heron  sits 
brooding  philosophically  ;  there  a  delicate  crested  egret  watches 
warily  ;  swans,  black  and  white,  cruise  up  and  down  in  their  inimit- 
able elegance.  As  Hermanby  and  I  approached  the  water's  edge, 
one  of  these,  a  great  white  bird,  the  largest  I  have  ever  seen,  started 
away  from  the  reeds  at  our  feet,  and  sailed  out  in  angry  haste, 
a  picture  of  offended  dignity. 

'  Poor  old  Trumpet-Major ! '  said  Hermanby.  '  He  does  well  to 
be  angry.  He  represents  the  tragic  part  of  the  trouble.  And  now 
let's  sit  down  and  smoke  whilst  I  recount  the  sorrows  of  the  House 
of  Hermanby.' 

I  cast  myself  with  lazy  deliberation  on  the  grass,  lit  my  pipe, 
and  made  ready  to  listen.  It  appeared  that  on  the  Wednesday 
fortnight  Hermanby  had  been  inspecting  some  new  fencing  he  was 
thinking  of  having  put  up,  when  he  was  attracted  by  an  unusual 
cackling  amongst  his  ducks.  He  ran  in  the  direction  of  the  sound 


THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH.  375 

and,  at  the  water's  edge,  beheld  a  youth,  a  sort  of  embryo-hooligan, 
who  had  strayed  from  the  tripper  visitation,  pelting  his  birds, 
encouraged  thereto  by  a  parent  like  unto  himself.  At  the  sight  the 
dignity  of  the  Lord  of  the  Manor  was  forgotten  in  the  primitive 
instinct  of  man,  and  a  good  hearty  kick  sent  the  young  scoundrel 
to  an  accustomed  wash  in  the  lake.  The  father  violently  resented 
this  treatment  of  his  offspring,  and — here  Hermanby's  broad 
shoulders  shook  with  laughter — fell  into  the  water,  too.  After  which 
Hermanby  went  back  to  the  fencing,  leaving  a  keeper  to  guard 
against  any  repetition  of  the  offence,  and  thought  no  more  of  the 
matter. 

On  the  following  evening,  however,  he  received  an  extremely 
illiterate  communication  from  the  neighbouring  town  of  Wakeford 
signed  Mike  Davis.  Now  Wakeford  is  a  mining  centre,  which  is 
celebrated  for  four  things  :  the  value  of  its  mineral  products  ;  the 
fact  that  it  invariably  returns  a  Radical,  nowadays  a  Labour, 
member  ;  the  reputation  of  being  the  third  most  drunken  town  in  the 
three  kingdoms ;  and  the  established  certainty  that  no  member  of 
its  bench  has  ever  been,  or  is  ever  likely  to  be,  presented  with  a  pair 
of  white  gloves.  Mike  Davis  was  a  notorious  figure  among  the  most 
ruffianly  of  the  Wakeford  ruffians,  and  notable  as  a  preacher  of 
anarchy  and  atheism.  The  purport  of  this  estimable  individual's 
letter  was  that  he  was  not  going  to  have  the  law  of  Hermanby, 
'  miscalled  "  lord,"  because  there  was  one  law  for  the  rich  and 
another  for  the  poor,'  but  that  he  had  better  look  out  for  himself. 
Hermanby  put  the  letter  behind  the  fire. 

'  Now,'  he  continued,  raising  himself  on  his  elbow,  '  amongst 
my  bird  collection  two  of  the  most  valuable  were  a  brace  of  Trum- 
peter Swans  from  Canada.  They  were  splendid  birds.  That  one 
you  see  out  there,'  pointing  to  the  swan  that  had  specially  attracted 
my  attention,  '  must  be  close  on  six  feet  long  from  tip  to  tail.  He 
was  always  a  sulky  beggar,  but  his  mate,  the  poor  old  Trumpetress, 
was  most  amiable.  She  would  come  and  feed  out  of  my  hand.' 

He  broke  off  with  a  fierce  expression  of  wrath.  What  had 
happened  was  this.  On  the  following  show-day,  Mike  Davis,  with 
half  a  dozen  kindred  spirits,  had  come  over  from  Wakeford  and 
visited  the  lake.  They  bided  their  time,  carefully  baiting  the  bank 
with  bits  of  cake,  sugar,  and  other  dainties,  until  a  large  company 
of  fowl  had  assembled.  They  then  fell  on  the  helpless  birds  with 
sticks  and  flints,  with  which  they  had  filled  their  pockets,  killing 
and  maiming  several,  and  kicking  the  confiding  Trumpetress  to 


376  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

death  with  their  metalled  boots,  before  she  could  escape  to  the 
water. 

They  hardly  fared  better  themselves.  The  keepers  and  several 
of  the  better-class  tourists  rushed  to  the  rescue.  Hermanby  himself 
was  soon  on  the  scene,  and  the  authors  of  the  despicable  outrage 
were  severely  handled. 

'  1  paid  particular  attention  to  Master  Davis,'  he  ended,  grimly. 
'  I  know  he  could  not  go  to  work  for  two  days.' 

'  But  surely,'  I  remarked,  e  you  don't  expect  any  repetition  of 
the  outrage.' 

'  Well,  I  don't  know,'  was  the  response.  '  I  am  threatened  with 
an  organised  raid.  I  don't  suppose  they  will  come.  I  only  hope 
they  do.  I  am  not  unpopular  with  my  tenants,  and  they  are  as 
indignant  as  myself.  In  fact  they  are  spoiling  for  the  fray.  I  don't 
imagine  anything  will  happen.  Such  fellows  are  brave  only  in 
words  and  dirty  tricks.  Still,  should  they  scrape  together  sufficient 
courage,  I  have  the  police  here  for  them.  I  don't  want  their 
physical  assistance,  you  understand,  but  the  moral  support  of  the 
law  is  worth  a  deal  in  such  affairs.' 

'  I  hope  they  do  come,'  I  said,  unconsciously  running  my  fingers 
over  the  muscles  of  my  arm, '  I  should  like  to  interview  that  crowd, 
cowardly  brutes.' 

*  Good  old  Dutton,'  commented  Hermanby, 

Never  the  battle  raged  hottest  but  in  it, 
Neither  the  last  nor  the  faintest,  were  you  ; 

but  1  am  afraid  you  will  be  disappointed.  It  is  not  any  apprehen- 
sion of  an  attack  from  that  crowd  that  has  compelled  me  to  close 
the  house.  What  I  fear  is  this — that  someone  of  them  may  sneak 
into  one  of  the  galleries,  and  then — one  rip  with  a  knife  and  one 
of  my  priceless  pictures  would  be  ruined.  A  blow  with  a  stick  or 
hand  and  hundreds  of  pounds'  worth  of  china  might  be  shattered. 
You  quite  see  ?  I  hate  appearing  churlish,  but  I  don't  see  how 
I  can  act  otherwise.' 

'  I  don't  see  how  either,'  I  assented.     '  From  socialists,  athei 
and  such  vermin  may  a  healthy  public  opinion  deliver  us.' 

'  Or  a  pestilence  or  an  earthquake,  or  anything  that  would  wi 
them  out  completely,'  assented  Hermanby,  benevolently.  '  But 
enough  of  such  unpleasantnesses.  Let  us  take  a  wander,  and  talk 
over  old  times.' 

Whilst  strolling  up  to  the  house,  we  met  a  bright-looking  youth 


THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH.  377 

of  about  fourteen.  He  had  evidently  been  in  the  wars.  His  face 
was  bruised  and  marked,  and  over  one  eye,  evidently  a  very  black 
eye,  was  a  handkerchief.  Him  Hermanby  accosted,  cheerily. 

'  Hullo,  Dan,  aren't  you  afraid  those  Wakeford  fellows  may 
come  over  ?  ' 

Dan  gave  an  extraordinary  grin. 

'  Ah  hope  they  do,'  he  replied.  '  Ah'd  laike  to  get  yon  young 
Davis  in  a  saw-pit.  Ah'd  lather  un  ! ' 

'  But,'  smiled  Hermanby,  '  they  say  he's  pretty  good  with  his 
hands.' 

'  On  his  feet,'  returned  Dan,  disdainfully,  '  but  he  couldna  hop 
about  in  a  saw-pit.  He  may  be  clever,  but  he  must  be  a  coward — 
nobut  a  coward  could  stone  they  poor  birds.  And  it's  t'  heart 
carries  one  through,  my  lord.'  And  with  a  sagacious  wag  of  his 
head,  accompanied  by  a  respectful  salute,  Dan  went  his  way. 

'  That's  young  Dan  Leathard,  my  head-keeper's  son,'  laughed 
Hermanby.  '  A  regular  young  bull-dog.  He  went  into  the  battle 
with  the  best  of  us,  and,  as  you  see,  was  rather  badly  knocked  about. 
1  believe,  though,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  he  got  back  a  bit  of  his  own 
from  the  offender  in  chief,  Mike  Davis  himself.' 

'  Good  lad,'  I  assented,  and  the  conversation  drifted  off  into  old 
school  days,  '  days  of  fresh  air  in  the  rain  and  the  sun.' 

'  I  am  en  garpon,'  said  Hermanby,  as  we  entered  the  Hall, 
'  Lady  Hermanby  has  gone  to  Scotland,  and  I  should  be  there  too 
by  now,  but  for  this  trouble.  So  here  I  am,  all  alone.  And  that 
reminds  me.  How  abominably  inhospitable  you  must  think  me  ! 
Why  shouldn't  you  do  your  guide-work  from  here  ?  My  motor  is  at 
your  disposal,  and  I  can  tour  round  with  you,  and  learn  something 
of  my  native  place.' 

I  closed  with  the  offer  unhesitatingly,  and  it  was  arranged  that, 
as  soon  as  lunch  was  finished,  I  should  motor  over  to  Spabeck  for 
my  traps  and  stay  at  Hermanby  as  long  as  I  cared  to  do  so. 

'  And  now,'  said  Hermanby,  '  we  have  just  time  to  take  a  look 
round  the  Picture — but  what  on  earth  can  the  matter  be  ?  ' 

I  turned  and  followed  his  eyes.  Across  the  lawn  a  man  was 
coming  towards  us.  He  was  running  when  I  first  saw  him,  but 
the  next  moment  he  had  stopped  and  was  beating  his  head  with  his 
clenched  hands.  Then,  with  a  fierce,  despairing  gesture,  he  started 
running  again. 

'  It's  Leathard,  the  keeper,'  exclaimed  Hermanby,  springing 
forward.  '  What  is  it  ?  '  he  shouted. 


378  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

By  this  time  the  man  had  reeled  up  to  us,  and  we  could  see  his 
face  distinctly.  Such  an  expression  of  wrath  and  despair  I  hope 
I  may  never  see  again.  Once  and  again  he  strove  to  speak,  but 
remained  stammering,  his  hands  clutching  at  his  throat. 

'  Hold  up,  man,'  said  Hermanby,  sharply.  '  Pull  yourself 
together.' 

With  a  great  effort  the  keeper  steadied  himself,  and  managed  to 
stammer  out, 

'  My  boy  !     My  boy  !     Killed  !     Those  devils ' 

At  the  words  Hermanby  was  racing  towards  the  lake  with  me 
close  at  his  heels.  It  was,  alas  !  too  true.  There  lay  the  lad  who 
had  passed  only  so  short  a  time  before  full  of  health  and  courage, 
dead.  I  can  see  every  detail  of  the  scene  now,  the  placid  lake 
covered  with  beautiful  water  fowl,  away,  by  itself,  the  great  trum- 
peter, floating  double,  swan  and  shadow,  the  noble  trees  stirring 
their  rich  foliage  to  the  summer  air,  the  clear  blue  sky  overhead, 
the  tender  turf  beneath  us,  and  at  our  feet  the  sign-manual  of 
murder. 

Hermanby  had  himself  in  hand  in  a  moment.  He  had  fought 
with  Paget's  Horse  in  South  Africa,  and  was  seasoned  to  death  and 
emergencies. 

'  Button,'  he  said,  quickly,  *  are  you  afraid  to  stay  here  alone  ?  ' 

'  Afraid  ?  '  I  asked  in  surprise,  '  Why  ?  ' 

'  Because  the  murderer  may  be  close  here.  1  must  leave  you 
for  a  few  minutes — it  is  imperative  that  we  act  at  once.  That  poor 
fellow,'  pointing  to  Leathard,  who  was  kneeling  in  pitiable  grief  by 
his  son's  body, '  is  no  use.  You  see,  the  murderer  might  attack  you.' 

'  I  only  hope  he  does,'  I  said  grimly,  but  I  knew  not  what  I  said. 

Hermanby  darted  off  in  the  direction  of  the  main  gates  almost 
before  the  words  were  out  of  my  mouth,  and  a  little  later  I  saw 
him  hastening  up  to  the  Hall  with  a  constable  at  hie  heels.  At  the 
same  time  the  police  inspector  came  up. 

We  waited  a  few  interminable  minutes  in  silence,  broken  only 
by  the  hoarse  breathing  of  the  stricken  father.  Then  from  the 
Hall  came  the  whirr  of  a  motor,  and  almost  immediately  afterwards 
a  deep  rich  baying.  A  few  moments  later  Hermanby  came  tearing 
down  with  two  grand  bloodhounds  in  the  leash. 

'  Posted  the  men,  Inspector  ?  '  he  gasped. 

'  Yes,  my  lord.  They  are  picketed  one  to  every  three  hundred 
yards.  Not  a  living  thing  can  get  out  unseen  in  that  direction,' 
pointing  across  the  lake. 


THE   ARROW   THAT   FL1ETH.  379 

'  Good  !  Now  then,  murderer,'  shouted  Hermanby, '  the  game's 
up.  Hark  to  him,  Hubert !  Hark  to  him,  Talbot !  ' 

The  great  hounds  sniffed  the  corpse  for  a  moment,  and  then 
sprang  simultaneously  to  the  water's  edge,  only  a  few  feet  distant. 
There  they  halted  and  threw  up  their  heads  with  a  long  simultaneous 
howl. 

We  rushed  to  the  place.  The  reeds  were  broken  down  at  the 
point  as  if  by  some  heavy  body. 

'  The  cunning  devil,'  exclaimed  Hermanby,  '  he  knows  of  my 
hounds  and  has  taken  to  the  water.  But  we'll  have  him  yet.  You, 
Inspector,  wait  here.  You,  Dutton,  take  Talbot  round  that  side  of 
the  lake,  I  will  go  round  this  with  Hubert.' 

With  tense  muscles  and  every  sense  alert  I  followed  the  hound. 
In  and  out  among  the  trees  he  wound,  sniffing  excitedly,  but  never 
breaking  into  music.  On  and  on  we  went,  till  through  the  under- 
growth I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  figure.  I  dropped  the  leash  and 
ran  in  at  it.  It  was  Hermanby.  Again  and  again  we  cast.  Not  a 
sign  of  a  trail  could  the  hounds  lift. 

At  length  Hermanby  gave  up  the  chase. 

'  He  can't  be  here,  Button,'  he  said,  *  but  it  may  be  he  is  hiding 
in  the  reeds.  Take  charge  of  the  hounds,  whilst  I  go  to  the  punt.' 

He  left  me  as  he  spoke,  and  shortly  after  I  saw  him  push  out  on 
to  the  lake  in  a  rusty  old  punt,  used  by  the  waterman  who  had 
charge  of  the  birds.  Every  clump  of  reeds,  each  overhanging  bush 
he  searched,  with  the  iron  shod  punt-hole  poised  to  strike,  but 
searched  in  vain.  At  last  he  came  ashore. 

'  You  may  call  in  the  police,  Inspector,'  he  said  discontentedly. 
'  The  man  has  not  escaped  this  way.' 

'  Might  we  not  try  the  hounds  in  some  other  direction,  my  lord  ?  ' 
asked  the  Inspector. 

'  Certainly,  but  we  may  as  well  have  the  assistance  of  your  men. 
Meanwhile,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  begin.' 

Once  more  the  hounds  were  brought  to  the  body,  and  this  time 
they  struck  up  towards  the  Hall,  but  with  less  certainty.  Once  or 
twice  they  turned  on  the  trail,  and  finally  came  to  a  dead  stand. 
Then,  after  sniffing  for  a  moment,  they  made  back  towards  the  lake. 

'  They've  been  following  Leathard,'  growled  Hermanby.  '  This 
is  where  we  met  him  this  morning.  We  must  take  a  wider  cast.' 

Almost  at  once  the  hounds  picked  up  a  scent  and  started  at 
speed,  tugging  at  their  leashes  and  whining  excitedly.  Eight  across 
the  Park  they  took  us,  and  into  a  small  copse.  Here  they  zigzagged 


380  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

for  a  while,  and  then  sped  away  down  a  drive,  through  a  gate,  and 
stopped  at  the  door  of  a  pretty  cottage,  wagging  their  tails  and 
looking  thoroughly  pleased  with  themselves. 

Hermanby  swore. 

'  This  is  the  keeper's  lodge.  They  have  been  on  Leathard's 
tracks  again.  It  is  provoking.  I  would  back  these  hounds  to  have 
run  the  man  down  right  away.  There  is  something  mysterious 
here.' 

'  I  don't  think  you  have  any  reason  to  be  disappointed  with  the 
hounds,  my  lord,'  said  the  inspector,  significantly. 

Hermanby  looked  at  him  angrily.  He  understood  what  he 
meant.  Then  he  turned  moodily  towards  the  Hall,  and  we  followed 
in  silence. 

A  motor  was  standing  opposite  the  hall-door,  and  the  chauffeur 
came  to  meet  us. 

'  Doctor  Saville  has  gone  down  to  the  lake  to  inspect  the  body, 
my  lord,  and  has  taken  the  policeman  you  left  here  with  him.  The 
policeman  wants  to  see  you  very  particular.' 

During  our  absence  the  corpse  had  been  decently  covered  with 
a  sheet  and  laid  on  a  hurdle.  Beside  it  were  standing  two  of  the 
stable-hands  and  a  constable.  At  the  edge  of  the  lake,  just  where 
we  had  noticed  the  crushing  of  the  reeds,  a  dapper  little  man  in  a 
grey  suit,  with  his  back  to  us,  was  peering  into  the  water.  A  little 
further  away,  grief -stricken,  were  the  keeper  and  his  wife  ;  but 
that  is  a  picture  I  do  not  care  to  recollect,  far  less  to  describe. 

At  the  sound  of  our  voices  the  little  man  turned  round. 

'  Ah  !  good  morning,  Lord  Hermanby,'  he  said  briskly.  '  Your 
motor  caught  me  at  home.  Well,  have  you  found  anything  ?  ' 

Hermanby  shook  his  head. 

'  Can  you  make  anything  of  it,  doctor  ?  '  he  asked.  '  It  is, 
I  presume,  murder.' 

'  I  think  so.  I  have  been  making  all  inquiries  I  could,  and 
that  poor  fellow  ' — indicating  Leathard — '  has  been  singularly 
lucid — singularly.  He  has  recovered  from  the  first  shock,  and  his 
one  idea  now  is  revenge.  The  body  was  found  there  ' — pointing 
to  the  water's  edge — '  with  the  head  and  shoulders  and  part  of  the 
trunk  immersed,  but  the  legs  and  hips  on  dry  land.  The  cause  of 
death  was  unquestionably  suffocation — i.e.  drowning.' 

'  But  how  came  the  body  there,  sir  ?  '  asked  the  inspector. 

'  Have  you  any ' 

i,  ,  The  doctor  made  an  impatient  movement. 


THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH.  381 

'  Wait !  '  he  said.  '  I  don't  want  to  be  confused.  The  cause 
of  death  was  unquestionably  drowning,  and  what  is  remarkable — 
note  this,  inspector — is  that  the  head  and  shoulders  were  pressed 
down  and  held  under  water  for  a  considerable  time.  If  you  look 
for  yourselves,  you  will  see  the  marks  in  the  mud  quite  distinctly. 
Besides,  the  boy's  nostrils  are  full  of  mud  that  has,  I  think,  been 
forced  in.  Now,  as  to  how  the  body  came  there.  The  number  of 
bruises  are  confusing,  but  most  are  old  ;  got,  I  take  it,  in  the 
scrimmage  last  week.  There  is,  however,  a  large  fresh  bruise  on 
the  right  cheek,  and  a  small  wound,  or  rather  contusion  and  lesion — 
a  cracked  bruise,  that  is — just  behind  the  left  ear.  Now,  this 
injury  has  evidently  been  inflicted  with  some  blunt  but  pointed 
instrument  with  considerable  violence.' 

'  Sufficient  violence  to  cause  death  ?  '  asked  Hermanby. 

'  Not  in  my  opinion,  so  far  as  my  present  examination  permits 
me  to  form  one.  Insensibility,  perhaps.  My  idea  is  that  the  poor 
boy  was  struck  from  behind  and  knocked  senseless  into  the  water. 
The  murderer  then  seems  to  have  held  the  head  under  until  he  was 
sure  that  his  victim  was  dead.' 

'  Have  you  any  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  blunt  instrument  ?  ' 
asked  the  inspector.  '  Might  it  not  have  been  a  knuckle  ?  ' 

The  doctor  considered  a  moment. 

'  Possibly,'  he  said  at  length  ;  '  but  I  hardly  think  so.  The 
blow  might  have  been  inflicted  with  a  roughly  cut  cudgel ;  but  I 
hardly  think  that  either.  No,  I  have  no  definite  idea  of  the  nature 
of  the  instrument.  And  now,  constable,  will  you  tell  the  inspector 
what  you  have  found  out  ?  ' 

The  policeman  stepped  forward  and  made  his  report  briskly 
and  concisely. 

'  I  telephoned  through  to  Wakeford,  sir,  as  you  ordered,  for 
information  as  to  the  whereabouts  of  Davis.  It  appears  that 
shortly  after  midday,  about  the  time  the  murder  was  committed, 
he,  with  some  of  his  gang,  was  holding  a  kind  of  open-air  meeting, 
and  haranguing  the  crowd  with  a  view  to  inciting  them  to  join 
him  in  a  raid  on  Lord  Hermanby's  property.  The  crowd,  how- 
ever, took  a  different  view.  They  charged  him  with  being  the 
cause  of  their  being  deprived  of  admission  to  the  park  ;  and  finally 
he  and  his  fellows  were  pelted  out  of  the  street  with  refuse  and 
mud.  Some  of  them  are  reported  to  have  been  roughly  handled.' 

'  So,'  said  Hermanby,  '  it  could  not  have  been  Davis  ;  and  we 
are  as  far  off  a  clue  to  the  murder  as  ever,  if  not  farther.' 


382  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

The  inspector  motioned  us  with  his  hand.  We  walked  with 
him  till  out  of  earshot  of  the  group  by  the  corpse. 

'  There's  no  good  shutting  our  eyes  to  what  is  obvious,  my 
lord,'  he  began  in  a  low  voice.  '  There  can  be  very  little  doubt 
what  has  happened.  Whose  trail  did  the  hounds  so  persistently 
foUow ' 

'  You  don't  mean,'  broke  in  Hermanby,  '  that  you  think 
Leathard  is  guilty  !  ' 

'  I  am  afraid  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  it.  Of  course  it  is 
not  a  case  of  murder,  but  of  manslaughter.  You  can  picture  it  for 
yourselves.  The  father  and  son  have  a  quarrel,  and  the  father 
loses  his  temper  and  strikes  the  son  harder  than  he  reckons,  either 
with  his  fist  or  with  a  stick.  The  blow  takes  effect  behind  the  ear, 
and  proves  fatal.  Overwhelmed  with  grief  and  horror ' 

'  The  father,'  interrupted  the  doctor,  '  picks  up  the  son,  forces 
his  head  and  shoulders  under  water,  and  holds  him  there  until 
death  is  made  doubly  certain.  You  must  find  another  theory, 
inspector.' 

The  officer  looked  somewhat  gravelled  and  annoyed  for  a 
moment.  Then  his  brow  cleared. 

'  I  am  thankful  to  say  I  believe  I  must,'  he  said.  '  All  the 
same,  there  must  be  some  clue.  The  case  must  be  dead  simple ; 
I  never  came  on  a  simpler  on  the  face  of  it.  And  yet  it  beats  me 
right  away  from  the  start.' 

'  Well  perhaps  the  coroner's  inquest  will  help  to  clear  the 
matter  up,'  suggested  the  doctor.  '  You  see,  my  examination  has 
been  necessarily  only  superficial.  And  now,  Lord  Hermanby,  I 
can  do  no  more  good  here,  and  have  patients  to  attend  to,  so  I'll 
say  good-bye.  I  am  afraid  I  must  ask  you  to  frank  me  back  in 
your  motor.' 

'  Certainly,'  assented  Hermanby.  '  You  may  as  well  go  with 
him,  Dutton,'  he  continued,  turning  to  me.  '  His  house  is  on  the 
way  to  Spabeck,  so  you  can  drop  him,  and  then  go  on  and  bring 
back  your  luggage.' 

On  my  return  Hermanby  met  me  at  the  park  gates  with 
effusion. 

4 1  am  glad  you  are  back,'  he  said  wearily.  '  This  horrid 
business  is  getting  on  my  nerves.  Quite  apart  from  the  tragedy, 
I  have  had  three  detectives  down  here  who  have  cross-examined 
till  I  am  dead  tired.  They  are  fooling ' — with  vicious  emphasis 
on  the  word — '  round  the  lake  now  ;  to  say  nothing  of  a  host  of 


THE   ARROW  THAT   FLIETH.  383 

irresponsible  chatterers.  One  of  them,'  he  ended  grimly,  '  was 
good  enough  to  suggest  I  was  an  ass  ;  and  I  think  he  was  right. 
Why,  Button,  did  we  come  to  overlook  anything  so  obvious  as 
the  murderer  having  climbed  a  tree  ?  ' 

'  And  been  treed  by  the  hounds  for  an  absolute  certainty,' 
I  commented.  '  I  don't  think  the  folly  is  on  your  side.  Take  my 
advice.  Go  indoors,  shut  yourself  up,  have  a  smoke,  and  refuse 
to  see  anyone.  I  will  do  that  for  you,  if  necessary.' 

'  Thanks,  old  chap,'  he  answered.  '  I  will  do  as  you  suggest. 
By  the  way,  don't  dress  for  dinner.  Sit  down  booted  and  spurred, 
with  your  loins  girded.  I  have  premonition  that  something  will 
happen  to-night.  Don't  laugh  at  me.' 

I  did  not  feel  like  laughing.  The  events  of  the  day  had  got  on 
my  nerves  too. 

The  evening  closed  down  sultry  and  oppressive.  The  atmosphere 
pressed  heavily.  Every  now  and  then,  away  in  the  west,  a  deep, 
prolonged  threatening  murmur  harbingered  the  approach  of  a 
storm.  Near  at  hand,  on  the  road,  the  wheels  of  passing  vehicles 
grated  on  the  ear  with  irritating  intensity,  and  all  around  was 

the  dull  sound 

That  from  the  mountains,  previous  to  the  storm, 
Rolls  o'er  the  muttering  earth,  disturbs  the  flood, 
And  shakes  the  forest  leaf  without  a  breath. 

The  harsh  sound  of  the  gong  jarred  startlingly  on  the  troubled 
stillness.  The  dinner  itself  was  excellent,  but  Hermanby  ate 
little,  and  hardly  talked  at  all.  He  seemed  to  be  listening  intently 
(he  insisted  on  the  windows  being  wide  open),  and  impatient  to 
get  the  meal  over.  As  soon  as  it  was  finished  he  took  me  into  the 
hall. 

'  I  have  a  pistol  in  my  pocket,'  he  said  ;  '  but  I  don't  want  to 
use  that.  Take  a  look  round  and  select  a  weapon,  in  case — in  case 
anything  should  happen,  you  know.' 

The  walls  were  hung  with  trophies  of  the  chase  and  of  battle 
of  all  lands  and  of  all  ages.  The  Hermanbys  had  been  Nimrods 
and  warriors  from  generation  to  generation. 

'  I  don't  suppose  anything  will  happen,'  I  replied ;  '  but  this 
seems  a  business-like  kind  of  stick.  I'll  take  this.' 

As  I  spoke,  I  detached  from  below  a  South  African  shield  one 
of  those  hard- wood  Zulu  clubs  known  as  knob-kerries.  Hermanby 
followed  my  example,  opining  that  he  could  not  do  better.  We 


384  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

then  went  out  into  the  porch,  where  coffee  and  cigars  were  waiting 
for  us. 

By  this  time  the  approach  of  the  storm  was  visible.  Great 
thunder  clouds  with  livid  edges,  piled  mass  on  mass  and  giving 
a  tremendous  impression  of  weight,  were  creeping  up  to  the  zenith, 
and  along  the  horizon  bright  serpents  of  flame  would  flash  into 
menacing  being  and  disappear.  The  thunder  was  almost  continuous. 

Above  and  around  us,  however,  all  was  calm  and  still,  and 
radiant  with  moonlight.  Nearer  and  nearer  drew  the  tempest, 
until  we  could  hear  the  distant  sough  of  the  rain  and  feel  the  chill 
of  it  on  our  temples.  Hermanby  rose  wearily. 

'  There  is  no  good  waiting  any  longer,'  he  said.  '  No  human 
being  in  his  senses  would  stir  out  on  such  a  night  as  this.  I  am 
sorry,  old  man,  to  have  let  you  in  for  such  a  futile  vigil ;  but — 

From  the  lake  came  a  quick,  harsh  challenging  cry ;  then,  in 
another  voice,  a  shriek  of  wild  terror,  and  shriek  on  shriek  of  agony 
and  fear.  I  snatched  my  knob-kerrie  and  raced  in  the  direction 
of  the  sounds.  I  could  hear  Hermanby  plunging  along  beside 
me.  As  we  drew  nearer,  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  violent  agitation 
of  the  water,  and  seemed  to  hear  a  noise  of  splashing.  Then  all 
was  still. 

We  pulled  up  at  the  margin  of  the  lake  and  peered  into  the 
gloom.  Hermanby  struck  a  match — the  air  was  still  as  in  a  closed 
room — and  held  it  out  at  arm's  length.  The  next  moment  he  had 
sprung  into  the  water. 

I  saw  him  stoop — the  lake  was  barely  waist-deep  there — and 
grasp  at  something.  Then  with  an  effort  he  raised  himself  and 
waded  to  the  bank,  bearing  in  his  arms  the  inanimate  form  of  a 
man.  At  the  same  moment,  with  the  roar  of  a  torrent,  down  came 
the  rain. 

'  I  don't  think  he's  quite  dead,'  panted  Hermanby.  '  Help  me 
to  carry  him  up  to  the  house.  Gently  now,  but  quickly.' 

As  he  was  speaking  I  had  taken  the  body  by  the  feet,  whilst  he 
lifted  it  by  the  shoulders,  and  we  started.  All  at  once,  just  as  we 
reached  the  porch,  the  man  twisted  himself,  with  incredible  strength 
and  violence,  from  our  hands.  For  a  few  moments  he  writhed, 
dreadfully  convulsed,  then  lay  very,  very  still. 

'  This  is  horrible  !  '  gasped  Hermanby.  '  Come  !  It  is  all  over. 
Let  us  carry  him  to  the  light.' 

We  laid  the  body  on  a  rug,  and  Hermanby  switched  on  all  the 
lights.  We  recoiled  simultaneously.  It  was  not  the  body — the 


THE   ARROW  THAT   FLIETH.  385 

[>ody  dreadfully  distorted  ;  it  was  not  the  face — tlie  face  bruised 
md  mutilated — one  eye  had  been  driven  in.  It  was  the  expres- 
ion,  the  sense  of  fear  in  the  expression  ;  and  as  we  looked,  the 
ense  of  fear  gripped  hard  at  our  hearts. 

Hermanby  at  length  forced  himself  to  examine  the  disfigured 
eatures. 

4  Good  heavens  !  '  he  exclaimed,  '  it's  Mike  Davis  ! ' 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done  that  night,  but  as  early  as  possible 
n  the  following  morning  the  police  were  communicated  with  and 
he  matter  placed  in  their  hands.  They  set  to  work  with  great 
liligence  and  intelligence,  but  effected  nothing.  It  was  not  to  be 
Expected  they  should,  as  the  torrential  downpour  of  the  night  had 
Cashed  away  all  possible  traces  of  the  murderer.  Even  the  tracks 
>f  Hermanby  and  myself  were  obliterated. 

The  autopsy  was  equally  unsatisfactory.  It  was  evident  that 
)oth  the  victims  had  been  attacked  with  a  blunt  instrument,  the 
bxact  nature  of  which  could  not  be  identified,  which  was  wielded 
with  great  violence.  The  ultimate  cause  of  death  in  the  case  of 
ihe  boy  was  drowning  ;  in  that  of  the  man,  traumatic  tetanus, 
which  accounted  for  the  violence  of  the  convulsion  that  had 
Twisted  the  body  from  our  hands. 

The  object  of  Davis's  presence  was  easily  explained.  His  coat- 
pockets  were  found  full  of  meal,  which  chemical  analysis  proved 
;o  be  poisoned.  His  intention  had  been,  without  doubt,  to  avenge 
bimself  on  Hermanby  by  the  destruction  of  his  water-fowl ;  but 
he  had  been  struck  down  ere  he  could  execute  his  dastardly  design. 

The  inevitable  verdict  was,  of  course,  '  Wilful  murder  against 
some  person  or  persons  unknown,'  and  official  as  well  as  popular 
opinion  attributed  the  crime  to  some  madman — a  proposition  to 
which  the  strange,  inhuman  nature  of  the  cry  that  had  first  startled 
Sermanby  and  myself  lent  colour.  But  of  the  murderer  no  trace 
was  found. 

A  week  passed.  There  had  been  no  recurrence  of  tragedy. 
Every  night  the  police  had  patrolled  the  park  and  its  environs  in 
ouples,  taking  with  them,  at  their  request,  Hermanby' s  blood- 
lounds,  without  coming  on  the  faintest  clue.  The  dreadful, 
mysterious  visitant  had  apparently  fled  as  silently  and  strangely 
as  he  had  come. 

It  was  my  last  evening.  On  the  morrow  Hermanby  was  to 
start  for  Scotland  ;  whilst  I  was  forced  to  return  to  penal  servitude 
n  the  detestable  acreage  of  bricks  and  mortar  on  the  Thames. 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  16.5,  N.S.  25 


386  THE   ARROW   THAT   FLIETH. 

All  that  afternoon  Hermanby  had  been  thinking,  and  just  before 
dinner  he  asked  me,  for  the  second  time  during  my  visit,  not  to 
dress. 

4  I'm  not  satisfied  yet  about  this  business,'  he  explained.  '  Not 
one  bit.  Murder  was  committed.  There  is  no  doubt  of  that,  and 
it  is  assumed — why,  I  don't  know — that  the  murderer  has  left  this 
part  of  the  country.  Except  for  his  handiwork,  there  has  been 
no  evidence  of  his  presence,  though  the  opportunities  of  tracking 
him  have  been  exceptional.  Of  course  there  has  been  no  other 
murder  ;  but  that  may  be  for  a  reason  the  police  have,  I  think, 
overlooked.  They  have  always  patrolled  the  ground  in  couples, 
whereas — and  the  significance  of  this  point  has  only  just  occurred 
to  me — both  the  victims  were  absolutely  alone.  Don't  you  see 
what  I  mean  ?  Though  two  men  together  might  be  perfectly 
safe,  it  does  not  follow  that  one,  when  alone,  would  not  be 
attacked.' 

4  There's  something  in  that,'  I  assented.  '  What  do  you  propose 
to  do  ?  ' 

'  To  make  a  last  effort  to-night  and  try  to  catch  him,  with  myself 
as  the  bait.  After  dinner  you  and  I  will  steal  out.  You  will  cone 
yourself  along  the  lower  branches  of  that  big  fir  tree — you  know 
the  one  I  mean,  close  by  the  water — whilst  I  wander  up  and  down 
in  the  open.  Then,  if  he  does  come  for  me  from  behind,  you  sing 
out ;  and  between  us  we  ought  to  nab  him  easily.' 

'  But  supposing  he  bolts  ?  '  I  suggested. 

'  I  have  thought  of  that.  I  shall  post  Leathard  on  the  far  side 
of  the  lake  with  the  bloodhounds.  He  will  be  perfectly  safe  witb 
them  to  guard  him,  and,  in  case  of  a  chase,  we  should  run  our  mar 
down  inside  five  minutes,  though  he  were  the  fleetest  foot  ir 
England.  What  do  you  say  ?  Are  you  game  ?  ' 

Naturally  I  did  not  hesitate.  Indeed,  I  found  myself  looking 
forward  to  the  possibility  of  an  encounter  with  a  murderer,  whc 
was  also  probably  a  madman,  with  an  equanimity  that  approachecj 
eagerness. 

It  was  an  ideal  night  for  our  purpose,  very  still,  with  not  toe; 
much  moon.     Stealthily  we  made  our  way  to  the  fir  tree.    As  sooi 
as  I  was  posted,  Hermanby  stepped  ostentatiously  into  the  open 
whilst  I  waited,  ready  to  spring  out,  my  knob-kerrie  in  my  hand,  j 

All  at  once  Hermanby  turned  and  came  quietly  back. 

'  Look  out !  '  he  whispered.  '  He's  about  somewhere,  He'.'! 
disturbed  the  old  Trumpet-Major,' 


THE   ARROW  THAT   FLIETH.  387 

Through  the  darkness  I  could  see  the  great  bird  flapping  across 
the  surface  of  the  lake,  evidently,  I  thought,  scared  from  its  reed 
)ed.  Hermanby  walked  into  the  open  again. 

To  my  surprise,  the  swan  did  not  settle  in  the  water  or  turn  at 
the  sight  of  him.     It  flew  on  broad  pinions  past  and  over  his  head. 
Then  suddenly  it  swerved  and  darted  straight  at  him. 
'  Duck  !  '  I  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  shout. 

Hermanby  obeyed  at  once,  and  so  just  avoided  the  full  impact 
I  the  rushing  body.  Nevertheless,  a  passing  blow  from  the  strong 
wing  struck  him  on  the  side  of  the  head  and  brought  him  staggering 
bo  his  knees.  Before  he  could  recover  himself,  the  swan  had 
wheeled,  and  with  a  fierce  thrust  of  its  bill  sent  him  senseless  to  the 
ground. 

LI  rushed  forward  with  my  kerrie  raised,  shouting  as  I  came  to 
re  the  brute.     With  incredible  swiftness  it  swept  itself  from  the 
ground,  and,  uttering  a  prolonged  hoot  of  anger,  dashed  straight 
at  my  face.     So  disconcerting,  so  terrifying  was  the  aspect  of  this 
Winged  fury  that  it  unsteadied  me.     I  missed  its  head  with  the 
(knob  of  my  kerrie  and  only  struck  the  body  with  the  shaft.     The 
blow  checked  the  onset,  but  the  violence  of  the  shock  sent  the  stick 
ying  from  my  grasp. 

I  sprang  back  to  the  fir  tree.  I  realised  that  in  the  open  I  should 
ave  no  chance,  whereas  the  low  branches  would  prevent  the  swan 
sing  its  tremendous  wings.  In  another  moment  it  was  on  me. 

Just  for  a  moment  it  poised  itself.  Then,  drawing  back  its  long 
eck,  like  a  serpent  about  to  strike,  it  darted  straight  at  my  face, 
parried  the  thrust,  but,  quick  as  lightning,  it  struck  again,  driving 
ts  bill  against  my  breast-bone  and  staggering  me.  Before  I  could 
ecover,  with  devilish  cunning  it  dealt  me  a  fearful  blow  on  the 
hin,  that  brought  me  to  the  ground. 

As  I  fell  I  grappled  it  close  to  me,  so  as  to  avoid  the  buffeting 
f  its  wings,  and  threw  myself  forward,  intending  to  pinion  it  to 
he  ground  with  my  knees  and  wring  its  neck  ;  but  I  had  forgotten 
he  sloping  bank.  The  next  moment  I  was  in  the  water. 

I  held  on  for  dear  life,  hugging  the  body  to  me  with  my  right 
rm,  whilst  with  left  hand  I  held  hard  the  sinewy  neck,  in  the  hope 
f  preventing  its  bringing  its  bill  into  play.  I  had  no  conception 
'f  the  muscular  strength  of  my  dreadful  antagonist.  A  heavy 
)low  with  the  wing  almost  paralysed  my  arm,  and  then,  with  a 
avage  wrench,  it  twisted  its  neck  free.  Another  moment  and  the 
)eak  descended  with  stunning  violence  on  my  head. 

25—2 


388  THE  ARROW    THAT   FLIETH. 

Through  the  whirring  of  my  brain  I  could  hear  Leathard 
shouting,  but  I  recognised,  with  a  feeling  of  despairj  that  he  must 
be  too  late.  Once  again  I  secured  the  neck.  Once  again  it  wrenched 
it  free,  and  the  fierce  head  shot  triumphantly  up  to  deal  a  finishing 
stroke. 

There  was  a  crashing  of  brushwood,  a  dark  form  bounded  from 
the  bank,  a  heavy  body  struck  me,  driving  me  down  under  the  water, 
and  at  the  same  moment  the  swan  was  torn  from  my  grasp.  I  reeled 
to  my  feet  and  looked.  There  in  the  deep  water  a  fearful  struggle 
was  going  on.  The  great  bloodhound  Hubert  had  sprung  to  my 
rescue  in  the  nick  of  time. 

The  huge  bird  was  showering  blows  on  the  dog  with  its  powerful 
wings,  but  the  cruel  jaws  never  relaxed.  Even  as  I  watched,  thej 
hound  shifted  them  till  he  had  firm  hold  of  the  neck.  There  was' 
a  crunch,  and  the  graceful,  terrible  head  sank  down  and  lay  on  the 
water,  quite  still. 

Thus  was  the  mystery  of  Hermanby  Lake  cleared  up.  The 
Trumpeter  had  seen  its  mate  butchered,  and  in  revenge  had  turned 
on  mankind.  In  both  the  previous  cases  it  had,  doubtless,  waited 
till  they  were  at  the  edge  of  the  water,  and  then  with  one  fierce) 
charge  sent  them  to  their  death,  never  leaving  them  till  life  was 
extinct.  Without  doubt,  Hermanby  would  have  been  dashed  into 
the  lake  but  for  my  warning  shout. 

Though  bruised  and  battered  and  hurt,  we  were  neither  of  us 
sufficiently  injured  to  necessitate  the  postponement  of  our  journey 
Hermanby,  indeed,  seemed  feverishly  anxious  to  get  away.  As  1 
was  packing,  he  came  into  my  room. 

'  I  say,  Button,'  he  said, '  let  me  see  your  guide-book.  The  parl 
about  Hermanby  House,  I  mean.' 

I  complied.    He  began  to  read  aloud. 

'  Here  we  are—"  public  coach  "  ;  that's  all  right.  I  shall  tak< 
off  the  prohibition.  "  River  Herman  .  .  .  artificially  broadened.' 
Ah,  yes  !  You  can  strike  out  "  Swannery,"  old  chap.' 

I  looked  up  in  some  surprise. 

'  Yes.  After  last  night,  you  understand  !  I  shall  sell  m}j 
remaining  swans.  I  don't  think  I  shall  ever  care  to  see  anothe]! 
after  last  night.' 

CLAUDE  E.  BENSON.   , 


389 


LATER  LETTERS   OF  EDWARD   LEAR. 

'  I  DARE  say  you  know  my  name  :  I  once  brought  out  the  "  Book  of 
Nonsense,"  '  said  the  elderly  gentleman  wearing  an  eye-shade,  as  he 
sat  under  a  shaded  lamp  in  his  solitary  corner  of  the  salle-d-manger 
of  Dr.  Pasta's  Hotel  at  Monte  Generoso.  Darkness  had  fallen  before 
I  reached  the  hospitable  light  that  beckoned  the  guideless  wayfarer 
up  the  mountain  path,  bosky  with  beeches,  from  Mendrisio.  The 
September  sunset  had  faded  across  the  outspread  plain  of  Lom- 
bardy  far  beneath — 

Calm  and  still  light  on  yon  great  plain 
That  sweeps  with  all  its  autumn  bowers, 
And  crowded  farms  and  lessening  towers — 

I  but  not  till  it  had  lightened  the  load  at  every  step — those  were 
I  knapsack  days — and  tinged  the  mind  with  golden  memories.     Two 
belated  guests,  at  their  several  suppers  in  an  empty  room,  must  needs 
eventually  arrive  at  the  Homeric  question  '  Who  and  whence  art 
thou  ?  '  if  they  do  not  press  the  enquiry  to  '  What  father  dost  thou 
boast  ?  '    I  soon  found  I  was  in  the  presence  of  one  who  had  seen 
as  many  cities  and  men  as  Odysseus,  who  knew  their  mind  as  clearly, 
and  was  no  less  full  of  craft  and  wiles  and  stories  than  the  sly 
Ithacan — only  the  craft  of  Edward  Lear  was  truth  in  art,  the  wiles 
were  such  as  knew  no  guile,  and  his  stories  were  lovely  and  delicious 
:un.    After  two  days  spent  mostly  in  his  company  I  became  aware 
f  the  attachment  and  the  confidence  that  only  wait  time  for  friend- 
hip,  and  his  was  the  comprehensive  friendship  of  a  genius.     And  so 
t  came  to  pass  that  in  the  closing  years  of  his  life  I  corresponded 
with  him  frequently  and  freely.     Some  of  the  less  intimate  portions 
f  his  letters  to  me  are  presented  in  this  paper  ;  for  there  can  be  no 
eason  why  the  currency  of  the  household  words  which  they  con- 
tain should  be  limited  to  the  recipient's  own  immediate  circle. 

Other  geniuses  have  dealt  in  sense.  He  is  the  only  genius  of 
nonsense.  The  realm  of  sense  is  infinite.  Metaphysicians  may  be 
eft  to  decide  whether  the  realm  of  nonsense  is  anything  less  than 
nfinite.  If  it  is  not  less,  then  there  must  be  two  infinities,  each 
defining  the  other,  which  is  absurd  !  At  any  rate  Lear's  mind 
ranged  over  one  or  two  infinities  and  revelled  and  romped  in  the 


390  LATER   LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR. 

absurd.  I  think  he  was  greater  than  all  the  geniuses  who  never 
looked  into  the  infinity  of  nonsense  and  had  no  eye  for  it.  No 
wonder  Lear's  two  eyes  had  become  somewhat  enfeebled  by  years, 
one  with  observing  nature  with  that  scrupulous  accuracy  which 
marks  all  his  pictures,  the  other  with  scanning  the  underlying 
nonsense  which  results  from  the  happy  combination  of  incom- 
patibles. 

Was  ever  art  so  aptly  united  with  science  in  one  and  the  same 
mind  ?  Art  selects,  science  collects.  His  business  as  a  painter 
was  to  select  the  subject  and  the  contents  of  his  picture  :  his  science 
collected  with  a  marvellous  readiness  not  the  specimens  that  were 
to  be  compared  and  ordered  and  classified  together  as  exhibiting 
varieties  of  the  same  genus,  but  those  which  were  just  incongruous 
and  which  in  their  juxtaposition — '  Juxtaposition  is  great ' — must 
simply  make  a  man — and  probably  a  cat — laugh  loud  and  long. 

Lear  was  fond  of  depreciating  his  life's  work  as  that  of  '  a  dirty 
landscape  painter,'  but  when  he  applied  the  expression  to  himself 
there  had  been  originally  also  an  adjective  before  '  dirty '  which 
began  with  the  same  consonant ;  and  when  he  told  how  the  title 
was  originally  bestowed  upon  him  he  heartily  accepted  it  as  truly 
conveying  the  miseries  of  long  years  of  exposure  to  climate,  rising 
before  dawn  and  waiting  in  the  open  to  paint  the  sunrise,  enduring 
heat  and  cold  and  wet,  lodging  in  unspeakable  quarters,  if  haply  he 
might  please  a  fastidious  public  taste.  It  chanced  that  he  had 
stayed  the  night  at  a  mountain  inn  and  engaged  in  civil  conversa- 
tion with  two  young  Englishmen,  who  rose  betimes  next  morning, 
and,  like  inconsiderate  travellers,  made  as  much  noise  over  their 
departure  as  if  all  other  guests  in  the  hotel  were  asleep.  Lear,  who 
was  also  rising,  overheard  this  remark  from  one  of  them  who  had 
gathered  information  downstairs :  '  I  say,  Dick,  you  know  that 
fellow  we  talked  to  last  night ;  well,  what  do  you  think  he  is  ? 
He  is  a  d — d  dirty  landscape  painter.' 

Thus  Lear  was  like  Odysseus  again — '  much-enduring,  divine.' 
Whether  in  appearance  Odysseus  was  really  plain  or  not,  whether 

His  mind  was  concrete  and  fastidious, 

His  nose  was  remarkably  big, 
His  visage  was  more  or  less  hideous, 

His  beard  it  resembled  a  wig  ; 

it  cannot  be  doubted  that  he,  like  Lear,  enjoyed  his  course  of  life 
enjoyed  laughing  at  himself,  enjoyed  possibly  even  caricat 
himself.   I  possess  one  of  these  caricatures, '  E.  L.,  at.  71,'  atten 


LATER   LETTERS    OF   EDWARD   LEAR,  391 

by  '  Foss,  (Bt.  14,'  his  faithful  Manx  cat,  welcoming  the  present 
writer  to  Villa  Tennyson,  preceded  by  the  Sanremo  porter  with 
portmanteau.  Now  this  E.  L.  is  essentially  the  same  as  that 

Old  Deny  down  Derry,  who  loved  to  see  little  folks  merry, 
of  the  early  sixties. 

But  did  we  not  know  in  fact  from  '  Nonsense  Songs  and 
Stories  '  (p.  7)  that  he 

—  has  many  friends,  laymen  and  clerical, 

Old  Foss  is  the  name  of  his  cat : 
His  body  is  perfectly  spherical, 

He  weareth  a  runcible  hat, 

we  could  still  see  him  depicted  in  the  frontispiece  of  the  '  Book 
of  Nonsense,'  exhibiting  the  Book  to  the  amazed,  tumultuous, 
himmeltaneous  children.  The  snub  nose  is  a  reminder  of  one 
greater  than  Odysseus,  the  real  Socrates  himself,  and  the  projecting 
eyes  were  hardly  less  a  marked  feature  in  his  later  years  than  in 
Socrates.  Had  Socrates  worn  goggles,  they  would  surely  have 
dropped  off  in  delight  at  welcoming  a  friend,  his  runcible  hat  would 
have  slipped  off  behind,  his  arms  would  have  been  extended,  the 
left  arm  exalted,  the  palm  open,  ringers  too,  while  the  right  leg 
simply  pranced  with  joy,  bootlaces  and  buttons  seeming  to  share 
in  the  profuse  and  prepossessing  pageant  of  E.  L.  and  that  copy- 
cat Foss. 

The  first  letter  to  be  cited  here  is  one  of  many  containing  refer- 
ences to  his  pictures,  some  of  which  are  treasured  exceedingly  by 
the  present  writer. 

Villa  Tennyson,  Sanremo,  6  Novr.,  1882. 

'  I  had  thought  to  send  you  your  3  Monte  Generosian  scraps 
before  now,  but  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  so  ;  for,  returning  from 
that  delectable  mountain,  I  somehow  contrived  to  misplace  my 
sketches  of  the  points  you  want — and  nowhere  could  I  find  them 
until  2  days  back,  when  it  turned  out  that  they  had  slipped  down 
behind  some  folios.  I  sometimes  believe  that  inanimate  objix 
move  about  of  their  own  selves  to  give  mortles  unnecessary 
trouble.'  .  .  . 

Here,  then,  is  a  fresh  declaration  of  that  Doctrine  of  Inanimate 
Intention  which  has  illuminated  so  many  of  the  Nonsense  Songs, 
written  long  before  it. 

They  rode  through  the  street,  and  they  rode  by  the  station, 

They  galloped  away  to  the  beautiful  shore  ; 
In  silence  they  rode,  and  '  made  no  observation,' 

Save  this,  '  We  will  never  go  back  any  more  ! ' 


392  LATER   LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR. 

And  still  you  might  hoar,  till  they  rode  out  of  hearing, 
The  sugar-tongs  snap,  and  the  crackers  say  '  crack  '  ! 

Till  far  in  the  distance,  their  forms  disappearing, 
They  faded  away — and  they  never  came  back  ! 

The  next  deals  with  more  serious  subjects,  at  least  in  parts. 

15  October,  1882. 

.  .  .  '  I  take  it  there  is  no  such  happiness  in  this  life  as  a  really 
happy  marriage — but  I  grant  there  are  few  when  compared  with 
the  multitudinous  majority  of  marriages  unhappy — or  marriages 
neither  happy  nor  unhappy — but  what  I  call  "  cup  and  saucer  " 
marriages.  .  .  . 

'  What  I  wanted  to  write  to  you  was  about  the  Prescot  living. 
Have  you  really  finally  given  it  up  and  declined  it  ?  I  have  been 
thinking  that — although  your  college  life  be  more  to  your  liking 
and  in  accord  with  your  conscientious  views  of  doing  good — yet 
supposing  illness  or  inability  to  go  on  with  Liverpool  work — would 
not  the  settled  life  inkum  be  a  greater  thing,  and  rejecting  of  it  a 
flinging  away  the  interpositions  of  Providence  ?  I  have  my  own 
likings  for  the  Prescot  choice,  seeing  that  Prescot  church  spire  was 
a  part  of  my  life  for  many  years,  and  I  must  have  made  literally 
hundreds  of  sketches  from  Knowsley  Park  with  that  spire  [sketched] 
in  the  distance.  But  if  you  have  really  and  absolutely  refused  the 
living — what  is  done  is  done  as  the  tadpole  said  when  his  tail  fell 
off.  And  nothing  will  then  be  left  me  but  to  hope  for  the  speedy 
decease  or  release  of  the  next  incumbent  or  encumberer,  so  that 
Prescot  living  may  be  again  offered  to  you.  .  .  . 

'  Your  Cedars  [of  Lebanon,  an  oil-painting]  go  on  well,  consider- 
ing how  dark  and  rainy  it  has  been  and  how  many  days  not  light 
enough  for  delicate  work.  But  7  goats,  a  Maronite  priest,  and 
various  other  vegetables  have  of  late  been  inserted. 

'  There  have  been  deluges  of  rain  lately,  and  my  garden  was 
all  overbeflowed :  otters  and  salmon  swimming  all  over  the 
Virginian  Stock,  walrusses  walking  about  the  geranium  cuttings 
and  an  obese  hippopotamus  sitting  on  the  giant  anemone.  .  . 

'  Let  us  all  hope  for  "  lucidity,"  as  the  elephant  said  when  they 
told  him  to  get  out  of  the  light,  because  he  was  opaque. 

'  0 !  scissars  and  submarine  sucking-pigs ! !  Here's  the  Bor- 
dighera  railway  bridge  been  and  gone  and  broke  his  self  down  and 
the s  are  stopped  here — so  I  must  go  and  see  them.  .  .  . 

'  I  know  I  ought  to  put  some  letters  after  your  name— bu  t 
I  don't  know  if  they  are  B.A.  or  B.D.  (B.C.  would  make  you  too  old).' 


LATER   LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR.  393 

Sanremo,  17  May,  1883. 

.  .  .  '  I  have  been  putting  ultimate  and  penultimate  and  propen- 
ultimate  and  apopospenultimate  touches  to  the  "  Cedars  "  con- 
tinually of  late,  and  it  is  wonderful  how  greatly  the  picture  is 
improved,  nor  can  I  tell  you  how  much  it  has  been  admired.  Enough 
for  I,  if  you  its  pozessur  will  see  it  with  admiring  ize  and  reflective 
mind  .  .  .  (When  may  a  door  be  said  to  be  in  the  potential  mood  ?— 
When  it  is  made  of  would — or  could,  or  should  be.) 

.  .  .  '  My  garden  is  over  and  above  abunjiantly  lovely,  and  I 
myself  am  somewhat  less  mumpy,  along  of  the  summer  weather, 
just  set  in  a  little  too  hot  and  suddenly,  with  full  moons,  broad 
beans  and  asparagus,  exit  of  Anglo-Saxons,  and  other  intangible 
vegetation. 

'  I  will  now  look  over  your  last  letter  and  make  ozbervations 
on  its  points,  as  the  monkey  said  when  he  casually  sat  down  on  the 
pincushion.  .  .  . 

'  Qua  daffodils,  I  have  had  none,  but  there  is  a  sort  of  Ranuncle- 
buncle  coming  up.  (Talking  of  uncles,  I  have  worked  so  much  to 
make  the  rocks  in  the  foreground  of  the  "  Cedars  "  like  hard  bits 
of  limestone,  that  I  believe  you  will  sprain  your  uncles  every  time 
you  look  at  them)  .  .  . 

'  Some  one  was  in  my  gallery  the  other  day  who  said  he  knew 
Dingle  Bank  well — but  I  can't  remember  who  it  was.  Perhaps 
General  Count  Moltke,  who  was  said  to  be  here.  Now  I  must  go 
and  get  my  bellicontingical  breakfast.' 

Recoaro  (Veneto),  20  July,  1884. 

.  .  .  '  It  is  very  kind   of  you   to  think   of   me   under  your 

ent  stircumstanzes  [of  approaching  marriage].  .  .  . 

'  I  wrote  to  J.  J.  Hornby  on  seeing  he  was  Provostically  exalted  ; 
ut  I  know  nothing  of  Eton  mutters,  except  that  the  boy  whom 
the  escaped  Tiger  devoured  was  an  Eaten  boy. 

'  I  meant  to  have  written  to  you — to  tell  you  that  the  "  Geth- 
sernane  "  is  sold  ...  to  Mr.  E.  W of  North  Seaton,  Northum- 
berland, near  that  place  where  you  and  the  Venerable  Bede  used  to 
live  together  when  the  papists  used  to  tell  you  to  go  to  "  L." 

This  Hellenic  and  aspirating  and  exasperating  observation  refers 
to  the  reiterated  doggerel  that  used  to  greet  us  curates  in  the  streets 
of  the  historic  constituency  of  Jarrow-on-Tyne  : 


Protestant  Minister,  quack,  quack,  quack  ! 

Go  to  the  devil  and  never  come  back,  back,  back  Ij 


394  LATER   LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR. 

To  which  Echo  answers  from  the  Nonsense  Songs — '  And  they  never 
came  back ! ' 

However,  in  our  next  letter  the  Cat  comes  back — the  Cat  that 
Lear  made — he  must  have  made — to  laugh,  and  the  good  Fossile 
sagacity  : 

Villa  Tennyson,  Sanremo,  29  December,  1884. 

'  It  is  2-troo  that  there  is  a  letter  of  yours — date  Nov.  8 — to  be 
answered,  but  my  days  of  promptuality  as  to  correspondence  is 
over  and  gone.  I  don't  not  think  I  didn't  never  receive  no  letter 
from  you  at  Abetone,  but  am  not  shewer. 

'  No — my  poor  Nicola,  George's  [his  servant  Cocali's]  eldest 
son,  was  always  perfectly  honest  and  good  ;  and  now  all  I  can  do 
for  him  and  as  a  reminder  to  me  of  his  father's  long  services,  is  to 
pay  Doctors'  bills,  and  keep  him  alive  with  as  little  suffering  as 
possible,  as  long  as  it  pleases  God.  He  is  always  grateful  and 
uncomplaining,  but  the  shock  of  Dimitri's  conduct  [he  had  finally 
bolted]  and  his  own  fate  made  him  naturally  far  from  cheerful. 

'The  new  servant — a  Milanese — with  14  years'  first-rate  cha- 
racter— is  as  excellent  and  able  a  domestic  as  I  have  ever  known  ; 
his  father — now  cet.  79,  has  been  70  years  in  the  Gavazzi  family  at 
Milan,  and  he  himself  has  been  for  8  years  a  cavalry  Carabiniere. 
Then  I  had  to  get  a  cook,  but  he  turned  out  a  thundering  thief  and 
had  to  go.  Then  1  had  my  meals  from  the  Hotel  Royal  for  a  fort- 
night, but  though  cheaper  that  was  a  nastier  life.  Finally  I  have 
got  another  chosskimoolious  cookly  candidate,  which  he  has  only 
one  i — but  cooks  well,  and  will  probably  stay,  especially  as  Foss 
took  to  him  at  once,  whereas  after  examining  the  late  thievy  cook, 
that  intelligent  beast  fled  the  kitchen  wholly  and  never  would  go 
near  the  wicked  Pietro  Pavesi — who,  by  the  bye,  could  not  cook  at 
all. 

'  The  3-pronged  sentiment l  has  been  for  some  time  abandoned 
as  to  active  progress,  though  various  persons  keep  sending  their 
intentions  to  be  Tenguinea  sobsquibers.  How  should  I  know  that 
Matthew  Arnold  hadn't  millions  of  money  ?  (Dickens  made  33,000 
by  his  visit  to  America.)  And  him  I  ignorantly  worshipped  as  a 
possible  one  of  30  peepl. 

'  Dimitri  Cocali  has,  I  hear,  arrived  in  Corfu  actually  penniless, 
though  he  must  have  had  over  30L  when  he  left  me.  As  for  the 

1  The  long-cherished  design  of  reproductions  of  his  200  illustrations  of 
Tennyson's  '  Palace  of  Art '  and  other  poems.  He  was  a  proper  worshipper  of 
Tennyson.  The  three  prongs  are  those  of  the  monogram  A. 


LATER   LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR.  395 

other,  Lambi,  he  is  going  on  decently  in  a  nin  at  Brindisi,  to  which 
I  have  had  my  part  in  helping  him.  It  appears  that  we  are  not 
in  a  position  to  judge  how  far  birth- tendencies,  and  thousands  of 
circumstances,  weak  intellect,  &c.,  &c.,  are  factors  in  the  ruin  of 
young  men  ;  anyhow  I  choose  rather  to  be  a  fool  than  over-harsh, 
and  as  for  people's  opinion  about  me  I  care  no  more  than  if  it  was 
the  9999th  part  of  a  flea's  nose.  So  I  go  my  own  way,  remembering 
the  text  that  there  is  more  j  oy  over  one  cockroach  who  is  reclaimed 
than  over  99  cockchafers  who  need  no  reclaiming. 

'  As  for  my  elth,  it  ain't  elth  particularly,  but  rather  pheebleness, 
and  I  can  now  hardly  doddlewaddle  as  far  as  the  pestilential 

postoffis.  But  I  work  a  great  deal  .  .  . has  been  and  gone 

and  bought  some  of  this  child's  work  lately,  which  if  he  hadn't 
done,  I  was  preparing  like  St.  Simon  Stylites  to  live  on  my  capital, 
which  ain't  at  all  big.  .  .  . 

'  When  you  write  to  Italians  do  you  name  your  address  : 
[Fox  How,  Ambleside,  Westmoreland]  Volpecome  ?  Trottofianco, 
Ponentepiuterra  ? 

'  By  the  bye  do  you  ever  walk  as  far  as  the  top  of  Windermere — 
(I  don't  mean  the  top  of  the  water,  as  of  course  you  don't  walk  at 
the  bottom  of  the  lake) — to  a  place  called  Wansfell  ?  I  wonder 
who  has  it  now  ;  it  used  to  be  Rev.  J.  J.  Hornby's — uncle  of  J.  J.  H. 
of  Eton — Provost.  He  and  I  (the  Provost)  used  to  run  races  all 
over  that  part  of  the  country  and  perhaps  you  don't  know  that  I 
know  every  corner  of  Westmoreland :  Scawfell  Pikes  is  my  cousin, 
and  Skiddaw  is  my  mother-in-law.' 

Never  was  a  master  more  careful  of  the  interests  of  his  servants 
than  Lear,  and  it  was  a  grief  to  him  that  his  faithful  Albanian, 
George  Cocali,  predeceased  him,  and  almost  a  greater  grief  when 
two  of  George's  sons  were  overtaken  by  misfortune.  Another 
source  of  worry  and  anxiety  was  the  untoward  fate  of  his  Villa 
Emily  at  Sanremo,  blocked  from  the  sea  by  buildings,  and  then  let 
to  some  people  as  a  school,  till  '  these  beastesses  mizzled,'  and 
left  him  in  the  lurch. 

January,  1884, 

'  So  far  the  beginning  was  beg  unbegun  a  long  time  ago  :  but  now 
— (Feby.  19) — I  have  a  purple  dicular  and  diametrical  notion  that 
I  shall  finish  this  document,  for  unless  I  do  so  I  fancy  I  shall  never 
hear  if  you  are  married  or  knot.  But  as  a  set  off  to  this  resiolution 
I  must  needs  add  that  age  and  Asthma  have  so  greatly  impaired 
my  gnatural  liveliness  and  energy  as  to  make  it  doubtful  if  I  can 


396  LATER   LETTERS   OB'   EDWARD   LEAR. 

cover  even  half  a  sheet  of  this  penurious  primeval  poppsidixious 
paper  this  evening.  .  .  .  [Three  pages  follow.] 

'  I  am  now  (e'en  in  our  ashes  live,  &c.)  working  at  a  set  of 
Palestine  drawings  and  later  shall  finish  Argos  and  Gwalior.  After 
that,  sufficient  to  the  day  is  the  weevil  thereof,  as  the  hazelnut  said 
when  the  caterpillar  made  a  hole  in  his  shell.'  .  .  . 

May  24,  1885. 

.  .  .  '  (9thly)  Signor  Marsaglia,  the  Brassey  of  Italy,  has  long 
been  making  acquedux  and  penitential  pipes  to  bring  what  he  calls 
"  Acqua  Potabile  "  from  Badaluco  above  Taggia  to  Sanremo,  and 
I  who  for  3  years  have  heard  of  this  scheme  have  always  called  it 
"  Acqua  Probabile."  But  now  it  has  really  been  brought  here, 
and  for  5/.  a  year  I  get  a  thousand  bottles  a  day,  all  of  which  as 
you  may  suppose  I  drink.  .  .  . 

'  12thly.  Enlivenment  has  been  greatly  kneaded — seeing  that 
since  poor  Nicola's  death — March  4 — 1  have  lost  my  last  surviving 
sister,  aged  84,  and  have  now  no  one  of  my  generation  except  a 
brother  in  Texas,  whom  I  have  not  seen  for  65  years. 

*  IGthly.  Have  you  any  frogs  and  snails  in  your  garden  ?  If 
not,  purchase  a  large  number  immediately,  and  place  them  in  a 
row  in  a  glass  case,  which  will  be  highly  ornamental  and  abomalous. 

'  ITthly.  Yours  affectionately,  Edward  Lear. 

'  18thly.  Amen.     God  Save  the  Queen  and  confound  Mr.  C — 

25  Hocktomber  (as  uiy  servant  calls  it),  1885. 

.  .  .'  I  have  been  and  still  am  grieved  about  W.  E.  F.orster. 
There  is  no  finer  specimen  of  an  Englishman  living,  and  his  advocacy 
of  the  interest  of  the  colonies  greatly  interested  me — not  but  what 
Lord  Rosebery  and  Lord  Dunraven  did  likewise.  .  .  . 

'  I  advise  you  all  to  take  the  Villa  Figini  at  Barzano  where  you 
may  "  rear  a  marble  slab  "  to  my  memory,  tho'  my  Boddy,  or  what 
remains  of  it,  will  be  buried  in  the  Symmetry  of  Sanremo,  where  I 
have  already  bought  a  Toomb  and  have  ordered  a  Toomstone.  .  .  . 

'  Bring  up  the  boy  [my  eldest  son]  to  be  a  Chimblysweep  rather 
than  an  artist. 

'  Epitaph  really  in  a  churchyard — Isle  of  Wight. 

*  "  Forlorn  Eliza  rears  this  marble  slab 

To  her  dear  John.     (He  died  of  eating  Crab.)  "  ' 

Edward  Lear  was  the  youngest  of  a  family  of  nineteen  children, 
of  Danish  parents,  and  he  owed  what  education  he  had  to  the  loving 
care  of  one  of  his  sisters.  His  name  was  originally  spelt  Lor.  He 


LATER   LETTERS   OF    EDWARD   LEAR.  397 

first  earned  a  precarious  livelihood  by  drawing  animal  pictures. 
Some  of  these,  in  a  window  front  in  Piccadilly,  caught  the  eye  of  the 
13th  Earl  of  Derby,  who,  after  enquiry,  invited  the  author  to  reside 
at  Knowsley  and  draw  his  zoological  specimens  there,  and  in  order  to 
amuse  his  children  the  Nonsense  Ehymes,  an  entirely  new  kind  of 
literature,  were  composed.  Now  the  rest  of  the  acts  of  Lear,  and 
his  drawings,  and  his  travels,  and  how  he  gave  lessons  to  Her  late 
Majesty  Queen  Victoria  in  1846,  are  they  not  written  in  the  book  of 
'  Nonsense  Songs  and  Stories,'  by  himself,  in  a  letter  prefixed  (1889) 
1  by  way  of  preface  '  ? 

His  anticipation  of  death  was  constant  and  of  some  long  stand- 
ing, if  not  lifelong.  He  wrote  in  May  1882  : 

.  .  .  '  There  is  No  chance  of  my  seeing  either  Cambridge  or 
Oxford  any  more — nor  England.  Ill,  and  70  years  old,  it  is  useless 
to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  inevitable — Odvaros  aKvpos,  a^opos  &c. 
Just  at  this  moment  I  am  a  little  better.  .  .  .' 

The  Greek  characters  in  the  above  quotation  from  Sophocles 
are  written  in  the  style  of  a  true  scholar's  pen.  In  thanking  me 
for  a  copy  of  Jebb's  '  Modern  Greece,'  in  1880,  he  writes  with 
enthusiasm  for  '  so  much  real  information  on  the  subject  conveyed 
in  so  condensed  and  clear  and  pleasing  a  form — so  much  learning 
combined  with  so  much  poetical  appreciation  of  the  landscape 
beauties  of  Greece — and — last  not  least — such  complete  and 
remarkable  moderation  and  good  taste  in  treating  of  a  subject  which 
seems  to  drive  many  people  crazy — or  if  they  are  already  crazy  to 
make  them  crazier.'  The  painter,  whom  the  Laureate  had  addressed 
as  '  E.  L.  on  his  Travels  in  Greece,'  was  no  incompetent  judge  of  the 
great  scholar's  volume. 

'  As  for  memory,  I  remember  lots  of  things  before  I  was  born, 
and  quite  distinctly  being  born  at  Highgate  12  May  1812.'  .  .  . 

27  April,  1884. 

...  c  On  the  29th  and  30th  of  March  I  did  not  at  all  expect  to 
live  beyond  a  few  hours,  but  Dr.  Hassall,  thank  God,  skilfully 
got  the  inflammation  under,  and  ever  since  I  have  been  getting — 
though  very  slowly — better.  Of  course  at  72  I  cannot  expect  a 
return  of  much  of  my  former  strength,  but  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be 
thankful  for  that  I  have  not  been  paralyzed  nor  have  had  my  sight 
affected. 

'  I  am  now — as  far  as  I  am  able — arranging  matters  so  that  my 
Executors  and  friends  shall  have  as  little  trouble  as  possible,  should 
it  please  God  that  my  life  end  shortly.  If  the  contrary,  I  intend  to 


398  LATER    LETTERS   OF   EDWARD   LEAR. 

endeavour  to  carry  out  my  old  plan  of  Alfred  Tennyson  Illustra- 
tions— 200  in  number — by  Autotype.' 

A  letter  of  his  written  November  7,  1887,  within  three  months 
of  his  decease,  shows  him  still  interested  in  the  movements  of  other 
persons  and  their  children,  still  able  to  laugh  at  his  own  increasing 
infirmities ;  but  this  paper  shall  conclude  with  something  epitha- 
lamial  and  happy  of  that  very  March  1884,  terminating  in  what 
Lear  might  perchance  have  called  a  Eugenious  Aram  tail.  My 
address  was  then  Dingle  Bank,  Liverpool. 

'  I  am  always  incapacitated  more  or  less  .  .  .  and  having 
worked  much  in  the  day,  I  am  Nocktupp  afterwards  entirely.  I  do 
not  know  why  you  congratulate  me  on  "  good  health  and  spirits," 
as  I  have  neither  ;  and  if  I  told  you  I  had,  I  was  muffstaken  very 
much.  .  .  . 

'  1  wish  you  a  pleasant  honeymoon.  There  are  many  large 
black  bees  here  (Sir  J.  Lubbock  writes  to  me  that  they  are  called 
Xylocopa  Violacea),  but  as  they  don't  make  honey,  I  don't  recom- 
mend you  to  take  them  with  you,  otherwise  I  would  send  a  lot. 
Your  idea  of  boating  on  the  Terns  seems  to  me  highly  grotesque  and 
bizzerable.  .  .  . 

'  He  lived  at  Dingle  Bank — he  did  ; — 

He  lived  at  Dingle  Bank  ; 
And  in  his  garden  was  one  Quail, 

Four  tulips,  and  a  Tank  : 
And  from  his  windows  he  could  see 
The  otion  and  the  River  Dee. 

'  His  house  stood  on  a  cliff, — it  did, 

Its  aspic  it  was  cool ; 
And  many  thousand  little  boys 

Resorted  to  his  school, 
Where  if  of  progress  they  could  boast 
He  gave  them  heaps  of  butter' d  toast. 

'  But  he  grew  rabid-wroth,  he  did, 

If  they  neglected  books, 
And  dragged  them  to  adjacent  cliffs 

With  beastly  Button  Hooks, 
And  there  with  fatuous  glee  he  threw 
Them  down  into  the  otion  blue. 

'  And  in  the  sea  they  swam,  they  did, — 

All  playfully  about, 
And  some  eventually  became 

Sponges,  or  speckled  trout : — 
But  Liverpool  doth  all  bewail 
Their  fate  ;— likewise  his  Garden  Quail. 

'  FlNNIS.' 

E.  C.  SELWYN. 


399 


THE   COLLING  WOOD    CENTENARY. 

(1810-1910.} 

WHEN,  four  and  a  half  years  ago,  the  British  nation  waxed 
enthusiastic  over  the  centenary  of  '  the  greatest  sailor  since  the 
world  began,'  and  kindled  at  the  recollection  of  Trafalgar,  perhaps 
somewhat  less  than  a  fitting  tribute  was  paid  to  '  that  noble  fellow 
Collingwood,'  under  whom,  after  Lord  Nelson  fell,  the  victory  was 
completed,  and  to  whom  a  share  in  the  honours  thereof  was  most 
surely  due. 

He  himself  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  thrust  himself 
forward  for  public  recognition.  He  did  not  come  home,  as  a  sur- 
vivor of  Trafalgar,  to  flaunt  his  achievements,  and  seek  advance- 
ment for  himself  and  his  family.  There  was  nothing  of  the  courtier 
about  this  noble  fellow  Collingwood.  During  the  years  that 
elapsed  between  the  death  of  Nelson  and  his  own  he  remained  at 
his  post  as  Commander-in-Chief  in  the  Mediterranean  ;  heart-sick, 
at  times,  for  home,  heart-hungry  for  the  sight  of  those  he  loved,  but 
quietly,  simply,  and  steadfastly  setting  his  duty  to  his  country 
first,  and  giving  his  life  in  her  service  as  truly,  in  the  strenuous 
labours  of  his  long  command,  as  did  Lord  Nelson  himself  upon  the 
Victory's  deck. 

Yet  the  memory  of  the  one  hero,  a  hundred  years  after  Trafalgar, 
shines  forth  with  undimmed  lustre  ;  while  the  memory  of  the  other 
seems  somehow  to  have  faded  from  out  the  minds  of  men.  Save 
only  in  his  native  North-Countree.  There,  loyal  hearts  marked 
jealously  how  scant  a  share  was  accorded  him,  by  the  nation  at 
large,  in  the  glories  of  the  Trafalgar  Centenary  ;  there,  loyal  lips 
took  pride  in  telling  over  again  the  incidents  of  his  career  ;  and 
loyal  hands  brought  their  garlands  to  the  base  of  his  statue,  where 
it  stands  upon  its  green  mound,  guarding  the  entrance  to  the 
Tyne,  and  begirt  with  the  guns  taken  from  his  ship,  the  Royal 
Sovereign.  And  many  an  eye  kindled  with  enthusiasm  as  the  great- 
nephew  of  the  Admiral  called  to  remembrance  how,  on  that  day, 
a  hundred  years  before,  those  very  guns  were  '  flaming  away  into 
the  open  ports  of  the  great  Santa  Anna,  the  second  largest  ship 
afloat,  and,  no  doubt,  bore  a  share  in  the  terrible  opening  broad- 


400  THE   COLLINGWOOD   CENTENARY. 

sides  which  killed  and  wounded  four  hundred  men,  and  dismantled 
fourteen  guns,  on  board  the  Spanish  admiral's  ship.  .  .  .  Now,'  he 
added,  '  they  were  silent,  silent  as  the  men  who  manned  them  ; 
they  had  done  their  work.'  True  ;  but  it  is  not  meet  that  the  work 
should  ever  be  forgotten  by  our  land  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
approaching  centenary  of  the  death  of  one  of  her  noblest  sons  may 
find  her  rendering  honour  to  whom  honour  is  due. 

The  name  of  Collingwood,  which  the  Admiral  crowned  with 
naval  glory,  had  long  been  one  of  note  in  the  North.  There  is  an 
old  rhyme  on  the  subject  which  somewhat  enigmatically  sets  forth 
how 

The  Collingwoods  have  borne  the  name 
Since  in  the  bush  the  buck  was  ta'en  ; 
But  when  the  bush  shall  hold  the  buck, 
Then  welcome  faith,  and  farewell  luck. 

The  allusion  is  to  the  old  crest  of  the  family,  a  stag  under  a  tree, 
which  illustrates  the  name  ;  for  the  stag,  in  the  quaint  phraseology 
of  ancient  time  (still  surviving  in  '  Jack  '  Daw,  '  Tom  '  Tit,  &c.), 
was  '  Colin,'  while  the  tree  represents  wood. 

The  Admiral's  father,  '  with  a  very  moderate  fortune,'  and  a 
wife  out  of  Westmorland,  settled  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  in  the  tall 
brick  house  at  the  head  of  the  Side,  where,  on  September  26,  1750, 
his  eldest  son  Cuthbert  was  born.  The  latter  was  sent  in  due 
course  to  the  Newcastle  Grammar  School,  the  famous  headmaster 
of  which,  Hugh  Moises,  had  under  his  rule,  during  Cuthbert's  school- 
days, three  lads  marked  out  for  future  renown  and  well-earned 
peerages  :  young  Collingwood  himself ;  John  Scott,  afterwards  Lord 
Chancellor  Eldon  ;  and  William  Scott,  who  in  later  life  was  Lord 
Stowell,  the  distinguished  judge  of  the  High  Court  of  Admiralty. 
Their  portraits  may  be  seen  side  by  side  in  the  Guildhall  to-day ; 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  all  three  scholars  retained  affectionate 
recollections  of  their  master,  after  they  had  risen  to  fame,  and  paid 
honour  to  him  in  life  and  in  death.  Hugh  Moises  lived  to  hear  of 
the  glories  of  Trafalgar,  and  of  the  '  consummate  valour,  judgment 
and  skill '  whereby  Admiral  Collingwood  earned  his  Sovereign's 
'  entire  approbation  and  admiration.'  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  there 
also  came  to  his  knowledge  the  comment,  said  to  have  been  made 
by  King  George,  after  perusing  the  Admiral's  despatch  with  details 
of  Trafalgar  :  '  Where  did  this  sea-captain  get  his  admirable 
English  ?  Oh  !  I  remember  !  He  was  one  of  Moises'  boys.' 

In  the  year  following  Trafalgar  the  good  man  died,  and  Lord 


THE   COLLINGWOOD    CENTENARY.  401 

Collingwood  wrote  home  from  his  ship,  sending  '  201.  for  the  monu- 
ment of  his  worthy  master.' 

He  himself  had  spent  no  very  lengthy  period  under  Moises' 
instruction.  At  the  age  of  eleven  the  '  pretty,  gentle  boy '  bade 
farewell  to  his  studies  at  the  Grammar  School,  passing  thence  to 
'  the  greater  school  of  the  sea.'  At  sea  he  remained,  almost  entirely, 
during  the  next  twenty-five  years,  serving  in  many  different  parts 
of  the  world,  and  rising,  step  by  step,  to  the  rank  of  captain.  In 
1786  he  came  home,  for  the  purpose  of  '  making  his  acquaintance 
with  his  own  family  ' — to  quote  his  own  remark  on  the  subject. 
He  further  made  acquaintance  with  the  charming  and  admirable 
woman  who  became  his  wife.  She  was  a  daughter  of  Alderman 
John  Erasmus  Blackett,  an  offshoot  of  the  famous  Blackett  stock, 
whose  name  had  been  for  a  century  or  more  the  synonym  for 
i  successful  enterprise  and  honourable  prosperity.  The  Alderman 
was  a  widower,  whose  wife  had  been  a  Roddam  of  Heathpool,  the 
Northumbrian  estate  which  subsequently  furnished  a  title  to 
Admiral  Collingwood.  The  gallant  sailor  and  his  lady-love  were 
married  in  June  1791,  the  bridegroom  being  thus  in  his  forty-first 
I  year  ;  and  the  couple  made  their  home  at  Morpeth,  in  the  house 
which,  at  this  day,  fulfils  the  assurance  quoted  by  Lord  Collingwood 
in  writing  to  his  wife's  relations  :  '  They  tell  me  it  is  good  and 
strong  built,  and  will  be  a  good  house  after  our  time.'  It  is  now 
known  (although  it  was  not  then)  as  Collingwood  House,  and  is 
the  property  of  the  Benedictine  Order,  who  have  a  mission  in 
Morpeth.  Its  outlook  and  surroundings  have  changed  their 
character  since  our  hero  brought  his  bride  across  its  threshold  in 
that  summer  of  1791  ;  but  the  plain,  solidly  built  brick  house 
tself  is  not  substantially  altered,  and  all  who  revere  Lord  Colling- 
wood's  memory  must  feel  an  interest  in  the  roof  beneath  which  his 
Drief  home-life,  after  the  wedding  day,  was  spent. 

Here  he  and  his  wife  passed  the  next  two  years  together  in 
simplest,  calmest  happiness.  Here  his  two  little  daughters  were 
oorn  :  Sarah,  in  May  1792,  and  Mary  Patience  in  the  following 
year.  Here  he  enjoyed  for  a  brief  space  the  charm  of  a  country 
gentleman's  leisured  life,  and  walked  about  the  Castle  banks,  and 
owed  his  acorns  there,  as  his  cherished  practice  was.  '  If,'  said 
ie,  '  the  country  gentlemen  do  not  make  it  a  point  to  grow  oaks, 
wherever  they  will  grow,  the  time  will  not  be  very  distant  when, 
to  keep  our  navy,  we  must  depend  entirely  upon  captures  from  the 
enemy.  I  wish  everybody  thought  on  this  subject  as  I  do ;  they 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  165,  JN.8.  26 


402  THE   COLLINGWOOD   CENTENARY. 

would  not  walk  through  their  farms  without  a  pocketful  of  acorns 
to  drop  in  the  hedge-sides,  and  then  let  them  take  their  chance.' 
(A  hundred  years  ago,  how  little  anybody  foresaw  the  era  of 
Dreadnoughts  !) 

Writing  to  Lady  Collingwood,  in  the  year  after  Trafalgar,  he 
observed  :  '  It  is  very  agreeable  to  me  to  hear  that  you  are  taking 
care  of  my  oaks,  and  transplanting  them  to  Hethpoole.  If  ever  I 
get  back  I  will  plant  a  good  deal  there  in  patches.'  And  in  a  letter 
to  '  his  darlings,  little  Sarah  and  Mary,'  desiring  them  to  write  him 
very  often,  and  tell  him  '  all  the  news  of  the  city  of  Newcastle  and 
town  of  Morpeth,'  he  mentions  his  oaks  once  more.  '  Be  kind  to 
old  Scott,'  he  adds ;  '  when  you  see  him  weeding  my  oaks  give  the 
old  man  a  shilling.'  '  Old  Scott's  '  name  occurs  in  more  than  one 
of  his  letters  :  as,  for  instance,  in  that  which  he  wrote  during  the 
weary  cruise  off  Toulon,  three  years  after  leaving  home,  when  he 
describes  how  the  want  of  vegetables,  a  privation  felt  more  than 
any  other,  caused  him  to  long  for  some  of  the  bad  potatoes  which 
that  ancient  and  faithful  retainer  used  to  throw  over  the  wall  of 
the  garden  at  Morpeth. 

Some  of  those  oaks  of  the  Admiral's  sowing,  now  gnarled  old 
trees,  are  flourishing  still  upon  the  Heathpool  estate.  But  it  was 
not  his  to  behold  the  growth  upspringing  from  the  acorns  he  had 
set.  In  1793  came  the  recall  to  his  naval  duties,  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  with  France  ;  and  from  then  until  the  last  home-coming,  in 
death,  he  was  only  able  to  spend  one  year  in  England. 

He  was  appointed  captain  of  Admiral  Bowyer's  flagship  Prince. 
In  the  famous  victory  of  Sir  John  Jervis  off  Cape  St.  Vincent,  in 
February  1797,  when  the  Mediterranean  fleet  of  fifteen  sail  defeated 
the  combined  forces  of  France  and  Spain,  Collingwood,  as  well  as 
his  '  excellent  friend  '  and  colleague,  Nelson,  played  an  important 
part.  All  the  leading  men,  who  combined  with  him  in  the  glorious 
action,  were  enthusiastic  in  their  praise  of  his  performance,  declaring 
that '  nothing  could  exceed  the  spirit  and  true  officership  so  happily 
displayed.' 

These  qualities  were  destined,  within  ten  years  after,  to  be  the 
talk  of  all  England.  Their  supreme  test  was  the  battle  of  Trafalgar, 
of  which  the  Admiral  wrote  home  afterwards  :  '  There  never  was 
such  a  combat  since  England  had  a  fleet.'  To  Collingwood,  at, 
Trafalgar,  belongs  the  honour  of  being  the  first  to  attack  and 
break  the  enemy's  line,  by  a  masterly  move  which  called  forth  bis 
great  commander's  famous  comment.  To  Collingwood  belongs  the 


THE   COLLINGWOOD    CENTENARY.  403 

honour  of  having  brought  the  fight  to  its  triumphant  close,  a  fact 
that  was  recognised  by  Lord  Nelson  as  he  sent  him  his  loving  fare- 
well. A  letter  written,  within  a  week  of  Trafalgar,  to  '  My  dear 
Coll,'  remains  as  proof  of  the  affectionate  regard  of  that  hero  for 
his  gallant  second-in-command. 

The  reward  of  Lord  Collingwood's  services  at  Trafalgar  was  his 
elevation  to  the  peerage,  by  the  title  of  Baron  Collingwood  of 
Caldburne  and  Hethpoole  in  the  County  of  Northumberland. 
Concerning  the  latter  event,  he  writes  thus  in  delightful  fashion  to 
his  wife  :  '  Blessed  may  you  be,  my  dearest  love  ;  and  may  you 
long  live  the  happy  wife  of  your  happy  husband  !  I  do  not  know 
how  you  bear  your  honours,  but  I  have  so  much  business  on  my 
j  hands  from  dawn  till  midnight  that  I  have  hardly  time  to  think  of 
mine.  ...  A  week  before  the  war,  at  Morpeth,  I  dreamed  distinctly 
many  of  the  circumstances  of  our  late  battle  off  the  enemy's 
port,  and  I  believe  I  told  you  of  it  at  the  time ;  but  I  never 
I  dreamed  that  I  was  to  be  a  Peer  of  the  Realm.'  He  was  destined 
inever  to  see  the  wife  he  so  loved  after  she  became  '  My  Lady  ' ; 
mot  even  in  a  brief  glimpse  such  as  that  in  January  1801,  when 
she  and  his  elder  daughter  paid  him  a  surprise  visit  at  Plymouth 
IHarbour,  where  he  went  ashore  to  them,  with  joyful  speed,  on 
{receiving  news  of  their  presence,  and  spent  the  evening  with  them 
in  happiness  so  perfect  that  we  sigh  in  sympathy  to  think  it  was 
so  brief. 

After  Trafalgar  he  continued  the  blockade  of  Cadiz,  the  straits 
of  Gibraltar,  and  the  neighbouring  coast,  hunting  the  enemy  from 
>ort  to  port  with  indomitable  pluck  and  perseverance.  In  the 
ear  following  the  battle,  the  death  of  a  cousin  (Edward  Colling- 
rood)  put  him  in  possession  of  an  estate  at  Chirton,  near  North 
•hields,  in  his  native  county,  concerning  which  he  wrote  several 
haracteristic  letters  to  his  wife  and  father-in-law.  To  the  latter 


'  I  am  much  obliged  for  the  information  you  give  me  about 
Chirton,  and  I  wish  that  the  very  letter  of  the  will  of  my  deceased 
riend  should  be  observed.  Whatever  establishments  may  be  found 
here  for  the  comfort  of  the  poor,  or  the  education  and  improve- 
ment of  their  children,  I  would  have  continued  and  increased, 
want  to  make  no  great  accession  of  wealth  from  it,  nor  will  I  have 
mybody  put  to  the  smallest  inconvenience  for  me.5 

T^is  assurance  is  made  anew  in  subsequent  communications  ; 
while  the  fact  that  his  solicitude  extended  even  to  a  four-footed 

26—2 


404  THE   COLLINGWOOD   CENTENARY. 

retainer  of  his  '  deceased  friend '  is  thus  charmingly  revealed  in  a 
letter  to  his  wife  : — 

'  I  need  not  tell  you,  my  dear,  to  be  very  kind  to  Mr.  Colling- 
wood's  dog,  for  I  am  sure  you  will,  and  so  will  I  whenever  I  come 
home.' 

Towards  Christmas  in  that  same  year  he  wrote  her  thus  : — 

'  I  suppose,  when  the  spring  opens,  you  will  be  moving  to 
Chirton  ;  and  I  hope  you  will  not  have  a  steam-engine  in  front,  to 
lull  you  with  its  noise,  instead  of  those  delightful  blackbirds  whose 
morning  and  evening  song  made  my  heart  gay.' 

The  house  at  Chirton  was,  however,  very  pleasantly  placed 
amongst  fields  and  gardens,  with  a  clear  outlook  towards  a  River 
Tyne  less  grimy  then  than  now.  A  square-built,  substantial 
residence  it  was,  which  bore,  in  the  frieze  above  the  doorway,  the 
date  of  1693,  and  the  name  of  Winifrid  Milbourne,  whose  grand- 
daughter, Mary  Roddam,  had  married  Edward  Collingwood,  after- 
wards known  as  '  the  Squire  of  Chirton,'  and  made  him  father  of 
the  other  Edward  Collingwood  by  whom  the  estate  was  devised  to 
the  Admiral  and  his  heirs. 

The  old  house  is  now,  alas  !  no  more,  having  been  pulled  down, 
within  the  last  decade  or  so,  to  make  way  for  Co-operative  Stores. 
A  plea  was  put  forth,  by  Chirton  residents,  that  at  least  the  stone 
pillars  of  the  gateway  might  be  spared ;  but  the  concession  was 
denied,  and  of  the  Admiral's  property  nothing  but  a  memory 
remains.  He  himself  never  resided  at  Chirton  House,  as,  after  it 
came  into  his  possession,  he  was  never  in  England  again  ;  but  Lady 
Collingwood  and  her  daughters  made  it,  for  some  time,  their  home, 
while  the  brave  Admiral,  remaining  at  his  post  in  the  Mediterranean, 
slowly  wore  out  in  the  cause  of  Duty. 

His  devotion  to  that  stern  goddess  was  every  whit  as  intense  as 
Nelson's  own.  '  His  life,'  he  truly  said,  '  was  his  country's,  in 
whatever  way  it  might  be  required  of  him.'  '  Personal  exposure, 
colds,  rheumatism,  ague — all  seemed  nothing  to  him  when  his  duty 
called,'  writes  one  by  whom  he  was  known  in  life  and  mourned  in 
death  ;  and  who  goes  on  to  describe  having  '  seen  him  upon  deck 
without  his  hat,  and  his  grey  hair  floating  in  the  wind,  whilst 
torrents  of  rain  poured  down  through  the  shrouds  ;  and  his  eye, 
like  the  eagle's,  on  the  watch.  ...  It  was  his  general  rule,'  he  adds,, 
'  in  tempestuous  weather,  and  upon  any  hostile  emergency  that 
occurred,  to  sleep  upon  his  sofa  in  a  flannel  gown,  taking  off  only 
his  epaulctted  coat.' 


THE   COLLINGWOOD   CENTENARY.  405 

His  wisdom  and  tact  were  not  less  remarkable  than  his  courage. 
When,  in  the  course  of  his  Mediterranean  command,  he  found  him- 
self enmeshed  in  political  complications,  he  showed  real  diplomatic 
genius  in  managing  a  difficult  situation.  But  the  unrelieved  strain 
was  telling  heavily  upon  his  physical  strength.  Four  years  after 
Trafalgar  we  find  him  describing  himself,  somewhat  sadly,  as  *  an 
infirm  old  man.'  A  few  months  later  he  refers  to  the  steady  failure 
of  his  health  during  the  past  year,  and  to  the  '  severe  complaint ' 
which  prevented  him  from  eating  ;  a  complaint  increased  by 
confinement  upon  shipboard  and  perpetual  stooping  over  his 
writing  desk.  '  It  is  my  constant  occupation  alone  that  keeps  me 
alive,'  he  observes  ;  adding  the  hope  that  he  may  be  allowed  before 
long  to  return  to  England,  as  '  it  will,  otherwise,  be  soon  too  late.' 

Too  late  it  was,  even  then.  The  letter,  quoted  above,  was 
written  in  February  1810.  On  the  third  day  of  the  following 
month  he  was  compelled  to  cry  out  that  the  work  which  had  '  kept 
him  alive  '  thus  far  was  now  beyond  him,  and  to  ask  for  the  relief 
that  he  had  so  long  waited  for  in  vain.  He  surrendered  his  command 
to  Rear- Admiral  Martin,  bade  farewell  to  the  squadron,  and  in  his 
ship,  the  Ville  de  Paris,  set  sail  for  home.  But  he  was  never  to 
reach  it.  On  March  6,  as  the  vessel  sailed  out  of  Port  Mahon,  and 
he  was  told  that  he  was  again  at  sea,  he  seemed  momentarily  to 
revive  out  of  his  condition  of  extreme  prostration,  and  observed  to 
those  around  him,  '  Then  I  may  yet  live  to  meet  the  French  once 
more.'  It  was  but  the  last  flash  of  the  dauntless  spirit  ere  it  was 
quenched  by  Death.  Next  day  the  captain,  who  was  with  him  in 
his  cabin,  remarked  that  he  was  afraid  the  motion  of  the  vessel  was 
disturbing  to  him.  The  dying  Admiral,  with  a  faint  smile,  shook 
his  head,  and  made  tranquil  answer  :  '  I  am  now  in  a  state  in  which 
nothing  in  this  world  can  disturb  me  more.'  The  same  day,  at 
evening,  he  calmly  breathed  his  last. 

The  worn-out  frame  was  laid  to  rest,  with  pomp  and  ceremony, 
beside  the  tomb  of  Lord  Nelson  in  St.  Paul's.  Forty  years  after 
Trafalgar  there  was  erected  to  his  memory,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Tyne,  that  noble  monument  which  is  a  familiar  sight  to  vessels — 
outward  bound  or  home  returning — as  they  cross  the  Bar.  It  is 
from  the  design  of  the  North-country  sculptor  Lough,  the  statue 
itself  being  23  feet  in  height,  and  the  pedestal  50  feet.  It  is  admir- 
ably placed  on  the  grassy  eminence  ('  Galley  Hill ')  which  stands, 
overlooking  an  ancient  moat,  between  the  river-edge  and  a  deep 
hollow,  where  once  lay  the  fishpond  of  Tynemouth  Priory.  There, 


406  THE   COLLINGWOOD  CENTENARY. 

on  the  centenary  of  England's  greatest  naval  victory,  gathered 
those  who  were  mindful  of  the  part  that  Admiral  Collingwood 
played  that  day  ;  and  on  a  flagstaff  erected  for  the  purpose  in 
front  of  the  monument,  the  naval  ensign  was  displayed,  and 
Nelson's  memorable  signal  in  flags  run  up. 

This  was  on  a  clear  and  bright  afternoon  in  October.  Lord 
Collingwood's  personal  centenary  will  fall  due  amid  the  gusty  gales 
of  March.  Yet  surely  there  will  be  found  among  us  those  who  will 
brave  the  weather  and  make  their  way  to  offer  a  tribute  of  remem- 
brance at  the  noble  Admiral's  feet,  where  he  stands  yonder,  as  he 
stood  upon  his  deck  of  old,  looking  with  an  eagle  front  towards  the 
sea.  And  surely  there  will  be  many  more  who  will  give  at  least  a 
passing  thought  to  that  brave  soul  which,  as  it  left  our  earth  a 
hundred  years  ago,  might  fitly  have  echoed  with  dying  breath  the 
words  of  the  great  commander  gone  before — 

'  Thank  God  !   I  have  done  my  duty  ! ' 

Q.    SCOTT-HOPPER. 


407 


1  FRESH'  AND   <  OVERDAY: 

FOR  seven  or  eight  months  in  the  year  the  east  side  of  the  haven 
is  fringed  with  a  forest  of  fir  poles — the  masts  of  herring-boats. 
There  is  always  a  clearing  in  this  forest,  however,  even  at  the  busy 
season,  when  the  crowd  of  drifters  extends  for  two  miles  and  a  half 
up  to  the  haven  bridge.  This  clearing  is  the  wharf  of  the  Trinity 
Brethren  at  their  North  Sea  station.  From  time  to  time  clumsy 
light-vessels  with  the  names  painted  upon  them  in  eight-foot 
white  letters  are  moored  there  ;  and  at  regular  intervals  the  trim 
black  steamer  with  buff  funnel  which  acts  as  relief-boat  takes  up 
its  berth. 

The  '  relief  '  had  been  two  or  three  days  in  harbour.  On  the 
Trinity  quay  was  a  permanent  medley  of  huge  riveted  buoys, 
long  gas-cylinders,  enormous  '  mushrooms,'  and  lengths  of  chain 
cable.  There  is  a  lofty  white  look-out  from  which  vigilant  eyes 
incessantly  peer  across  the  narrow  tongue  of  populous  land  to  the 
roadstead  beyond.  Under  the  look-out,  the  stores  and  yard  with 
the  double  doorway  (through  which  the  tram  lines  run)  were 
silent,  for  it  was  the  midday  pause  in  the  work.  Three  or  four 
newly  relieved  men  loitered  at  the  open  gates,  gossiping  with  that 
air  of  detachment  and  deliberate  leisure  which  would  seem  to  be 
the  monopoly  of  seafaring  men  and  farm  labourers.  Being  out  of 
the  store  and  off  duty,  they  were  smoking  to  a  man.  Cavanagh, 
the  stores-keeper,  in  a  smart  cheese-cutter  cap  and  brass-buttoned 
reefer,  was  with  them. 

'  I  reckon  that  what  you  have  to  do  first  of  all  is  to  know  what 
you  want,  and  the  next  thing  is  to  get  it — if  you  can,'  he  was 
saying  with  some  emphasis. 

'  /  doan't,  then,'  responded  Joe  Maylett.  The  guernseyed 
seamen  looked  to  him  as  to  an  oracle,  a  part  which  the  senior 
lightsman  of  the  '  Inner  Watcher '  was  disposed  to  play.  '  I  doan't, 
then.'  He  pursed  his  baggy  mouth  argumentatively,  and  his  dull 
blue  eyes  showed  some  animation.  Maylett's  teeth  were  browned 
with  tobacco  juice,  and  he  used  habitually  a  blackened  briar. 
He  tapped  the  pipe  gently  on  his  plump  palm,  which  he  then  wiped 
thoughtfully  on  one  of  his  short,  thick  thighs.  He  was  a  lightsman 


408  'FRESH'   AND    '  OVERDAY.' 

of  thirty  years'  standing,  a  famous  maker  of  silk  rigging  in  his  time 
afloat ;  and  his  flabby  moon  face  was  as  devoid  of  weather-tan  as 
a  landsman's.  To  any  but  his  present  audience  his  deliberation 
would  have  been  exasperating.  Having  filled  the  briar  he  lit  it, 
and  again  repeated  slowly,  '  /  doan't,  then.'  He  took  a  few  placid 
puffs  and  explained  his  views.  '  /  reckon  what  you  hev  to  do  in 
this  wurrld ' — he  indicated  the  silent  river  and  the  littered  wharf 
as  constituting  the  world  of  which  he  spoke — '  I  reckon  you  hev 
to  fust  of  all  find  out  what  you  want — an'  then  larn  to  do  without 
hevin'  it.' 

'  Why,  Joe  ?  '  asked  a  seaman  of  this  philosopher,  for  Maylett's 
enigmatic  deliveries  were  frequently  preludes  to  a  yarn. 

'  Come  across  the  road,'  said  Cavanagh,  who  seemed  indifferent 
to  the  lightsman's  opposition  to  his  views.  He  emphasised  the 
invitation  with  a  jerk  of  his  head  towards  the  back  of  the  wharf. 
'  Come  across  to  the  "  Light,"  Joe,  and  tell  us  what  you  mean.' 

Without  further  speech  the  group  sauntered  over  the  muddy 
quay,  skirted  the  store,  crossed  the  unguarded  ballast  rails,  and 
made  for  the  door  of  the  '  Floating  Light.' 

It  was  a  gray  day  outside  and  darker  within.  Maylett  sat 
down  at  an  iron-topped  table  covered  with  an  irregular  pattern  of 
interlaced  brown  rings.  The  stores-keeper  had  suggested  beer  for 
the  party,  and  the  reply  in  each  case  had  been,  '  I  doan't  mind  if 
I  do,'  which  is  customary  in  the  non-committal  East.  The  senior 
lightsman  passed  the  back  of  his  plump  hand  across  his  scanty 
beard  with  a  sigh  of  contentment. 

'  Look  here,'  he  said,  '  you  want  to  know  why  I  say  you 
hev  to  fust  find  out  what  you  want  an'  then  larn  to  be  content 
without  it.  Well,  I'll  tell  ye.'  He  paused,  looked  full  at  the  stores- 
keeper  with  his  slow  blue  eyes,  and  asked  :  '  Did  y'  ever  know 
Bob  Colby  ? — him  what  kep'  the  fish  shop  on  South  Gates  Eoad, 
Mr.  Cavanagh.' 

'  Know  Bob  Colby  ?     Why,  yes,  of  course.     He  had  a  daughter 
who  used  to  serve  in  the  shop,  didn't  he  ?  '  replied  the  stores-  I 
keeper. 

'  Right  you  are,'  returned  Maylett  sententiously.     '  That'll  do 
to  make  my  meanin'  plain.     If  you  remember  her,  I  dessay  you'll 
rec'llect  she  was  a  fine-built  gal,  a  trifle  inclined  to  be  fleshy,  with  , 
black  hair,  red  cheeks,  an'  black  eyes.' 

Cavanagh  nodded.  The  lightsman  looked  round  slowly  at  his 
hearers,  and  then  smote  his  fat  hand  on  the  table.  '  Lina  Colby 


•FRESH'   ANT)    <  OVERDAY/  409 

was  no  fule  ;  but  she  didn't  know  what  she  wanted.  But  Dan'l 
Fry  an'  George  Horlock,  they  did  know  what  they  wanted — they 
both  of  'em  wanted  she.  Well,  as  I  said,  Lina  worn't  a  fule.  They 
was  both  smart  young  fellers — two  of  the  youngest  skippers  o' 
drifters  on  the  wharf — an'  she  didn't  fare  to  know  which  to  hev. 
Fust  it  was  one,  and  then  t'other  ;  one  day  Dan'l  an'  next  day 
George.  She  kep'  'em  hangin'  on  an'  off  like  a  couple  of  fishin'- 
luggers  waitin'  for  a  tow  into  the  haven. 

'  One  night  Dan'l  Fry  happened  to  go  into  the  fish  shop  when 
George  Horlock  was  there  talkin'  to  the  gal.  He  looked  a  bit 
s'prised  to  see  her  makin5  so  free  with  t'other.  Ye  see,  he'd  ondle 
heered  a  word  or  two  'bout  George's  goin'  there.  But  he  said, 
"  Evenin',  Lina." 

'  She  said,  "  Evenin',  Dan'l." 

'  He  said,  "  Are  ye  goin'  out  for  a  walk,  Lina  ?  " 

"  I  doan't  know  that  I  am,"  ses  she.  You  see,  for  once  she 
forgot  that  she'd  promised  to  go  out  with  Dan'l. 

"  I  thought  you  was  goin'  along  o'  me  on  the  Front  as  far  's 
the  monnyment,"  he  said,  a  bit  put  out.  The  gal  laughed.  George 
hadn't  spoke  yit ;  but  he  looked  up  at  Dan'l's  wurrds,  an'  he  looked 
wery  savage  at  Dan'l. 

'  Then  George  said  to  her,  "  Did  ye  tell  him  that,  Lina  ?  " 
She  laughed  ag'in  an'  shook  her  earrings,  but  she  didn't  say 
nothin'. 

'  "  My  b'lief  is,"  Dan'l  Fry  said,  "  that  you  hev  been  a-makin' 
game  of  us  two.  What's  this  man  a-doin'  of  here,  Lina  ?  "  he 
shouts  out,  smackin'  his  hand  on  the  counter. 

"  He  hev  come  to  see  me,  Dan'l,"  ses  she,  laughin'  fit  to  split. 

"  Oh,  he  hev,  hev  he  !  "  Dan'l  said.  Then  he  turned  to  George. 
"  What  d'you  say'  bout  it  ?  " 

"  I  say,"  George  answers  him,  short  and  sharp,  "  I  say  I 
come  to  see  the  gal,  an'  what  the  hell's  that  got  to  do  with  you  ?  " 

"  A  bloomin'  lot,"  shouts  t'other.  "  I  hev  come  to  take  the 
gal  out  for  a  walk.  If  she  'oan't  come,  all  right ;  ondle  you  ain't 
a-goin'  to  stop  here." 

"  Why  not  ?  "  ses  George  Horlock,  gettin'  red  in  the  face. 

"  Cos  you  an'  me  are  a-goin'  for  a  walk  instead  ;  jist  to  settle 
things  once  an'  for  all." 

"  I'm  ready,  Dan'l  Fry,"  George  ses  ;  and  they  turned  round 's 
if  to  go  out  of  the  shop  without  sayin'  a  wurrd  to  Lina. 

'  She'd  been  laughin'  an'  her  eyes  dancin'  up  to  then  ;    but 


410  'FRESH'   AND   '  OVERDAY. 

when  she  saw  'em  both  goin'  out,  she  ses,  "  George,  if  you're  fond 
of  me,  doan't  fight  him." 

'  George  stopped,  but  Dan'l  catched  hold  of  his  coat,  and  she 
ses,  "  An',  Dan'l,  you  alms  say  you'd  do  anything  for  me." 

'  You  see,  she  thought  there  was  goin'  to  be  a  fight,  an'  she 
reckoned  'twouldn't  do  her  no  manner  of  good  if  one  did  bash 
t'other,  an'  she  was  frightened  for  'em  both.  So  she  up  an'  spoke 
the  truth.  "  Well,"  she  said,  "  I  like  ye  both.  I  doan't  fare  to 
know  which  of  ye  I  like  best,  an'  tha's  the  truth.  But  I  can't 
marry  ye  both,  can  I  ?  Ye  hev  both  asked  me,  an'  I  hevn't  pro- 
mised neither  of  ye.  Now  the  truth's  out,  an'  ye  both  know  it." 
I  reckon  if  they'd  had  any  sense  they'd  hev  both  come  away  an' 
left  her,  for  she  worn't  worth  quarrellin'  'bout.  Still,  they  both  of 
'em  wanted  her,  an'  they  worn't  quarrelsome  chaps,  so  they  went 
back  ag'in. 

'  You  hev  got  to  make  up  your  mind  one  way  or  t'other,"  said 
George  Horlock,  quite  determined  like.     "  Hevn't  she,  Dan'l  ?  " 

'  "  Ay,  ay  !  "  said  Dan'l. 

'  Lina  put  her  head  back  an'  laughed.  "  But  I  can't  \  "  she 
said. 

'  "  You'U  hev  to,"  said  Dan'l,  gettin'  wild.  "  Ye  can't  marry 
the  two  of  us." 

'  She  was  goin'  to  say  somethin'  saucy  'bout  not  wantin'  either 
of  'em,  but  she  bit  it  back,  for  Lina  had  a  good  eye  for  the  main 
chance.  You  see,  they  wor  both  in  constant  employ,  and  both 
of  'em  smart  young  chaps.  So  she  shook  her  earrings  and  flashed 
her  peepers  at  'em,  an'  then  she  said,  "  Well,  I  reckon  I'll  marry 
the  man  what  can  keep  me  best." 

'  There  worn't  much  in  that,  you  might  say,  'cos  they  was 
both  as  well  off  as  each  other  ;  but  she  explained  what  she  meant. 
You  see,  it  was  jist  afore  the  driftin'.  "  I'll  tell  ye  what,"  Lina 
said,  "  you're  both  sailin'  for  the  same  owner  " — Jimmy  Sayers 
'twas — "  you're  both  startin'  the  v'y'ges  together,  an'  there  ain't 
a  pin  to  choose  between  you.  I'll  marry  the  one  of  ye  at  Christmas 
—'cos  it's  free  then  " — Lina  was  a  rare  one  for  the  main  chance— 
"  I'll  marry  the  one  of  ye  what  gits  the  biggest  price  for  the  fust 
catch  this  season."  You  see,  she  knowed  what  she  was  talkin' 
'bout,  'cos  they  both  of  'em  got  a  share  in  the  profits. 

'  Well,  Dan'l  and  George  shook  hands  over  it,  an'  agreed  to 
try  for  Lina  that  way.  They  both  knew  what  they  wanted,  an' 
they  was  tryin'  to  git  it.' 


'  FRESH'   AND    '  OVERDAY.'  411 

Joe  Maylett  told  the  story  with  much  deliberation,  and  made 
sundry  dramatic  pauses  in  its  recital.  At  each  pause  he  ceased  to 
gesticulate  to  take  a  swig  at  his  beer.  At  this  last  halt  the  stores- 
keeper  noted  that  the  pewter  was  perpendicular  at  his  lips.  Cavanagh 
nodded  to  the  barman,  and  Maylett's  '  Thanks — my  best  respec's  ' 
prefaced  the  next  portion  of  the  narrative. 

'  Soon  arter  that,  George  Horlock  and  Dan'l  Fry  made  their 
fust  v'y'ge  that  season.  You  see,  they'd  a  ticklish  job.  It  worn't 
the  one  what  got  most  herrin's  that  was  bound  to  win,  'twas  the 
one  what  made  the  biggest  price.  That  meant  they'd  got  to  keep 
a  eye  on  poss'ble  prices  at  the  wharf.  If  they  got  home  in  the 
middle  of  a  glut,  one  of  'em  bein'  home  half  a  hour  in  front  of 
t'other  might  make  all  the  difference.  You  know  how  prices  go 
down  at  the  wharf  on  a  full  market,  doan't  ye  ?  ' 

Maylett's  audience  nodded  as  one  man. 

'  An'  if  they  left  it  till  there  worn't  very  few  fish  'bout,  'twould 
be  jist  luck  which  would  get  most.  At  the  same  time,  they  might 
lose  their  job  if  they  didn't  bring  'em  home  when  the  herrin's  was 
about.  So  it  worn't  so  easy  as  it  looked.  The  weather  happened 
to  be  funny  ;  the  fish  was  in  patches  an'  the  wind  was  choppin' 
an'  changin'  about.  When  they  got  'bout  a  hundered  an'  ninety 
mile  out — you  see,  the  herrin's  were  to  the  nor'ard,  bein'  'arly 
in  the  season — everybody  was  makin'  fair  catches.  "  This  here 
'oan't  do,"  thought  Dan'l ;  "  I  shan't  git  any  prices  like  this." 
An'  George  Horlock  reckoned  the  same. 

'  They  was  both  out  all  one  night  without  fishin',  an'  they  was 
watchin'  each  other  like  cats.  The  other  boats  what  started  when 
they  did  had  got  their  nets  arter  shootin'  'em,  an'  was  makin'  for 
market ;  so  they'd  got  the  sea  to  theirselves.  Accordin'  to  George 
Horlock's  reckonin'  the  other  boats  would  be  too  late  for  Sat'rday's 
sale,  an'  hev  to  sell  overdays  on  Monday.  You  see,  George  had 
got  ole  Sam  Botwright's  brother  Ted  aboard  with  him,  an'  Dan'l 
Fry  knowed  it.  You  know  ole  Sam  Botwright  what  hev  the 
'Arbert  an9  Polly,  the  luckiest  an'  the  cliverest  skipper  on  the 
wharf.  Well,  if  his  brother  Ted  had  been  as  stiddy  as  Sam,  he'd 
hev  been  a  skipper  too.  There  worn't  much  'bout  herrin's  Ted 
didn't  know  ;  and  though  he  was  ondle  deck-hand  on  George's 
boat  an'  gen'rally  started  out  freshy,  George  knowed  he  could 
tell  him  what  to  do.  All  this  here  Dan'l  Fry  knowed,  so  he  kep' 
a  look-out  for  fish,  and  he  studied  the  weather,  and  he  kep' 
one  eye  on  George  Horlock's  boat— the  Gel  Em'ly,  George  had ; 


412  'FRESH'   AND   'OVERDAY 

DanTs  boat  was  the  Boy  Dick.  So  Dan'l  watched  t'other's  fishin' 
policy. 

'  The  second  night  out,  Sat'rday  night,  George  Horlock  made 
a  shot.  He  knowed  Dan'l  was  watchin'  him,  so  he  risked  it  an' 
made  his  shot  without  the  driftin'  lights  h'isted.  But  Dan'l  Fry 
tumbled  to  it,  an'  made  his  shot  too.  You  see,  Ted  Botwright 
had  told  George,  "  There's  a  mort  of  fish  off  there  to  the  nor'-nor'- 
east.  We  hev  seen  the  gulls  an'  the  porp'ses  hangin'  round  the 
shoal  all  day.  Well,  there's  heavy  weather  a-comin'  on,  an'  if  you 
want  to  git  'em  home  in  prime  condition  for  Monday  mornin' 
market,  you'll  hev  to  make  your  shot  t'-night.  It  '11  take  you  all 
day  Sunday  an'  all  Sunday  night  to  beat  home,  'cos  we're  goin'  to 
git  it  hard  from  the  south'ard,  an'  we  shall  be  reefed  down.  You'll 
git  middlin'  prices,"  he  said,  "  'cos  there  'oan't  be  no  more  fishin' 
weather  for  a  week  or  more."  He  knowed  somethin',  did  Ted. 
It  was  him  what  gave  George  the  tip  'bout  not  showin'  no  driftin'- 
lights  ;  but  Dan'l  Fry  was  watchin'  the  Gel  Em'ly  so  close  that  he 
tumbled  to  it. 

'  Well,  they  both  caught  'bout  the  same,  an'  when  the  dawn 
come  up  both  crews  was  swillin'  down  decks,  an'  by  the  look  of  the 
boats — they  was  twin  boats — they'd  both  got  'bout  ten  lasts  each  ; 
though  you  couldn't  tell  for  sartin  then.  They  h'isted  sail  as  soon's 
they  could,  but  the  weather  was  lumpin'  up  and  the  lint  had  been 
hard  to  git.  They  had  the  sea  to  theirselves,  for  'tworn't  likely 
that  boats  'd  come  out  with  the  south  cone  up  for  a  gale,  an'  it 
spelt  thunderin'  good  prices  for  either  of  'em,  though  the  fust  boat 
was  boun'  to  do  best.  So  it  turned  out  that  they  was  to  hev  a 
race  back  for  the  fust  market.  As  I  say,  the  boats  was  twins,  an' 
there  worn't  much  to  choose  between  'em  for  seamanship. 

'  All  day  Sunday  they  raced  ;  they  was  beatin'  for  home  ag'inst 
a  south-east'rly  gale  that  Ted  Botwright  reckoned  would  back 
to  the  east'ard  afore  nex'  day.  At  times,  on  the  long-leg,  they  was 
so  close  you  could  hev  hulled  a  biscuit  aboard  from  one  to  t'other. 
Then  Dan'l  Fry  and  George  Horlock  would  stand  at  their  wheels— 
they  was  too  anxious  to  allow  anybody  else  to  sail  the  boats — an' 
chaff  an'  jeer  each  other  ;  an'  Dan'l  had,  when  he  liked,  the  worsest 
tongue  I  ever  did  hear — bar  one.' 

Maylett  winked  over  the  rim  of  his  pewter  so  significantly 
during  the  pause  he  made  at  this  point  that  one  of  the  seamen 
could  not  help  asking  what  he  meant.  But  the  lightsman  only 
replied,  '  You'll  know  later.'  and  continued. 


'FRESH'   AND    '  OVERDAY.'  413 

'  George  and  Dan'l  watched  each  other  like  a  oat  watchin*  a 
mouse,  with  the  weather  bio  win'  up  harder  'n  ever  all  the  time. 
The  hands  thought  the  sticks  would  be  out  of  'em — they  pressed 
'em  so — but  Dan'l  Fry  he  held  on  ontil  he  saw  the  Gel  Emly  reef. 
Then  he  reefed  the  Boy  Dick.  Last  of  all  it  came  night,  but  it  was 
clear  like  it  often  is  afore  rain  ;  an'  they  could  jist  make  out  each 
other's  sailin'  lights.  They  was  neck-and-neck  all  night,  close- 
reefed,  both  of  'em  afeared  of  gettin'  caught  in  irons — 'cos  the 
reefed  sails  didn't  fill  well — and  they  was  desp'rate  afeared  of 
missin'  stays  an'  goin'  tail-fust  on  to  a  sand. 

'  'Bout  two  o'clock  in  the  mornin',  'twas  when  they  was  both 
stretchin'  for  the  Cockle  Gat,  the  wind  was  gittin'  more  east'ard 
an'  blowin'  up  right  dark  an'  nasty.  Dan'l  and  George  was  both 
hangin'  on,  an'  thinkin'  of  them  herrin's  down  in  the  holds,  an' 
calc'lating  their  chances,  when  bang  went  a  rocket  out  to  seaward, 
and  next  they  see  a  red  flare  blaze  out  in  the  dark.  They  knowed 
at  once  it  was  somethin'  on  the  tail  of  the  Crossand.  The  wind  had 
veered  right  back  to  the  east'ard  with  thick,  heavy  weather ; 
there  worn't  much  chance  of  the  distress  signals  bein'  seen  ashore, 
an'  both  knowed  they  ought  to  go.  Nex'  thing  they  see  was  a 
rocket  go  up  from  the  Crossand  Light,  and  a  gun  went. 

(  George  Horlock  watched  the  Boy  Dick's  light,  an'  he  knowed 
Dan'l  Fry  was  watchin'  his.  But  they  both  held  on  their  courses. 
It  might  be  a  false  alarm,  though  it  didn't  look  like  it.  It  might 
be  real  danger.  Dan'l  Fry  made  up  his  mind  to  chance  it,  an'  let 
things  alone.  He  had  scarcely  decided  to  keep  on  his  course, 
when  he  saw  the  red  light  of  the  Gel  EnCly  go  out,  an'  presently  he 
saw  the  green.  George  had  gone  about,  an'  was  reachin'  out  to  the 
east'ard  towards  the  Crossand.  He  hadn't  wanted  to  do  it,  but  Ted 
Botwright — an'  a  better-hearted  chap  never  stepped — persuaded 
him  into  it,  an'  he  beat  up  for  the  wessel  he  could  see  by  her  flares 
was  on  the  Crossand.  I  reckon  George  hev  thanked  Gawd  many 
a  time  since  that  he  did  go.  If  he  hevn't  he  ought  to  hev. 

'  George  lost  the  Boy  Dick's  light  arter  that,  so  he  knowed  that 
Dan'l  Fry  had  gone  on  home.  He  reckoned  he'd  lost  his  chance,  an' 
he  didn't  take  it  kindly. 

'  It  was  a  coastin'  schooner  on  the  Sand.  I  dessay  some  of  ye 
knowed  her — the  Edith  Simpson  'twas.  She  had  struck  the  tail  of 
the  Crossand  from  the  outside,  an',  it  bein'  nigh  high  water,  she'd 
bumped  right  over  it  afore  the  tide  lef  her  on  the  west'ard  of  the 
shoal.  She  was  in  a  pretty  pickle — top-hamper  gone,  rollin'  with 


414  'FRESH'   AND   <  OVERDAY.' 

every  sea,  and  the  breakers  smashin'  over  her  with  every  roll. 
They  was  burnin'  the  flares  in  the  lower  riggin',  and  when  the 
Gel  EvrCly  got  into  the  sukkle  of  light,  George  an'  his  hands  could 
see  they  was  tryin'  to  clear  the  boat,  which,  by  a  meracle,  worn't 
damaged.  You  see,  the  Gel  Em'ly  could  come  right  up,  because 
the  wreck  was  on  the  edge  of  the  sand  and  to  wind'ard  of  her. 

'  When  George  got  into  the  red  light  of  the  flares  he  luffed,  and 
yelled  out  for  'em  to  veer  off  the  boat  on  a  line  an'  he'd  pick  'em 
up.  The  skipper  happened  to  be  a  smart  chap,  an'  he  tumbled  to 
what  he  meant.  Then  George  Horlock  wore  the  Gel  Em'ly,  an' 
when  he'd  give  'em  time  enough  on  the  schooner,  he  shook  out  a 
reef  in  his  mainsail  and  beat  up  for  'em  with  a  flare  burnin'  aft. 
Ye  see,  he  daren't  put  it  for'ard  or  he  couldn't  hev  seed  to  steer. 
Bob  Simmons,  the  skipper  of  the  schooner,  was  a  smartish  chap. 
He'd  had  some  ile  poured  out  to  loo'ard  of  the  Edith  Simpson  ;  an' 
they'd  got  some  more  in  the  boat  with  'em,  which  one  of  the  hands 
kep'  on  spillin'  overboard.  The  mate  rowed  the  boat,  an'  the 
skipper  he  veered  off  on  a  line  made  fast  to  the  main  shrouds.  The 
boat  came  down  on  the  Gel  Em'ly  gentle  enough  in  the  lee  of  the 
sand.  George  threw  the  drifter  up  into  the  wind  jest  in  time,  an' 
they  got  the  boat  under  her  lee  afore  she  went  about.  In  course 
she  pressed  down  over  the  boat  an'  sunk  it,  but  they  got  all  the 
boatload  safe — the  skipper,  mate,  an'  three  of  the  crew,  an'  the 
skipper's  daughter,  pore  gal. 

'  George  was  about  the  onluckiest  chap  1  ever  come  across, 
for  'tworn't  more  'n  about  fower  in  the  mornin',  an'  there  was  still 
time  for  the  'arly  market,  if  he  could  git  home.  But  I  told  you 
he'd  shook  a  reef  out  of  his  mainsel.  It  was  a  risky  thing  to  do  in 
that  gale  ;  but  he  had  to,  to  make  her  handle  better  when  he  beat 
up  for  the  boatload.  'Cos  if  he  hadn't  made  it  the  fust  time,  it 
would  hev  been  swamped  whilst  he  was  reachin'  up  for  her  ag'in. 

'  Well,  they'd  hardly  got  the  people  aboard  when  George's 
luck  took  him.  He  was  headin'  for  the  Cockle  Gat  with  the  wind 
abeam,  an'  edgin'  away  as  far  as  he  dared.  Then  he  luffed  her  to 
empty  the  sail  a  bit  while  they  reefed  it  down.  I  s'pose  there  came 
a  flaw  in  the  wind  or  somethin'  ;  but  jest  as  he  luffed  her  she  was 
caught  aback,  the  mainsel  flapped  full,  an'  if  the  canvas  hadn't 
give  way  she  must  hev  been  turtled.  As  'twas  the  mainsel  was 
stripped  right  off  the  yards  an'  went  flyin'  away  on  the  wind. 

'  It  would  be  'bout  fower  when  this  happened  an'  gettin'  day- 
light— a  wild  gray  mornin'  with  the  wind  blowin'  the  caps  oft'  the 


'FRESH'   AND    '  OVERDAY.'  415 

waves  in  spoon-drift.  You  hev  seen  it,  mateys.  The  Gel  Em'ly 
was  gatherin'  starn-way,  an'  it  looked  as  if  she  was  a-goin'  to  blow 
the  fower  miles  on  to  the  shore.  But  George  Horlock  and  Ted 
Botwright  rose  to  the  'mergency — Ted  was  more  good  than  the 
fust  hand  when  he  was  sober.  They  kep'  her  head  to  wind  with  the 
reefed  mizzen,  though  she  was  backin'  furious  for  the  beach,  and 
they  got  a  hawser  ready  for  runnin'.  They  let  go  the  anchor,  and 
when  she  plucked  up  sharp  on  it  they  reckoned  it  would  snap  the 
hawser  or  else  pull  the  inside  out  of  her.  But  f ort'nitly  the  anchor 
dragged  a  bit,  bringin'  her  up  all  the  time  ;  and  when  she'd  lost 
starn-way  it  held. 

'  Tha's  about  all.  Somewhere  'bout  twal'  o'clock  a  tug  came 
out  to  the  Gel  Em'ly  to  take  her  in  to  the  haven  ;  but  it  was  night- 
fall afore  she  brought  up  at  the  wharf.  She  took  a  lot  of  towin' 
with  that  gale  a-blowin',  'cos  as  the  weather  cleared  with  the  sun, 
the  wind  went  for'ard  and  was  right  in  their  teeth  ;  an'  then  there 
was  the  catch  aboard  too. 

'  Dan'l  Fry  had  got  home  for  Monday  mornin'  market  all  right, 
an'  sold  his  catch  as  "  fresh."  George  couldn't  sell  his  till  nex'  day, 
and  though  they  fetched  fust-rate  prices  for  "  overday  "  stuff,  of 
course  he  didn't  git  Dan'l's  prices. 

'  So  Fry  he  married  the  gal  that  Chris'mas '     Maylett  stood 

up  and  lifted  his  hand.  '  There  go  the  Stores'  bell.  We'll  hev  to 
be  gittin'  back.'  At  the  door  of  the  '  Floating  Light '  the  senior 
lightsman  concluded,  '  So  you  see,  Mr.  Cavanagh,  though  George 
did  fust  of  all  find  out  what  he  wanted,  he  lamed  to  do  without  it  ; 
an'  I  reckon  'twas  a  good  thing  for  him.'  He  broke  off  with  an 
exclamation.  '  Well,  I'll  be  damned  !  '  he  whispered  excitedly. 
'  D'ye  see  who's  a-comin'  here  ?  ' 

The  party  looked  in  the  direction  indicated.  An  untidy  woman 
of  vast  dimensions  and  rubicund  face  was  coming  towards  them, 
screaming  at  some  wharf -hands  in  the  distance ;  and  her  expressions 
were  of  the  most  lurid  riverside  character  they  were  ever  likely  to 
hear.  After  she  had  passed  them,  Maylett  pointed  at  the  bulky 
woman  with  his  briar.  '  That's  Lina  Fry,'  he  said.  '  Tha's  what 
George  Horlock  missed  gittin' — Lina  Colby  that  was.  She's  twal' 
stun  if  she's  a  pund,  an'  she's  got  the  worsest  tongue  on  the  whole 
wharf.' 

WILLIAM  J.  BATCHELDER. 


416 


ST.  PATRICK'S  DAY    WITH   THE  PATHANS. 
BY  'THE   SUBALTERN.' 

I. 

Now,  as  romance  never  dies  and  is  found  in  the  most  unlikely 
places,  so  sometimes  the  most  interesting  experiences  are  the 
outcome  of  very  commonplace  beginnings.  The  commonplace 
beginning  for  my  sojourn  in  a  Pa  than  village  was  a  thing  called 
the  Higher  Standard  Pushtu  Examination,  which  takes  place 
twice  a  year,  for  which  the  Government  reward  is  Rs.  800  (£53 
6s.  8d.),  and  which,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  N.W.  Frontier 
is  the  storm  centre  of  India,  it  is  useful  to  have  put  to  one's  credit. 
As  everyone  knows,  the  best  and  easiest  method  of  learning  a 
language  is  to  live  among  the  people  who  speak  it ;  so,  taking 
counsel  with  my  Monshie  (native  instructor)  and  others  who  were 
kind  enough  to  give  me  the  benefit  of  their  experience,  I  decided 
upon  a  place  called  Sawabi,  which  is  in  the  N.W.  Frontier  Pro- 
vince, about  twenty  miles  south  of  Mardan,  where  the  Guides  live. 
Thus  it  happened  that  Sawabi  was  our  objective  when  we  left 
Lawrencepur — a  station  on  the  North- Western  Railway  between 
Rawalpindi  and  Peshawar — on  the  early  morning  of  March  11, 
1909. 

'  We '  consisted  of  myself,  my  Monshie,  my  orderly  (every 
officer  in  a  native  regiment  has  an  orderly  from  his  Company, 
whom  he  can  take  or  leave),  my  bearer,  and  '  Rags.'  Rags,  as  you 
may  guess,  is  my  dog.  Now,  Stevenson  says  somewhere  that 
every  walking  tour  should  be  undertaken  alone,  and  I  agree  with 
him  except  as  so  far  as  a  dog  is  concerned.  The  dog  is  the  perfect 
companion  for  a  tour  of  any  sort.  How  he  rushes  ahead  at  the 
beginning  of  the  day,  scaring  the  crows  from  one's  path,  in  the 
very  joy  of  being  alive ;  how  he  makes  little  excursions  from  the 
road,  and  comes  back — with  not  less  than  a  yard  of  tongue  hanging 
out — to  tell  one  all  about  it ;  how  he  comes  up  to  be  made  much 
of  at  the  mid-day  halt,  and  shares  one's  lunch  ;  and  how  at  night, 
the  last  thing  before  going  to  sleep,  can  one  stretch  out  a  band 
and  feel  a  soft  nose  nuzzle  into  it ! 


ST.   PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE    PATHANS.         417 

The  railway,  having  carried  us  as  far  as  Lawrencepur,  left 
us  to  cover  the  thirty  odd  miles  across  country  to  Sawabi  as  best 
we  might.  For  the  first  nine  miles  it  was  plain  sailing,  turn-turns 
along  the  Grand  Trunk  Road,  and  I  remember  even  now  how 
delightful  the  start  was.  To  feel  one's  pony  dance  a  little  pas 
seul  beneath  one  for  very  freshness  of  spirit ;  to  feel  the  cool  morn- 
ing breeze  blow  briskly  past  one's  ears  ;  to  see  the  unexplored 
country  stretch  away  for  miles  and  miles  to  the  horizon  (is  not 
every  little  journey  one  takes  over  new  country  a  personal  ex- 
ploration ?) ;  to  know  that  one  had  cast  behind  one  for  a  time  the 
shackles  of  civilisation  (very  pleasant  shackles,  no  doubt,  but 
still  shackles) ;  to  realise — all  in  a  moment — that  the  coming 
days  were  not  public  property  to  be  shared  with  other  people,  but 
for  one's  own  personal  exclusive  use.  Ah  !  that  was  to  live,  if  only 
for  a  moment.  One  need  not  be  a  great  traveller  to  experience 
such  moments ;  they  are  given  to  all  who  have  the  spirit  of  vaga- 
bondage born  in  them.  Perhaps  one  has  them  when  tearing  along 
by  an  express  train  at  night,  watching  the  dark  shapes  of  the 
hills  against  the  sky  and  the  far-off  twinkling  lights  ;  perhaps 
one  has  them  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer  at  dawn,  with  the  sea  a 
grey  tumbling  mass  alongside,  and  a  solitary  rolling  vessel  in  the 
offing ;  perhaps  one  has  them  from  a  single  line  of  poetry,  or  a 
single  phrase  in  a  book  of  travel ;  perhaps  one  has  them  as  I  had 
them  on  the  morning  of  a  little  expedition  which  one  makes  into 
a  fresh  country.  But,  however  they  come,  they  are  perhaps  the 
best — certainly  among  the  best — moments  one  has  in  life. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  nine  miles  lay  a  village  named  Huzro, 
breakfast,  and  a  change  of  transport  from  turn-turns  to  camels. 
While  the  orderly  and  the  bearer,  under  the  direct  patronage  of 
the  Monshie,  secured  two  camels  and  proceeded  to  load  them, 
I  had  breakfast — where  one  always  enjoys  a  meal  most — in  the 
open  air  and  by  the  roadside. 

So  we  set  out  from  Huzro  and  in  due  course  we  reached  the 

Indus,  which  we  crossed  by  ferry.     Now  it  was  characteristic  of 

the  ferry— being  in  India— that,  although  daily  many  cattle  and 

amels  have  to  be  carried  over,  no  arrangement  such  as  a  gangway 

xists   on  it.    Every  animal  has  to  be   pushed,   pulled,  coaxed, 

r  bullied  over  the  side,  which  stands  about  three  feet  high.   More- 

'ver,  all  loads  have  to  be  removed,  wherefore  much  time  is  lost 

<nd  much  energy  unnecessarily  expended.     The  traveller  in  the 

East,  however— unless  he  sticks  to  the  mail  trains  and  the  beaten 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  165,  N.S.  27 


418         ST,    PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS. 

track — has  only  to  expect  these  chances  of  the  road,  and  if  he 
has  a  philosophical  temperament,  a  sense  of  humour,  and  a  plenti- 
ful supply  of  tobacco,  he  will,  perhaps,  find  such  enforced  halts 
by  the  way  not  entirely  wasted. 

Slowly  we  padded  forward  again,  crossed — with  the  same 
pomp  and  ceremony — another  bend  of  the  river,  loaded  up  once 
more,  and  made  for  a  peak  which  rose  (from  a  chain  of  hills  in 
front  of  us)  conspicuous  and  dominant  into  the  evening  sky. 

'  Under  that  hill,'  said  the  man  of  learning,  the  Monshie,  '  lies 
Sawabi.' 

Then  the  night  came  down  upon  us,  softly  at  first,  then  darker 
and  darker,  until  lo  !  we  were  marching  under  the  stars.  And 
so,  after  a  few  false  wanderings,  many  questionings  of  unknown 
voices  in  the  darkness,  much  barking  of  dogs,  we  arrived  at  Sawabi. 

II. 

The  rest  bungalow  was  on  the  wall  of  the  '  Tehsil '  or  native 
local  court-house,  so  when  I  arose  the  next  morning  I  found 
myself  on  a  level  with  the  tops  of  the  trees,  and  the  birds  flying 
between  them.  All  around,  except  towards  the  north,  the  country- 
side stretched  away  in  a  beautiful  monotony  of  green  cultivation, 
with  little  figures  moving  here  and  there  beginning  the  work  of 
the  day.  To  the  north,  however,  a  tumbled  mass  of  bare  hills — 
peak  behind  peak — marked  the  frontier  and  beyond.  Just  under- 
neath the  walls  of  the  Tehsil  was  a  garden,  bright  with  flowers, 
and  from  its  recesses  came  the  sleepy  creaking  of  a  Persian-wheel 
well.  A  couple  of  vultures  hung  high  in  the  air,  and  a  few  fleecy 
clouds  sailed  across  the  sky.  It  was  the  hour  for  the  morning 
stroll  and  pipe,  so  the  Monshie  and  I  sallied  forth  to  explore  Sawabi. 

Sawabi  was  a  collection  of  mud  huts,  through  which  ran 
maze  of  narrow,  ill-kept,  tortuous  lanes,  and  may  be  taken  as 
good  example  of  a  large  village  anywhere  in  the  Punjab.  On  eachj 
side  of  these  lanes  ran  high  eight-foot  walls,  which  effectually! 
concealed  from  view  anything  which  occurred  on  their  other  sideJ 
Sometimes  the  houses  abutted  on  to  these  walls ;  more  often  there) 
was  a  courtyard  in  front  of  the  house,  which  naturally  ran  along! 
the  fourth  side  of  the  square,  facing  the  lane.  In  the  courtyarcj 
would  be  a  well,  fire-places,  and  an  oven.  The  house  itself — excepij 
in  the  case  of  the  few  really  wealthy  men  of  the  village — consistecj 
of  one  large  room,  which  had  to  accommodate  the  whole  family  I 


ST.    PATRICK'S    DAY  WITH    THE   PATHANS.        419 

This  was  rendered  possible  by  the  fact  that  at  nights  the  unmarried 
young  men  of  the  family  slept — as  is  the  custom  among  all  Pathana 
—in  the  '  guest-houses.' 

These  guest-houses  are  a  special  feature  among  Pathans,  whether 
on  our  own  or  the  other  side  of  the  frontier,  and  are  a  monument 
to  that  hospitality  for  which  the  Pathan  is  so  famous.  Indeed, 
if  one  were  asked  to  mention  the  chief  Pathan  characteristics, 
I  think  one  would  say  pride  of  race  and  hospitality.  For  the  first 
one  would  only  have  to  call  to  the  nearest  Pathan  in  sight ;  for 
the  second  point  to  his  guest-house. 

Every  Pathan  village  is  divided  up  into  sections.    Each  section — 
in  which  lives  one  family,  or  group  of  allied  families — has  generally  a 
feud,  more  or  less  bitter,  with  one  or  more  of  the  other  sections  ; 
a  feud  dormant  in  the  case  of  British  territory,  rampant  if  over  the 
border.    There  is  in  every  section  a  guest-house,  where  the  members 
of  that  section  collect  in  the  evening,  gossip,  and  smoke,  where  the 
young  unmarried  men  spend  the  night,  and  where  any  traveller 
is  entertained.    If  the  traveller  is  the  friend  of  any  man  in  that 
section,  the  friend  brings  food,  quilts,  and  pillows,  tobacco,  &c.,  from 
!  his  own  house,  and  entertains  his  guest  in  the  guest-house,  not  in 
j  his  own  house.    The  traveller  sleeps  in  the  guest-house  for  the  night 
and  is  sent  on  his  way  with  further  refreshment  the  next  morning. 
I  For  this  entertainment  not  a  penny  is  paid,  and  the  traveller  could 
not  offer  a  greater  insult  to  his  host  than  to  offer  any  such  recom- 
)ense.    In  addition  to  families  keeping  up  guest-houses  any  person 
f  standing  or  wealth  in  a  village  generally  keeps  one  also.    Thus 
ihese  guest-houses  stand  in  the  place  of  our  political  clubs,  social 
clubs,  and  hotels,  except  in  so  far,  of  course,  as  they  are  free  hotels. 
[  was  frequently  asked  whether  we  had  guest-houses  for  travellers 
in  our  country,  and  when  I  had  to  confess  that  there  were  houses 
ndeed  for  travellers,  but  that  the  travellers  had  to  pay  hard  cash 
:or  occupying  them,  I  am  afraid  that  English  hospitality  did  not 
appear  to  much  advantage  beside  that  practised  by  the  Pathan. 
Somehow,  when  our  much-vaunted  civilisation  has  to  stand  on 
its  merits  with  more  primitive  institutions,  the  comparison  is  not 
always  to  the  advantage  of  the  former.    In  construction  the  guest- 
bouses  are  like  the  rest  of  the  houses  ;  one  long  bare  room,  with 
an  earthen  floor,  and  '  charpoys  '  ranged  along  the  sides. 

It  was  into  one  of  these  guest-houses  that  the  Monshie  and  I 
turned.  It  belonged  to  the  family  of  a  Havildar  in  my  regiment 
on  leave,  so  the  usual  Pathan  greeting  was  more  than  usually 

27—2 


420         ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE    PATHANS. 

effusive.     '  Salaam,  sahib.     Come  for  ever.     Are  you  well  ?     Are 
you  strong  ?    Are  you  happy  ?    Are  you  quite  strong  ? ' 

To  which  I  replied  with  the  accustomed  formula  :  '  Live  for 
ever.  Yes,  I  am  strong.  I  am  well.  Are  you  strong  ?  Are  you 
well  ?  ' 

Here  we  remained  a  short  time,  enjoyed  Pathan  hospitality 
in  the  shape  of  tea  and  sweetmeats,  and  again  set  out  on  our 
explorations. 

In  our  walk  through  Sawabi  we  went  through  the  little  bazaar. 
The  shops  were  mostly  kept  by  Hindus,  who  hold  most  of  the 
business  and  trade  among  the  Pathans.  In  British  territory  these 
aliens  in  religion  and  race  are,  of  course,  protected  by  the  law, 
but  across  the  border,  where  they  hold  similar  positions,  and 
where  law  is  not,  they  enjoy  the  same  immunity.  It  is  considered 
a  very  shameful  thing  to  kill,  maltreat,  or  plunder  a  '  bunnia ' 
who  has  taken  up  his  residence  in  any  trans-frontier  village,  though, 
of  course,  '  bunnias '  in  British  territory  are  considered  fair  game 
by  any  raiding  gang.  The  Pathan  code  of  honour,  which  is  strict 
enough  in  its  way,  does  not  allow  of  treating  badly  *  the  stranger 
within  their  gates.'  This  restriction  is,  of  course,  founded  on  the 
rock  of  the  public  good.  For  the  bunnia  is  the  person  who  has  the 
trade  of  the  village  in  his  hands,  and  if  he  is  killed  another  man 
will  not  easily  be  found  to  come  from  British  territory  to  take 
his  place.  So  the  villagers  will  not  be  able  to  dispose  of  their  surplus 
grain,  trade  will  be  at  a  standstill,  and  the  village  will  suffer  accord- 
ingly. In  other  words,  the  bunnia  is  '  the  goose  who  lays  the 
golden  eggs ' — even  if  he  does  charge  very  high  for  them — and  is  i 
cared  for  accordingly. 

III. 

In  many  ways  the  Pathan  is  like  the  Irishman.  He  has  the 
same  sense  of  humour,  the  same  natural  politeness,  the  same 
buoyant  temperament,  and,  like  the  Irishman,  he  requires  handling  ; 
he  can  be  led,  not  driven.  The  great  thing  among  Pathans  is  to 
strike  the  personal  note,  as  it  is  among  Irishmen.  For  abstract 
right  or  wrong  the  Pathan  cares  very  little,  but  once  let  him  get 
attached  to  a  sahib,  and  he  will  do  things  for  that  sahib  which  will 
cause  the  beholder  to  marvel.  Not  because  he  sees  any  particular 
reason  in  the  sahib's  orders,  not  because  he  has  any  love  for  law 
and  order  as  opposed  to  his  own  sweet  will,  but  simply  because 
the  sahib  has  asked  him  to  do  a  certain  thing,  and,  from  his  per- 


ST.   PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS.         421 

sonal  knowledge  of  the  sahib,  he  takes  his  utterances  on  trust. 
The  personal  government  is  the  only  form  of  government  that  the 
East  understands ;  the  personal  government  is  the  only  one  that 
the  Pathan  will  tolerate.  Talk  to  him  of  councils  and  representa- 
tives, of  *  government  for  the  people  by  the  people,'  of  bills, 
measures,  and  a  '  greater  share  in  the  ruling  of  his  own  country,' 
and  you  leave  him  puzzled,  distrustful,  and  politely  contemptuous. 
But  put  a  sahib  down  in  his  midst,  whom  he  knows  and  who  knows 
him,  who  talks  to  him  about  his  crops,  and  his  feuds,  and  his 
other  elemental  hopes  and  fears,  who  can  on  occasion  crack  a 
jest,  and  can  also  on  occasion  deal  out  justice  with  a  heavy  hand 
and  a  long  arm,  do  this  and  you  will  make  the  Pathan  one  of  the 
finest  citizens  in  the  British  Empire. 

And  if  the  Pathan  resembles  the  Irishman  in  his  general  cha 
racter,  he  also  resembles  him  in  his  love  of  sport,  games  of  all  sorts, 
and  dancing ;  that  is  to  say,  speaking  generally.  For  every  tribe 
is  not  alike  in  its  amusements.  Thus  the  Afridi,  who  has  his  time 
fully  occupied  with  blood-feuds,  is  by  nature  and  circumstances 
inclined  to  be  of  a  silent  and  reserved  disposition,  and  rather  looks 
down  on  games  and  dancing  as  beneath  his  dignity.  The  Khattak, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  renowned  for  his  dancing,  the  Khattak  dance 
being  one  of  the  sights  of  the  North- West  Frontier ;  while  the 
Yusufzai,  living  in  British  territory,  and  so  being  free  from  the 
important  business  of  slaying  his  neighbour,  and  being  in  addition 
of  a  lively  and  pleasure-loving  nature,  revels  in  all  sorts  of  games 
and  sports.  These  are  many,  and  include  archery,  hawking, 
coursing  with  greyhounds,  quail-fighting,  gambling  of  all  kinds, 
fairs,  and  so  forth.  The  most  peculiar,  and  local,  of  these  is 
certainly  archery. 

Soon  after  my  arrival  at  Sawabi  I  went  over  to  Kotah,  the 
Monshie's  village,  and  happened  to  be  present  at  an  archery  com- 
petition which  was  taking  place.  The  idea  struck  me  that  I  would 
have  such  a  meeting  as  would  be  remembered  in  the  country  long 
after  I  had  left  it,  so  turning  to  the  Monshie  I  said  : — 

'  Know  this,  0  Monshie,  that  on  the  seventeenth  of  this  month 
occurs  the  feast  of  a  very  holy  man,  the  saint,  in  fact,  of  my  native 
country,  which  is  called  Ireland.' 

'  I  learnt  about  it  in  the  geography,  when  I  was  at  school,  sahib. 
It  is  an  island  near  England.' 

*  You  are  not  quite  right,  0  Monshie.  It  would  be  more  correct 
to  say  that  the  place  called  England  happens  to  be  situated  near 


422        ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY    WITH   THE   PATHANS. 

the  island  of  Ireland.  However,  no  matter.  It  is  my  intention 
to  celebrate  the  feast  of  this  holy  man  by  an  archery  meeting,  for 
which  I  shall  give  prizes.  I  shall  also  provide  refreshments  for  those 
who  are  present.  To-day  is  Saturday.  The  feast  of  St.  Patrick 
is  on  Wednesday,  is  there  time  to  spread  abroad  the  news  ?  ' 

'  Well,  sahib,  it  would  be  better  to  wait  until  Friday,  because 
on  Friday  all  the  people  come  to  my  village  to  pray  at  the  Friday 
mosque,  and  after  the  mosque  we  could  have  the  archery.5 

'  Very  good,  we  will  honour  St.  Patrick  two  days  late,  that  is  all.' 

And  so  it  was  arranged.  The  news,  time,  and  conditions  of  the 
great  archery  meeting  were  noised  abroad,  and  notwithstanding 
that  post  entries  were  decreed,  several  eager  competitors  sent  in 
their  names  some  days  beforehand.  To  make  the  occasion  complete 
I  received  by  the  mail  a  piece  of  shamrock  ;  none  of  your  clover, 
masquerading  as  such,  but  real  shamrock  picked  by  Irish  hands  on 
Irish  ground  six  thousand  miles  away.  And  with  this  in  my  button- 
hole I  journeyed  over  to  Kotah  on  the  day  appointed. 

The  courtyard  of  the  Monshie's  guest-house  was  to  be  the  scene 
of  the  affair,  and  was  crowded  to  its  utmost  limits.  From  the 
poorest  labourer,  clad  merely  in  old  rags  tied  round  his  waist,  with 
some  more  old  rags  round  the  upper  part  of  his  body,  to  the  village 
'  blood  '  in  immaculate  flowing  pyjamas,  spotless  shirt,  and  a  fancy 
waistcoat ;  from  little  toddlers  of  two  and  three  to  grey-beards  of 
eighty ;  all  sorts  and  conditions  had  gathered  together  to  see  the 
fun.  My  friend  the  Poet — of  whom  more  anon — was  there ;  a 
couple  of  native  officers  had  been  given  seats  of  honour  next  to  the 
charpoy  reserved  for  me  ;  the  old  and  half-blind  Khan  of  the  village 
was  seated  on  the  other  side  ;  other  elders  had  grouped  themselves 
around ;  the  zawans — young  men — were  jesting  and  horse-playing 
among  themselves  ;  the  boys — boy-like — were  incommoding  their 
elders  and  endeavouring  to  squeeze  into  the  front  places  ;  all  the 
world,  in  fact,  was  there,  but  not  his  wife.  The  wife  does  not  appear 
— in  the  East — on  these  occasions. 

The  Monshie  was  Clerk  of  the  Course,  so  to  speak.  He  entered 
the  names  of  the  competitors,  put  down  their  scores,  called  them 
up  in  turn,  and  generally  made  himself  useful.  Any  doubtful 
points  were  referred  to  the  Subadar,  who  sat  at  my  right  hand, 
and  who  was  now  enjoying  the  otium  cum  dignitate  of  the  retired 
native  officer. 

The  method  of  archery  practised  by  the  Yusafzais  is,  I  should 
imagine,  peculiar  to  themselves.  The  bows  are  about  five  feet 


ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS.         423 

long,  and  of  a  stiffness  equal  to  the  old  '  longbows,'  as  I  can  testify 
from  practical  experience.  The  arrows  are  of  a  still  more  weighty 
kind,  and  are  fully  six  feet  long.  At  the  end  of  each  arrow  is  an 
iron  disc,  about  two  inches  in  diameter.  The  target — a  wooden  peg 
painted  white — is  placed  in  a  projection  from  the  wall,  made  of 
mud,  about  thirty  feet  from  the  shooting  point.  The  object  of  the 
archer  is  to  drive  the  wooden  peg  into  the  wall.  As  a  rule  the 
archers  are  divided  into  separate  parties,  the  losing  party  '  standing  ' 
the  victorious  one  a  feast.  In  the  St.  Patrick's  day  shoot,  however, 
I  introduced  the  innovation  of  each  man  shooting  for  himself,  five 
shots ;  the  most  number  of  hits  of  course  to  win.  There  was  a 
first,  second,  and  a  third  prize,  so  all  had  a  chance. 

'  All  the  people  who  are  going  to  shoot  have  given  me  their 
names,  sahib.  Shall  they  begin  ?  '  asked  the  Monshie,  notebook  in 
hand,  full  of  importance. 

4  One  minute,  Monshie,'  I  said.     '  I  wish  to  make  a  little  speech.' 

4  0  young  men,  do  not  make  a  noise,  the  sahib  wishes  to  say  a 
few  words.  0  boys,  do  you  wish  to  get  beaten,  shameless  ones  that 
you  are,  that  you  make  a  noise  when  the  sahib  wishes  to  speak  ? — 
Silence,  0  people,  silence.' 

'  0  Pathans,'  I  said,  '  there  are  two  reasons  for  this  merry- 
making. One  is  that  I  wish  to  see  how  well  you  can  shoot  with 
the  bow  and  arrow ;  the  other,  that  this  is  a  celebration  for  a 
very  holy  man  who  used  to  live  in  my  country  in  days  gone  by. 
His  day  occurred  two  days  ago,  but  I  have  fixed  the  celebration  for 
to-day  because  more  of  you  could  attend  it  on  account  of  coming 
to  pray  at  the  Friday  mosque.  Now  this  saint's  name  was  Patrick 
— may  he  rest  in  peace — and  he  was  famous  for  many  things,  but 
what  he  was  most  chiefly  famous  for  was  that  he  cast  all  the  snakes 
out  of  the  country,  so  that  up  to  this  day  there  is  no  longer  a  snake 
there.  You  see  that  in  my  coat  there  is  a  piece  of  green  grass. 
Now  that  grass  is  of  such  a  sort  that  it  grows  nowhere  but  in  my 
native  land,  and  it  has  been  sent  to  me  all  the  way  from  there,  by 
my  countrymen.  And  this  is  the  custom  of  sahibs  who  belong 
to  that  country  that  when  they  celebrate  the  day  of  the  great 
St.  Patrick,  they  wear  that  little  piece  of  grass.  Let  the  shooting 
begin.' 

Perhaps  the  speech  was  not  quite  as  fluent  as  I  have  written  it ; 
doubtless  there  were  many  grammatical  mistakes  in  it,  nevertheless, 
its  effect  could  not  have  been  better  if  Ulysses  of  the  Silver  Tongue 
had  spoken.  The  Pathan  has  a  great  reverence  for  holy  men, 


424        ST.   PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS. 

especially  those  who  are  dead,  and  this  Patrick,  with  his  power  over 
snakes,  was  just  the  person  to  appeal  to  them.  One  heard  little 
murmurs  run  through  the  crowd. 

'  Wah,  wah,  he  must  have  been  a  strong  man  that  Patrick. 
To  have  power  over  snakes — 0  Mullah  sahib,  is  this  Patrick 
mentioned  in  the  holy  Koran  ?  It  is  a  suitable  idea  that  one 
should  wear  the  grass  of  one's  native  land  when  one  is  far  away 
from  it.  Think  you,  if  I  said  a  prayer  to  this  Patrick  that  he  would 
direct  my  arrow  straight  ?  Not  so,  Mir  Akbar,  nothing  would  do 
that ;  even  the  Prophet  himself,  on  whom  be  peace,  would  find  that 
difficult.' 

Then  forward  came  the  bowmen  and  delivered  their  shots 
4  right  yeomanly.'  Up  would  go  the  bow,  up  and  up,  back  would 
go  the  great  arrow,  back  and  back  while  the  muscles  stood  out 
like  whip-cord  under  the  brown  skin ;  slowly,  very  slowly,  the  bow 
would  be  lowered,  and  a  moment's  pause  given  for  aiming  ;  then 
whizz,  phut,  and  the  arrow  would  be  brought  up  sharp  and  quivering 
against  the  wall,  while  a  low  buzz,  congratulatory  or  commiserating, 
would  indicate  a  hit  or  a  miss. 

There  was  only  one  Robin  Hood  amongst  them  who  succeeded 
in  scoring  a  '  possible  '  ;  but  there  were  several  of  the  '  merry  men  ' 
who  got  four  out  of  the  five,  and  these  latter  shot  again,  until  at  last 
the  second  and  third  prizes  were  decided. 

Meanwhile  the  creature  comforts  were  not  forgotten.  Many 
hookahs  bubbled  amicably  among  the  spectators ;  and  great  trays 
of  tea-cups  were  handed  about,  with  bowls  of  sweetmeats  and 
plates  of  native  biscuits. 

One  of  the  last  to  shoot  was  an  old  man  who  had  been  a  noted 
marksman  in  his  day.  He  came  forward  somewhat  reluctantly, 
urged  on  by  the  requests  of  his  cronies,  and  shook  his  head  sadly 
as  he  bent  the  bow. 

'  0  sahib,'  he  said,  '  if  I  were  forty  years  younger,  aye,  and 
thirty  years  too,  I  would  show  these  young  fellows  how  to  shoot, 
but  now ' 

Nevertheless,  the  dimmed  eyes  cleared  and  shone  as  they  gazed 
along  the  arrow ;  the  old  hands  ceased  to  quiver  as  they  grasped 
the  bow ;  the  old  body  straightened  as  it  felt  the  familiar  strain ; 
and  the  gnarled  muscles  stretched  themselves  to  the  call  of  the  old 
man's  brain.  His  misses — they  were  only  two — were  followed  by  a 
sympathetic  silence,  and  his  hits  with  the  wildest  applause — nowhere 
does  old  age  receive  greater  veneration  than  among  Pathans. 


ST.   PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS.         425 

He  turned  to  me  when  he  had  finished,  the  flush  still  in  his  face. 

'  Sahib,'  he  said  pathetically,  '  for  a  minute  I  thought  I  was 
young  again.' 

'  When  I  am  of  your  age,'  I  answered,  *  may  Allah  give  me 
strength  to  pull  a  bow  as  you  can,'  and  the  old  fellow  went  back 
to  his  cronies  highly  pleased. 

The  last  arrow  hit  the  mark  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  crowd, 
the  evening  shadows  thickened  into  night,  and  the  courtyard 
slowly  emptied  itself. 

Thus  by  a  people  who  knew  him  not,  who  professed  not  his 
religion,  and  who  were  of  a  different  race ;  his  high  priest  a  subaltern 
in  the  Jodhpores  with  a  piece  of  shamrock  stuck  in  his  button-hole ; 
his  temple  the  courtyard  of  a  Pathan  village,  was  Saint  Patrick 
commemorated  in  the  year  of  grace  nineteen  hundred  and  nine  in 
the  village  of  Kotah  in  the  North- West  Frontier  Province  of  India.1 

IV. 

As  a  rule  after  dinner  in  the  evening  I  used  to  stroll  down  to  one 
of  the  guest-houses,  accompanied  by  either  the  Orderly  or  the 
Monshie.  When  I  shut  my  eyes  I  can  still  call  up  the  scene.  The 
strange  medley  of  figures  on  which — by  the  light  of  the  solitary 
lantern — a  thousand  fantastic  shadows  came  and  went ;  the  dark 
corners  of  the  room  from  which  voices  came,  but  where  their 
owners  remained  unseen  ;  the  soft  snoring  of  the  hookahs  ;  and 
myself — an  incongruous  figure  in  this  scene  from  the  'Arabian 
Nights ' — pipe  in  mouth,  seated  on  a  charpoy. 

The  conversations  were  very  catholic  in  their  range,  and  included 
most  subjects  on,  above,  or  under  the  earth.  Sometimes  we  told 
each  other  tales,  my  repertoire  including  Stevenson's  '  Bottle  Imp,' 
which  was  much  appreciated ;  sometimes  we  discussed  the  crops, 
sometimes  love  and  war ;  sometimes  theology  was  thrown  on  the 
board ;  at  others  I  could  tell  them  of  the  wonders  of  England,  and 

1  Since  writing  the  above  a  rather  curious  proof  of  the  popularity  of 
the  St.  Patrick's  Day  Archery  Meeting  has  come  to  my  knowledge.  It  appears 
that  the  Thana-Dar  (police  sergeant  in  Sawabi)  told  the  Deputy  Commissioner  that 
he  was  afraid  that  there  would  be  trouble  in  Kotah,  as  some  wandering  '  young 
sahib,'  who,  he  hinted  '  in  the  politest  manner  in  the  world,'  was  rather  madder 
than  even  most  '  young  sahibs  ' — had  instituted  a  great  Archery  Meeting,  with 
prizes.  This  meeting  had  given  such  an  impetus  to  the  sport,  and  there  was  so 
much  keenness  displayed  among  the  local  marksmen,  that  he  was  afraid  that 
fracas  might  arise  from  it !  Up  to  date,  however,  his  prognostications  have  not 
been  fulfilled. 


426         ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS. 

of  the  great  town  called  London,  to  which  Peshawar  even  was  as 
a  small  village  (though  this  they  evidently  took  cum  grano).  All 
was  fish  that  came  to  our  net. 

'  Sahib,'  some  old  grey-beard  would  say, '  you  ask  us  about  feuds. 
Well,  what  do  men  all  over  the  world  fight  about  ?  Only  three 
things,  Women,  Land,  and  Money.  Money,  Land,  and  Women, 
these  are  the  three  causes  of  fighting.  We  Yusafzais,  who  live 
in  British  territory,  do  not  fight  as  a  rule,  we  have  to  take  our 
cases  to  court ;  but  across  the  border,  the  feud  about  land,  sahib,  is 
generally  over  the  boundary  between  adjoining  lands.  One  man 
shifts  the  boundary  stones,  his  neighbour  objects.  They  quarrel ; 
one  kills  the  other.  The  relations  of  the  murdered  man  take  up 
the  quarrel ;  the  relations  of  the  murderer  band  together  to  help 
him.  So  a  tribal  feud  is  started.  Or  perhaps  one  tribe  seizes  a 
piece  of  land  belonging  to  a  weaker  tribe.  The  weaker  tribe 
secures  allies  ;  and  many  men  are  killed  over  a  piece  of  land  which 
is  not  worth  a  hundred  rupees. 

'  Then,  as  to  money,  sahib.  One  man  lends  another  man  money, 
the  other  man  will  not  pay  back  ;  they  quarrel.  Perhaps  one  shoots 
the  other,  and  a  feud  starts.  Or  perhaps  one  man  will  not  pay 
the  full  price  for  land,  or  cattle,  which  he  has  bought ;  there  is  a 
quarrel,  and  a  feud  starts  according  to  custom. 

'  Then,  as  to  women,  sahib.  Well,  where  there  is  woman  there 
is  trouble,  and  yet  without  her — I  am  old  now,  sahib,  and  should  be 
thinking  of  my  latter  end,  but  I  am  not  so  old  but  that  I  cannot 
remember  the  time  when  I  too  was  willing  to  make  just  as  great  a 
fool  of  myself  for  a  pretty  face  as  any  of  these  zawans  [young  men] 
you  see  about  me.  Where  there  is  woman  there  is  trouble,  and  so 
one  day  somebody  goes  off  with  somebody  else's  wife.  The  husband 
goes  after  them,  and  if  he  finds  them  he  kills  them  both.  Or  perhaps 
he  gets  killed.  If  he  kills  his  wife's  lover,  perhaps  the  dead  man's 
friends  set  about  to  avenge  him.  If  the  husband  is  killed,  the 
husband's  friends  seek  vengeance.  Sometimes  it  happens  that 
some  young  man  has  an  intrigue  with  somebody's  daughter  ;  there 
again  there  is  killing.  It  is  the  same  everywhere,  sahib,  a  woman 
at  one  end  of  the  affair  and  trouble  at  the  other.' 

'  But  peace  can  be  made  between  two  factions  ?  ' 

'  Oh,  yes,  sahib,  peace  can  be  made.  Over  the  border  they 
have  a  regular  custom  for  such  matters — so  much  money  for  a 
murdered  man,  so  much  for  a  wounded,  so  much  for  a  woman  carried 
off,  and  so  forth.  If  the  injured  parties  are  rich  they  refuse 


ST.    PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS.         427 

to  take  the  compensation  ;  if  poor,  they  sometimes  take  it,  and 
make  peace.' 

'  Is  peace  often  made  when  a  woman  goes  off  with  her  lover  ?  ' 

'  Well,  sahib,  the  husband  hardly  ever  makes  peace  with  the 
lover  ;  they  remain  enemies  until  one  of  them  dies,  for  it  is  con- 
sidered a  shameful  thing  for  a  man  to  make  peace  with  him  who  has 
dishonoured  his  household.  But  the  relations  of  the  lover  can  make 
peace  with  the  husband  by  giving  him  compensation,  sometimes 
in  money,  sometimes  by  giving  him  another  woman,  instead  of  his 
wife,  from  their  own  tribe.  In  this  way  the  matter  remains  a 
private  one  between  the  husband  and  the  lover,  and  the  two  tribes 
are  not  drawn  into  the  affair.  We  make  peace,  sometimes,  when 
we  want  to  gather  the  harvest,  otherwise  both  sides  would  suffer 
great  loss  ;  again,  the  members  of  a  tribe  will  make  peace  with  each 
other  when  their  tribe  is  engaged  in  a  feud  with  another  tribe  ;  also, 
tribes  will  make  peace  with  each  other  when  fighting  the  Govern- 
ment.' 

'  How  are  these  peaces  arranged  ?  ' 

'  Sometimes  the  people  concerned  do  it  themselves.  Some- 
times a  jirgah  [tribal  council],  composed  of  the  leading  men  of  each 
tribe,  assembles  and  settles  terms,'  and  the  old  man  would  cease 
and  drop  into  meditation,  dreaming  perhaps  of  the  times  when  he 
also  was  young  and  risked  all  for  a  pretty  face. 

Then  I  would  put  an  end  to  the  meeting  by  rising.  '  What,  are 
you  going  already,  sahib  ?  Look,  the  night  is  yet  young  and  1  have 
a  tale  to  tell  you — a  most  excellent  tale — as  good  almost  as  the 
tale  you  told  us  the  night  before  last  about  the  spirit  who  lived  in 
the  bottle,  and  the  man  who  got  leprosy.  Sit  down  again,  sahib, 
and  light  your  pipe,  and  listen  to  this  story.' 

So  I  would  let  myself  be  constrained,  and  sit  down  again,  and 
listen  to  tales  far  into  the  night. 

V. 

'  Sahib,'  said  the  Monshie,  '  don't  go  to  N .  It  is  across  the 

frontier,  where  sahibs  are  forbidden  to  go  ;  there  is  nothing  there  but 
some  broken  old  idols.  If  you  meet  any  budmashes  they  may  shoot 
you  ;  and  if  they  shoot  you  1  shall  get  into  trouble.  The  Sirkar 
[Government]  will  hold  me  responsible,  and  will  ask  me  why  I  didn't 
stop  you.' 

'  Monshie,'  I  replied,  '  other  sahibs  have  gone  to  N ,  so  why 


428        ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS. 

should  not  I  ?  It  is  only  three  miles  across  the  border,  so  I  shall 
be  there  and  back  again  before  anybody  knows  anything  about  it. 
As  for  budmashes  shooting  me,  it's  a  hundred-to-one  chance  that 
they  won't  do  anything  of  the  sort,  and  if  one  is  not  willing  to 

take  a  hundred-to-one  chance,  well As  for  you  getting  into 

trouble,  I  shall  give  you  a  "  chit  "  [letter]  saying  that  you  asked 
me  not  to  go — which  God  knows  you've  done  often  enough — and 
that  you  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  affair,  which  will  be  quite 
true,  as  I  shall  get  guides  myself.' 

N lay  about  three  miles  across  the  frontier,  and  is  somewhat 

a  famous  place  in  its  way,  as  it  contains  an  old  Hindu  fort  and  the 
remains  of  idols.  But  I  am  afraid  that  my  desire  to  visit  it  was 
just  as  strong  from  the  mere  fact  of  its  being  forbidden  fruit,  and  of 
its  containing  a  supposed  element  of  danger,  as  from  any  archaeo- 
logical desires.  In  other  words,  it  was  pretty  much  from  the  same 
feeling  which  made  one  go  out  of  bounds  at  school.  A  somewhat 
perverse  spirit,  perhaps,  but  still  a  very  human  one. 

My  guides  were  the  poet  and  another.  Now  the  poet  was  a  man 
after  my  own  heart ;  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  one  who 
saw  a  jest  readier  than  most,  a  person  of  literary  instincts  and 
ability,  the  finest  of  travelling  companion's.  Our  first  introduction 
had  made  us  fast  friends. 

'  So  you  are  a  poet,'  I  had  said. 

'  Yes,  sahib.' 

'  And  you  do  no  other  work  ?  ' 

'  No,  sahib,  not  when  I  can  help  it.  I  have  a  little  land,  which 
brings  me  in  a  little  money  every  year.  And  when  I  am  tired  of 
wandering  I  come  back  and  sit  at  home  for  a  while,  but  not  for 
long.' 

'  But  when  you  are  wandering,  how  do  you  make  a  living  ?  ' 

'  By  my  poetry,  sahib.  Everybody  knows  me.  If  I  go  to  the 
south  to  the  Punjab,  I  have  friends  there.  If  I  go  to  the  east  or  to 
the  west,  many  guest-houses  are  open  to  me.  Across  the  frontier 
also  my  friends  live.  Everywhere,  sahib,  I  am  at  home.' 

'  But  why  do  you  not  sit  in  one  place,  and  till  your  land  and 
grow  rich  ?  ' 

'  Ah,  sahib,  that  is  not  the  life  of  a  poet.  The  life  of  a  poet  is 
that  he  should  wander  in  many  countries  and  see  fresh  places,  and 
people,  and  new  roads,  and  that  he  should  write  down  what  he  has 
seen  and  felt  and  what  has  befallen  him  on  his  journeys,  so  that 
what  he  writes  may  be  worth  reading.' 


ST.    PATRICK'S   DAY   WITH   THE    PATHANS.         429 

'  By  Allah,'  1  had  said,  '  you  are  right,  absolutely  and 
completely  right,'  and  from  that  day  forward  we  were  close 
friends. 

We  set  out  for  N in  the  early  morning  (the  sun  was  just 

rising  behind  the  eastern  hills),  and  set  off  at  a  rapid  rate,  I  riding,  the 
two  guides  and  my  orderly  walking. 

'  Sahib,'  said  the  other  guide  as  he  strode  along  by  my  side, 
'  have  you  got  a  pistol  with  you  ?  ' 

'  No,  1  didn't  bring  one  with  me  to  Sawabi.' 

'  That  was  not  very  wise,  sahib  ;  he  who  journeys  across  the 
frontier  should  not  go  unarmed.' 

To  this  day  I  do  not  know  whether  there  was  any  real  danger 
about  the  affair  or  not.  The  only  thing  one  knows  about  the 
North- West  Frontier  is  that  the  unexpected  happens  there  more 
frequently  than  in  most  parts  of  the  world.  Of  course  to  '  lay  out ' 
a  sahib,  though  a  very  meritorious  action  from  a  fanatical  point  of 
view,  is  rather  an  expensive  luxury,  only  to  be  indulged  in  at  the 
cost  of  much  trouble,  fines,  and  the  prospect  of  a  gallows  at  Peshawar 
jail.  On  the  other  hand,  a  wandering  Ghazi l  is  not  inclined  to  reckon 
up  these  disadvantages  before  shooting,  especially  if  he  finds  a 
sahib  in  his  own  country  with  his  own  escape  practically  assured. 
I  suppose,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  as  I  had  said  to  the  Monshie,  there 
was  a  hundred-to-one  chance  that  something  untoward  might 
happen.  More  than  that  I  cannot  say. 

After  about  an  hour's  quick  going,  we  were  passing  a  peculiarly 
shaped  mound  on  our  left  when  the  poet  said  : 

'  This  is  the  frontier  line,  sahib.  A  hundred  yards  back  we 
were  in  British  territory,  we  are  now  over  the  border.' 

So  this  was  the  far  famed  Yaghestan,  was  it  ?  It  looked  a 
particularly  fruitful  and  peaceful  Yaghestan.  The  sun  was  shining 
brightly,  many  white  butterflies  whisked  here  and  there  among  the 
thick  crops,  the  few  men  we  met  on  the  road  were  as  innocent  of 
war  as  any  one  could  meet  in  the  streets  of  Lahore,  and  so  journeying 

we  reached  N .  Here  a  further  sense  of  peace  and  goodwill 

prevailed.  A  charpoy  was  brought  out  to  me  with  many  salaams, 
my  pony  was  tethered  by  many  willing  hands,  and  the  elders  and  I 
conversed  amicably.  It  was  as  peaceful  as  an  English  village  on  a 
Sunday  evening.  Then  suddenly  from  a  house  appeared  four 
men,  armed  with  gun,  shield,  and  sword.  I  confess  the  apparition 

1  Ghazi,  a  Mohammedan  who  not  only  believes  that  by  killing  an  infidel  he 
attains  heaven,  but  also  proceeds  to  put  this  belief  into  practice. 


430         ST.    PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE    PATHANS. 

somewhat  startled  me,  but  I  managed  to  preserve  an  air  of 
innocent  curiosity  as  I  asked  who  they  were. 

'  They  are  Zamindars,'  said  an  elder  carelessly,  '  and  they  go  to 
till  their  crops.  The  old  man  is  the  father,  the  two  young  men  are 
his  sons,  and  the  boy  is  his  nephew.' 

'  You  have  a  feud,  then,  with  some  other  tribe  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  sahib.  Do  you  see  right  away  over  there  a  bit  of  white 
against  the  hill,  with  a  few  trees  around  it  ?  There  is  a  village 
there  with  which  we  have  a  feud.  We  have  killed  one  of  their  men 
and  wounded  another.  And  they  have  wounded  three  of  ours  ;  but 
1  think  one  of  our  wounded  will  die.  He  was  badly  hit  here,'  and 
he  pointed  to  his  side.  '  We  sent  him  to  the  Government  hospital 
at  Sawabi :  he  is  there  now.' 

So  underneath  all  this  seeming  Sunday  quiet — and  as  it  happened 
it  was  a  Sunday  when  I  went  there,  Sunday  being  my  day  for  expe- 
ditions— sudden  death  lurked  behind  the  boulders,  ready  to  flash 
forth,  and  the  cultivator  tilled  his  land  armed  to  the  teeth.  Only 
a  few  miles  away  the  Pax  Britannica,  deep  and  unbroken.  Here 
no  law  but  that  of  the  strongest  arm. 

We  explored  the  ruins,  which  lay  on  a  hill  just  above  the  village, 
with  an  exhausting  thoroughness  which  yielded,  however,  no  result. 
What  Mohammedan  fury  had  left — all  idols  are,  of  course,  an 
abomination  to  Islam — previous  archaeological  parties,  doubtless 
more  authorised  than  mine,  had  taken  away,  so  we  climbed  down 
empty-handed,  and  I  was  destined  to  find  at  the  bottom  another 
proof  that  we  were  in  a  land  where  might  was  right. 

A  body  of  about  twelve  men,  armed  as  the  others  had  been  with 
gun,  sword,  and  shield,  were  seated  smoking  hookahs.  Lighting  a 
cigarette  with  more  nonchalance  than  I  felt — there  seemed  to  be 
more  armed  forces  moving  about  in  the  vicinity  than  I  exactly 
cared  about — I  inquired  of  an  elder  if  they  were  more  of  his  men. 

'  No,  sahib,  they  belong  to  another  tribe,  and  have  been  driven 
out  of  their  own  village  by  a  stronger  faction.  They  are  now  on 
their  way  to  their  allies  in  another  part  of  the  country,  and  breaking 
their  journey  here.' 

'  The  devil  they  are,'  I  thought  to  myself ;  '  with  everything  to 
gain  and  nothing  to  lose,  these  gentry  might  prove  queer  customers.' 
However,  I  put  a  good  face  on  the  matter,  and  accosted  them, 
finding  them  indeed  as  pleasant  and  as  courteous  a  company  as 
ever  abducted  a  woman,  burnt  a  village,  or  cut  a  neighbour's 
throat. 


ST.    PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE   PATHANS.        431 

Yes,  they  had  been  driven  out  of  their  own  village.  How  had 
it  happened  ?  The  enemy  had  seized  the  village  well,  which 
was  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  and  would  allow  no  one  to  draw  water — 
man,  woman,  or  child.  Had  they  attacked  the  hill  ?  Certainly, 
not  once  but  many  times,  but  they  had  been  driven  off  with  great 
loss.  At  length  the  enemy  had  offered  them  terms  :  they  were  to 
leave  the  village  with  their  wives  and  their  children  ;  if  they  did 
this  there  would  be  peace,  if  they  refused  they  would  be  exter- 
minated. 

'  We  had  to  accept,  sahib,'  an  old  man  took  up  the  parable, 
'  we  were  helpless.  So  we  left  our  homes  and  our  cattle  and  our 
fields  to  become  the  spoil  of  our  enemy ;  and  we  ourselves  with  our 
wives  and  our  children  and  our  wounded  came  away.  But  there 
was  one  thing  we  did  not  leave  behind,  sahib,  our  swords  and  our 
rifles  ;  and  if  God  wills  we  will  return  in  such  a  manner  as  will  be 
remembered  by  our  enemy's  grandchildren's  children.  May  they 
burn  in  hell ! '  here  he  spat  upon  the  ground,  and  a  fierce  murmur 
went  round  the  group. 

Somehow  1  did  not  envy  the  enemy  his  stolen  property ;  it 
seemed  to  be  held  under  too  precarious  a  lease. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  Pathans  of  this  particular  part 
of  the  border  are  not  as  well  armed  as  those  further  west.  My 

orderly,  an  Afridi,  who  accompanied  me  to  N ,  was  quite 

contemptuous  of  the  arming  of  the  particular  band  we  met. 

'  Sahib,'  he  said,  '  these  people  are  very  badly  armed.  Not  one 
of  them  has  got  anything  better  than  a  matchlock ;  that  is  why 
they  carry  swords  and  shields.  We  Afridis  hardly  ever  do  that, 
because  we  have  got  proper  rifles,  almost  as  good  as  the  Govern- 
ment gives  the  sepoy,  and  what  good  is  a  sword  and  shield  at 
1000  yards  ?  Why  are  these  people  badly  armed  ?  Because  it  is 
harder  for  rifles  to  find  their  way  here,  and  because  these  people 
are  poor.  Now  we  Afridis  get  a  large  tribal  allowance  from  the 
Sirkar,  therefore  we  can  afford  to  buy  good  rifles  ;  and  for  close 
quarters  we  have  our  knives.' 

However,  badly  or  well  armed,  they  could  have  polished  us 
off  with  the  greatest  ease,  and  so — after  a  polite  interval  and 
ceremonious  farewells — I  was  not  sorry  to  find  myself  travelling 
with  my  face  towards  our  own  frontier,  which  we  reached  without 
any  further  incident. 


432        ST.    PATRICK'S    DAY   WITH   THE    PATHANS. 

VI. 

Our  little  cavalcade  was  once  more  on  the  road,  for  the  month 
of  respite  was  over,  the  day  of  the  examination  was  near,  and  we 
had  said  good-bye  to  Sawabi.  The  poet  had  accompanied  us  on 
our  road.  He  was  off,  he  explained,  on  one  of  his  trips  across  the 
frontier,  and  our  ways  would  lie  together  for  some  time  ;  but  here 
they  separated,  his  towards  the  bare  hills  of  Yaghestan,  mine 
towards  the  fruitful  south. 

'  And  how  far  will  you  wander  this  time  ?  '  I  asked. 

*  I  shall  do  a  big  round  this  time,  sahib,'  and  his  arms  described 
a  portentous  circle.  '  I  have  sat  at  home  long  enough.  I  shall  go 
up  through  the  Buneyr  and  Swat  country,  then  I  shall  turn  west 
and  go  perhaps  to  Dir.  Then  I  shall  come  south  through  the 
Mohmand  country  and  the  Afridi  country  to  Peshawar.  Or 
perhaps  I  shall  come  further  south  still  through  the  country  of  the 
Orakzais.  It  is  bad  to  make  fixed  plans  for  wanderings,  sahib,  is 
it  not  ?  When  I  like  a  road  I  shall  travel  upon  it,  and  when  it 
ceases  to  please  me  I  shall  try  another.' 

'  May  all  your  roads  be  auspicious,  then.' 

'  And  may  success  lie  on  all  your  ways,  sahib,'  and  we  shook 
hands  and  parted. 

I  looked  back  when  I  had  ridden  a  little  way.  The  poet  waved 
his  staff,  and  I  a  hand,  then  a  bend  of  the  road  hid  him  from  sight. 
May  we  meet  again  ! 


433 


FRIENDS  AND  ACQUAINTANCES.1 


I. 

ONE  of  the  dearest  and  most  interesting  of  them  was  George  H. 
Boughton,  the  Royal  Academician,  who  remained  unaffected,  unpre- 
tentious and  accessible  under  all  circumstances  to  those  for  whom 
he  cared,  even  when  they  had  dropped  far  behind  him  in  achieve- 
ment and  distinction.  Who  has  not  heard  complaints  on  the  world's 
highway  that  success  is  too  much  absorbed  in  itself,  that  it  has  little 
time  to  spare  for  those  it  outpaces,  though  it  protests  that  its  heart 
is  unchanged  and  unalterable  ?  It  pretends  to  bewail  the  days  that 
are  gone,  and  wishes  them  back  ;  it '  dear  old  fellows  '  you,  and  will 
drop  in  on  you  some  day  soon  at  your  '  diggings,'  and  when  you 
murmur  congratulations,  it  smirks  and  says,  '  Nonsense,'  and  that 
there  are  no  such  times  as  the  old  times.  Then — '  Ta-ta,  old  chap ! ' 
— and  off  it  goes  in  its  victoria  or  landau,  breathing  a  sigh  of  relief 
at  the  escape  from  further  detention,  and  forgetting  you  in  a  flash 
until  years  hence  some  mischance  perhaps  restores  you  to  that  fickle 
memory.  Success,  we  are  told,  likes  the  company  of  its  peers  in  its 
own  seventh  heaven,  and  has  its  own  proper  apology  for  its  choice, 
and  it  is  only  when  it  stoops  to  humbug  that  it  repels. 

There  was  nothing  of  that  sort  about  Boughton.  He  clung  to 
old  comrades,  and  all  he  asked  of  them  was  that  they  should  be 
interesting.  '  All  that  is  necessary  to  succeed  socially  in  London,' 
he  declared,  '  is  that  you  shall  be  interesting.'  And  for  newer  and 
younger  acquaintances,  if  they  prepossessed  him,  and  had  talent 
meriting  recognition,  there  could  not  have  been  a  more  useful  or  a 
more  willing  service  than  that  which  he  gave  voluntarily  in  putting 
them  on  their  feet. 

He  knew  everybody  in  literature  and  in  art,  and  everybody  liked 
him.  '  I  have  been  sitting  between  Browning  and  Leighton,  and 
Boughton  put  me  there.  You  may  think  I  am  dreaming.  I  thought 
1  was.  I  had  to  pinch  myself  to  make  sure.  But  it's  a  fact,'  wrote  a 
young  American  artist  to  me  soon  after  his  arrival  in  England  with  a 

1  Copyright,  1909  and  1910,  by  the  S.  S.  McClure  Company,  in  the  United 
States  of  America. 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  165,  N.S.  28 


434  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

letter  of  introduction  to  Boughton  at  his  beautiful  house  on  Campden 
Hill,  Kensington. 

A  simple  missive  of  that  kind  to  him  usually  opened  not  only 
his  own  door,  but  also  the  doors  of  the  eminent  people  in  his 
circle.  Things  like  that  one  had  to  discover  for  oneself,  but  he  was 
not  reticent  about  the  kindnesses  done  for  him  by  others. 

My  own  letter  of  introduction  to  him,  presented  in  1878,  at  once 
led  to  hospitalities  as  little  expected  as  they  were  deserved,  and  they 
were  continued  to  the  end  of  my  long  friendship  with  him.  Sprightly 
in  figure  and  infectiously  genial  and  informal,  he  said  that  after  the 
luncheon  he  would  be  disengaged  and  ready  to  go  out  with  me. 
What  would  I  like  to  do  ?  Kensington  was  then  unfamiliar  to  me, 
and  I  a  worshipper  of  Thackeray.  I  suggested  a  stroll  to  some  of 
Thackeray's  haunts  in  that  suburb  where  he  lived  so  long  and  where 
so  much  of  his  greatest  work  was  written.  Thackeray  might  have 
recognised  the  neighbourhood  then  ;  now  he  would  be  estranged  in 
it,  if  not  lost. 

So  we  spent  all  the  afternoon  in  company  with  Thackeray's 
ghost  and  the  ghosts  of  his  characters,  and  saw  him  sauntering 
up  High  Street,  a  commanding  figure  in  loosely-fitting  clothes, 
abstracted  till  the  voice  or  the  touch  of  a  friend  arrested  him  and 
turned  him  into  smiles.  Miss  Thackeray  (Lady  Kitchie)  was  out 
of  town ;  she  was  then  living  in  a  small  house  in  Young  Street — 
*  dear  old  street,'  she  calls  it — opposite  her  old  home,  No.  13  in  her 
girlhood,  No.  16  now,  which  ought  to  be  the  most  celebrated  house 
of  all  London,  for  there  '  Vanity  Fair,'  '  Esmond,'  and  '  Pendennis  ' 
were  written,  in  a  second-story  room  overlooking  gardens  and 
orchards  in  the  rear.  The  present  tenant  was  afraid  that  a  tablet 
in  front  would  attract  too  much  attention,  but  one  had  been 
inserted  in  the  rear  wall,  and  Thackeray  himself  would  hardly  have 
thought  it  superfluous. 

When  he  took  James  T.  Fields,  the  Boston  publisher,  to  the  front 
door  of  that  domicile  he  said  with  mock  gravity,  '  Down  on  your 
knees,  you  rogue,  for  here  "  Vanity  Fair  "  was  penned,  and  I  will  go 
down  with  you,  for  I  have  a  high  opinion  of  that  little  production 
myself  !  ' 

Kensington  Square,  round  the  corner  from  Young  Street,  is  com- 
mercialised and  decayed  now,  but  then  it  was  select  and  secluded 
and  haunted  by  the  figures  of  Esmond,  Lady  Castlewood,  Beatrice. 

What  an  afternoon  all  this  made  for  me,  and  we  ended  it  at  the 
Arts  Club  in  Hanover  Square,  where  Whistler  also  was  dining— 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  435 

long-limbed  and  nonchalant,  with  a  drawl  as  sesquipedalian  as  that 
of  Mark  Twain.  The  incident  that  follows  happened  long  after- 
wards, but  I  believe  it  is  new  to  print.  Whistler  called  on  another 
friend  of  mine,  Albert  T.  Sterner,  the  artist,  at  his  studio  in  Paris, 
and  while  they  were  talking  Sterner's  little  son  brought  out  some 
of  his  own  sketches  and  endeavoured  to  induce  the  famous  visitor 
to  look  at  them.  '  Yes — yes — yes.'  Whistler  did  not  care,  and  he 
put  the  boy  aside. 

'  Do  you  know,  Sterner,  I'm  wet.  I  think  I  ought  to  have  some 
hot  toddy.' 

It  was,  or  had  been,  raining.  The  boy  disappeared  for  a  minute, 
and  came  back  with  one  of  his  sketches  in  a  frame.  Whistler 
instantly  received  it  from  him,  and  roared, '  Haw,  haw  !  The  boy's 
a  genius.  Haw-haw  !  He  knows  the  value  of  a  frame  ! ' 

Boughton  was  especially  fond  of  Lord  Leighton  and  Sir  John 
Millais,  as  artists  and  as  men.  Full  of  gratitude  he  never  wearied  of 
praising  Millais'  service  to  him,  and  as  an  example  he  told  how, 
when  he  was  worried  about  the  portrait  of  a  little  girl  he  was  painting 
and  repainting  without  getting  the  effect  he  strove  for,  Millais 
called,  and,  learning  of  his  distress,  scrutinised  the  picture. 

'  Hum  !  '  said  Millais,  '  I  know  that  girl,  it's  her  mouth  you've 
got  wrong ;  give  me  a  bit  of  pencil.  This  is  the  way  her  mouth 
goes,'  and  as  he  said  the  words,  he  drew  on  a  piece  of  paper  the 
correct  lines.  '  That's  the  only  thing  wrong  with  it.  Put  that 
right,  and  you  won't  have  any  more  trouble  with  it.' 

'  Millais,'  said  Boughton,  '  was  exactly  like  a  doctor  in  his 
manner,  and  most  soothing.  The  great  thing  about  him  which 
always  impressed  you  was  his  clean  mind  and  his  sense  of  healthful- 
ness.  He  was  always  like  a  healthy  English  squire  who  had  lived 
all  his  life  out  of  doors.' 

For  some  twenty  years,  while  he  was  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  Leighton  gave  a  series  of  dinners  to  all  the  members,  in 
batches  of  twenty  or  so,  arranged  according  to  seniority,  going  thus 
through  the  forty  members  and  the  thirty  associates ;  and  to  these 
would  always  be  added  a  good  admixture  of  those  coming  men  who 
were  as  yet  not  within  the  restricted  circle  of  the  Royal  Academy. 
Many  a  young  aspirant  saw  a  strong  hint  in  one  (and  often  many) 
of  those  coveted  invitations  of  what  was  in  the  '  lap  of  the  Fates  ' 
for  him,  and  in  the  very  near  future  probably. 

The  dinners  were  always  merry  ones,  for  Leighton  was  a  lover 
of  a  good  jest  or  story,  and  his  splendid  laugh  was  as  musical  as  his 

28—2 


436  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

nature.  After  the  artistic  dinner  would  come  the  coffee  in  the 
Persian  court,  beside  the  patter  of  the  marble  fountain.  And  after 
that  the  guests  would  troop  up  the  wide,  picture-lined  staircase 
to  the  vast,  overflowing  studio,  with  the  artist's  work  on  show — 
complete  and  incomplete  pictures,  and  all  the  most  elaborate 
sketches  and  studies  for  every  part  of  the  work  done  or  in  hand. 
Besides  these  studies  on  canvas  and  paper  would  be  some  others 
in  wax  or  clay,  not  only  for  his  sculptures  and  bronzes,  but  for 
groups  in  his  large  and  important  pictures  as  well.  Many  of  these 
little  figurines  would  suggest  by  their  present  classic  grace  those 
from  Tanagra. 

'  Now,  boys  ' — Leighton  generally  called  his  associates  boys — 
'  suggestions,  criticisms,  praises  and  condemnations  are  earnestly 
invited  and  gratefully  received,'  and  there  was  no  let  or  hindrance 
to  any  sound  or  sincere  expression  of  anyone's  feelings  on  the  works 
before  them. 

He  had  one  of  the  great,  open  minds  that  would  take  advice  as 
freely  as  it  was  offered. 

'  I  mind  me,5  said  Boughton, '  of  a  rather  typical  instance  of  this 
which  tells  against  myself  a  bit.  It  was  the  year  that  he  exhibited 
his  «'  Rescue  of  Andromeda."  On  the  line  and  next  neighbour  to  it 
1  found,  on  the  members'  varnishing  and  "  touching-up  "  days,  a 
picture  of  my  own,  I  forget  which  one.  Sir  Frederic  was  up  on  a 
staging,  working  for  some  hours  in  perfect  silence,  which  I  did  not 
seek  to  interrupt.  After  a  time  he  descended  from  his  altitude,  and 
taking  me  back  a  few  steps  by  a  willing  arm,  demanded  a  searching 
criticism. 

"  If  you  see  anything  to  suggest,  now  is  the  time,  my  boy,  to  out 
with  it,  or  else  for  ever  after  hold  thy  peace." 

"  Well,  I  do  see  one  small  but  important  matter  that  I  will 
mention,  as  you  invite  rude  remarks." 

*  "  Good  !    And  that  is " 

'"Well,  it's  the  insufficient-looking  little  'bolt  from  the  blue' 
that  seems  to  cause  such  agony  to  the  stricken  monster  of  the  deep." 
'  "  Not  devilish  enough  ?  " 

*  "  Not  much  more  fatal  than  a  big  paint-brush  handle." 

'  He  laughed,  and  asked,  "  Have  you  any  idea  of  what  such  a 

'  bolt,'  or  shaft,  or  arrow  should  be  ?  " 

'  "  Not  at  this  very  moment,"  I  urged,  "  but " 

'He  handed  me  his  splendid  palette  and  brushes  and  said, 

"  Now,  my  son,  look  out  for  my  return  in  half  an  hour,  and  during 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  437 

that  time  you  have  carte  blanche  to  create  some  lethal  weapon  that 
would  be  likely  to  annoy,  if  not  to  slay,  the  monster — no  fireworks, 
you  know  !  " 

'  1  mounted  the  president's  scaffold,  his  palette  and  brushes  in 
hand,  and  tried  hard  to  conjure  up  some  deadly  and  worthy  arrow 
of  destruction.  I  need  not  say  that  this  honour  thrust  upon  me  was 
soon  observed  by  some  of  the  older  members,  and  taken  to  be  some 
weird  joke  of  mine. 

'  "  Come  down  from  there  !  Send  for  Leighton  at  once,  some- 
body !  " 

'  They  must  have  thought  me  suddenly  gone  mad,  as  I  only  said, 
"  Go  away  !  I  have  leave  to  finish  this  splendid  work  !  " 

'  They  wanted  to  throw  me  out,  and  might  have  done  so  but  for 
the  return  of  Leighton,  who  calmed  their  fears  by  assuring  them 
that  it  was  all  right.  I  was  evolving  a  heaven-sent  arrow  to  stagger 
the  monster.  The  laugh  on  me  came  when  1  was  obliged  to  own 
that  I  had  done  nothing  to  the  picture  except  to  stare  idly  at  it. 
Then  the  fears  of  the  little  multitude  were  appeased  and  they 
departed.' 

I  never  knew  two  men  more  alike  than  were  Boughton  and 
George  du  Maurier.  I  do  not  refer  to  their  personal  appearance — 
in  that  they  differed — but  to  their  simplicity  of  character  and  their 
detestation  of  vanity  and  pretence.  Both  of  them  were  unob- 
trusive and  inconspicuous  and  completely  free  from  ostentation  in 
dress  and  manner.  Both  viewed  life  comprehensively  and  with 
humorous  leniency,  and  both  irradiated  a  sympathetic  warmth 
which  at  once  unsealed  confidences  and  penetrated  the  barriers  of 
one's  reserves.  Intelligence  awoke  and  tingled  and  one's  humanity 
glowed  in  conversation  with  them,  though  their  speech  was  that  of 
the  least  pedantic  and  least  formal  of  men,  and  not  above  a  bit  of 
slang  when  slang  could  trap  an  elusive  meaning. 

They  were  both  immitigably  natural,  and  that  is  a  much  rarer 
quality  than  it  appears  to  be  until  we  search  for  instances  of  it  in 
an  apish  and  subservient  age. 

Like  du  Maurier,  Boughton  had  a  very  fine  and  discriminating 
appreciation  of  literature,  and  he  counted  as  many  authors  as  artists 
among  his  friends.  Had  he  chosen  to  abandon  one  profession  for 
the  other,  his  pen  could  have  supported  him. 

His  letters  were  like  his  talk,  unreserved  and  spontaneous.  I 
quote  only  two  of  them,  the  longest  referring  to  an  article  about 
him  which  had  appeared  in  a  popular  magazine, 


438  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

'  9  Calverly  Park,  Tunbridge  Wells,  July  28, 1900. 

'  MY  DEAR  RIDEING, — I  was  away  from  London  (for  the  moment)  when  your 
very  kind  note  came  to  West  House,  and  the  scorched  soles  of  my  weary  feet  have 
had  so  little  rest  since  that  the  "  happy  moments  "  have  not  been  mine  to  reply 
until  this  peaceful  Sunday  down  here. 

'  It  is  very  interesting,  and  most  flattering  to  me,  that  you  like  the  interview 
so  much  that  you  desire  further  reminiscences  and  experiences.  The  article  seems 
to  have  "  caught  on  "  over  here,  judging  by  the  dozens  of  press  notices  that  the 
enterprising  clipping  bureau  has  showered  upon  me.  Of  course  there  is  a  lot 
more  of  the  same  sort  of  material  stowed  away  in  the  carefully  dusted  "  pigeon 
holes  "  of  my  memory.  I  could  have  swamped  that  smiling  interviewer  with 
streams  of  memories — vastly  pleasant  to  me — but  as  to  the  weary  and  easily 
bored  public,  I — and  he — was  not  so  certain.  He  was  of  legal  mind  and  profession, 
that  young  man,  with  a  tendency  to  extract  the  "  evidences  "  of  things,  and  to 
let  the  literary  qualities  go  hang.  And  what  he  did  not  trim  off  his  editor  did, 
and  made  matters  of  "  Gradgrind  "  fact  outstand  in  all  their  bare  nakedness.  The 
little  personal  incidents  which  he,  the  interviewer,  extracted  from  me  were  given 
by  me  as  showing  the  little  "  tides  "  in  my  career,  which  taken  just  as  they  hap- 
pened to  have  been  taken,  instead  of  some  other  way,  carried  me  on  the  way  I 
wanted  to  go,  instead  of  landing  me  in  some  backwater  of  stagnation.  That  idea 
he  did  not  emphasise  at  all.  If  I  had  had  the  narration  put  down  in  my  own 
words  and  his — with  me  the  effect  would  have  been  another  thing,  if  given  literally. 
But  as  the  thing  seems  to  please,  I  suppose  it's  way  would  be  better  than  my  way. 

'  Your  proposal  is  "  so  sudden,"  as  the  old  maidens  say,  that  I  am  blushing 
with  confusion.  Like  the  maiden,  I  am  not  unprepared  for  the  proposal,  as  I 
have  been  writing  a  good  deal  "  off  and  on  "  (all  sorts  of  stuff)  lately  ;  but  not  any 
reminiscences.  And  as  I  so  often  delight  in  my  memories  of  the  good  people — 
loved  by  the  world — that  it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  know  or  even  meet,  I 
think  that  some  more  "  memories  "  might  interest  the  world  outside  my  own 
little  back  "  pigeon  holes."  I  saw  enough  of  Dante  Rossetti,  for  instance,  to  give 
a  charming  side  of  his  character  not  enough  dwelt  upon  by  his  biographers.  Also 
of  Lord  Leighton — one  of  the  most  splendid  fellows  I  ever  met,  and  whose  equal 
I  never  expect  to  see  again.  And  his  great  quality  as  a  man  was  supreme  personal 
charm.  I  never  thought  to  criticise  his  art,  or  Rossetti's,  or  Millais,'  or  Browning's, 
but  just  to  dwell  on  the  rare  qualities  of  character  and  curious  incidents  that  reveal 
such  men. 

'  So,  my  dear  Rideing,  you  may  expect  to  hear  more  of  this  matter  from  me  at 
an  early  date.  Just  now  I  am  resting  a  bit. 

*  Yours  ever, 

'  G.  H.  BOUGHTON.' 

1 9  Calverly  Park,  Tunbridge  Wells,  August  26,  1900. 

'  MY  DEAR  RIDEING, — I  am  afraid  I  have  already  exhausted  my  memories 
such  as  are  not  too  personal  and  private)  of  Millais  and  Browning  for  the  benefit 
of  that  interviewer.  The  few  other  memories  of  Millais  are  much  on  the  same 
line  (of  his  ever-ready  kindness).  There  are  many  bits  of  gossip  such  as  are  given 
in  two  already  published  biographies.  But  I  don't  wish  to  repeat  used-up  matter. 
My  other  memories,  many  too  personal,  are  connected  with  the  inner  life  of  the 
Royal  Academy — so  "  inner  "  that  they  are  not  only  "  tiled,"  but  quite  uninterest- 
ing to  the  average  youth.  So  too  of  Leighton.  Outside  the  Academy  walls  he 
was  the  soul  of  kindness — but  one  anecdote  would  serve  as  a  type  of  the  rest. 
What  took  place  in  his  own  house  is  also  too  sacred  (and  too  remote)  for  the  average 
reader. 


FRIENDS    AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  439 

'  So  much  for  England.     Paris  I  gave  as  to  my  masters  there  in  the . 

'  American  memories  touched  a  new  field,  and  a  name  (in  Gifford)  that  has 
to  be  reckoned  with,  one  day. 

'  My  Durand  experience  (there  was  only  one)  I  also  gave  to  the  .     Page 

I  never  met.     Voild  I 

'  Many  salutations  to  you  all  the  same. 

'  Yours  ever  sincerely, 

'  G.  H.  BOUGHTON.' 

Although  Boughton  was  English  by  birth,  and  never  entirely 
outgrew  the  rugged  dialect  of  his  native  Midlands,  his  youth  in 
New  York  had  half- Americanised  him,  and  he  was  often  claimed 
as  an  American  artist.  Some  of  the  best  of  his  work  depicted 
scenes  in  American  history,  especially  those  of  the  Dutch  period 
and  that  of  the  first  settlement  of  New  England.  The  grey-green, 
sandy  and  low-cliffed  coast  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  ascetic 
solemnity  of  Pilgrim  and  Puritan,  sad-faced,  heavily  hatted  and 
heavily  cloaked,  found  in  him  an  interpreter  as  true  and  as  subtle 
as  Hawthorne  himself,  and  he  was  no  less  successful  in  the  portrayal 
of  the  more  humorous  and  substantial  types  of  New  Amsterdam, 
immitigably  Dutch  in  their  transplantation.  I  think  that,  though 
admired  by  the  public,  he  was  appraised  higher  and  more  accurately 
by  his  fellow-painters. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  he  was  summering  at  Petersfield  and  I 
at  Selborne,  and  I  drove  part  of  the  way  home  with  him  through 
the  pretty  region  of  Gilbert  White.  He  was  less  animated  than 
usual.  Ordinarily  he  was  blithe  and  jaunty,  with  a  disposition  to 
see  the  funny  side  of  things  in  discourse.  Now  I  noted  that  he 
was  subdued,  and  he  spoke  of  the  ailment  which  very  soon  after- 
wards became  fatal.  To  visualise  him  the  reader  should  think  of 
a  rather  plain  man  of  medium  height  and  girth,  with  a  round  head 
and  a  nutty  complexion,  and  merry,  inviting  eyes  of  quick  observa- 
tion ;  leisurely  in  manner,  but  full  of  sensibility  ;  a  man  of  the 
world  but  not  a  man  of  fashion,  who  might  have  been  passed  in 
the  street  without  recognition  as  a  man  of  distinction.  He  was 
indefatigable  in  social  life,  but  deferred  little  to  its  conventions. 
I  suppose  there  were  functions  at  which  he  must  have  donned  a 
top  hat  and  a  Prince  Albert  coat,  but  even  in  the  zenith  of  the 
London  season  I  never  met  him  in  the  daytime  when  he  was  not 
wearing  a  bowler  and  a  jacket  suit  of  cheviot  or  tweed. 


440  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

II. 

I  often  saw  Archibald  Forbes  at  the  apartment  which,  before 
his  second  marriage,  he  occupied  in  Mandeville  Mansions,  Man- 
deville  Place.  Very  voluble  and  very  na'ive,  he  poured  out  his 
experiences  and  his  ideas  with  a  boyish  confidence  that  the  listener 
could  not  want  to  do  more  than  hear.  It  was  not  an  irritating 
egotism  by  any  means  ;  it  did  not  repel,  but  on  the  contrary  it 
made  one  a  participant  in  the  exhilaration  which  the  achievements 
recounted  fully  justified.  Does  not  a  man  sometimes  glorify 
himself  in  secret  and  fret  his  soul  out  in  doing  so  ?  Forbes  flung 
his  emblazoned  chronicles  out  triumphantly,  and,  much  as  you 
might  wonder  and  admire,  he,  like  Ulysses,  wondered  and  ad- 
mired more.  What  if  he  boasted,  he  who  had  done  so  much  to 
boast  about  ?  As  we  listened  to  him  interest  pinned  us  to  his 
story,  and  it  was  only  afterwards  in  review,  when  we  were  cool 
and  at  a  distance,  that  we  could  cavil  at  his  taste.  His  egotism 
was  too  young  and  too  compelling  to  make  any  effort  to  dissemble 
or  stultify  itself  ;  it  at  least  had  the  charm  of  honesty. 

'  Sit  down !  Sit  down  !  You'll  have  a  glass  of  sherry  or 
port  ?  ' 

The  decanters  and  glasses  were  produced,  and  he  helped  himself 
before  he  launched  into  his  discourse,  which  so  enthralled  him  that 
he  failed  to  remember  he  had  not  helped  the  visitor  when,  two 
hours  later,  he  showed  him  to  the  door. 

He  was  a  fine  fellow  to  look  upon  :  martial  in  bearing  ;  spare  of 
flesh  ;  broad  at  the  shoulders  ;  narrow  in  the  hips  ;  round-headed  ; 
clean-shaven,  save  for  a  crisp  moustache ;  and  clear-eyed — a 
soldier  in  every  feature.  Physically  he  would  have  been  equal  to 
the  part  of  John  Ridd.  But  in  the  Mandeville  Mansions  days  he 
was  broken  in  health  from  exposure  and  over- exertion,  though  in 
one  of  the  rooms  he  still  kept  a  variety  of  kits  suitable  and  ready 
for  any  sudden  call  to  the  field  that  might  come  to  him.  He 
was  really  the  father  of  the  modern  war  correspondent,  and  by 
his  own  achievements  gave  new  dignity  and  influence  to  that 
occupation. 

I  asked  him  what  he  thought  were  the  essentials  of  his 
profession. 

'  There  is  only  one  thing  for  a  new  man  to  do,'  said  he,  '  or  for 
any  man,  and  that  is  to  go  at  once  to  the  front  and  to  place  himself 
where  the  danger  is  the  greatest  and  the  fire  is  the  hottest,  and  to 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  441 

help  the  wounded  as  much  as  possible.  It  is  wonderful  how  quickly 
the  way  a  correspondent  behaves  is  reported  through  the  army  ; 
if  he  shows  courage  he  is  at  once  ingratiated  with  the  officers  and 
men  ;  while,  if  he  is  timid,  and  thinks  more  of  his  carcass  than  his 
newspaper,  he  is  despised  and  every  obstacle  against  getting  news 
is  put  in  his  way.' 

Then  I  asked  him  as  to  his  feelings  under  fire.  '  I  always  have 
a  desire  to  make  myself  as  small  as  possible,  and  in  order  to  keep 
my  thoughts  off  the  danger  I  write  my  despatches  in  full  on  the 
field,  not  making  mere  notes  to  be  revised  and  elaborated  afterwards, 
but  thinking  out  the  most  appropriate  words  and  putting  them 
together  with  as  much  literary  finish  as  I  am  capable  of.  In  a 
retreat,  especially  when  you  hear  shells  coming  after  you  without 
seeing  them,  this  desire  to  dwarf  one's  self  or  to  atomise  one's  self, 
or  to  hide  in  any  hole,  increases.' 

As  to  his  '  narrowest  escape,'  he  wrote  to  me, '  All  narrow  escapes 
are  sudden  and  abrupt,  and  have  neither  frontispiece  nor  tailpiece. 
It  is  a  spasm  and  over  with  it  for  the  time.  On  the  Shipka  Pass 
I  was  being  shot  at  without  intermission  for  one  whole  day,  it  is 
true  ;  but  when  throughout  that  period  could  one  put  one's  finger 
on  the  actual  moment  of  narrowest  escape  throughout  a  day  that 
was  all  narrowest  escape  and  yet  monotonous  for  want  of  any 
relief  ?  I  have  cited  you  the  most  telling  instance  I  can  remember, 
of  a  "  close  call  "  lasting  far  longer  than  a  momentary  period,  and 
accompanied  by  full  and  alert  consciousness  of  every  feature  of  the 
incident  as  it  developed,  until  unconsciousness  supervened.' 

His  talk  was  brilliant  and  orderly,  and  even  his  briefest  letters 
were  in  good  literary  form.  As  a  specimen  I  give  one  in  reference 
to  an  article  I  proposed  to  him  on  a  war  correspondent's  work. 

'  1  Clarence  Terrace,  Regent's  Park,  N.W.,  January  4,  1894. 

'  DEAR  ME.  RIDEING, — As  Millet  *  can  tell  you,  the  mere  writing  of  war  letters 
and  war  telegrams  is  by  no  means  the  "  be- all- and- end- all "  of  the  war  corre- 
spondent's work.  That  is  indeed  a  mere  item.  It  is  obvious  that  a  man  does  not 
do  much  good,  however  well  and  copiously  he  writes,  if  he  has  no  means  of  getting 
his  written  or  wired  matter  on  to  bis  editor's  desk.  The  accomplishment  of  this, 
by  dint  of  a  priori  organisation,  by  sedulous  arrangement,  by  constant  watch- 
fulness, and  by  frequent,  severe  and  prolonged  personal  exertion — that  is  the  real 
material  and  effective  triumph  of  the  war  correspondent.  And  it  is  of  that  species 
of  mechanism,  that  careful  planning,  that  assiduous  forethought,  that  I  propose 

1  F.  D.  Millet,  A.R.A.,  the  versatile  genius,  who  writes  as  well  as  he  paints, 
and  whose  valour  and  intelligence  as  a  special  correspondent  in  battlefields  evoked 
the  enthusiasm  of  Forbes. 


442  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

to  make  the  theme  of  the  article  which  I  shall  have  pleasure  in  sending  to  you. 
You  will  find  that  the  subject  will  not  want  for  adventure  and  interest.  I  consider 
that  in  the  Russo-Turkish  War  I  went  far  to  make  something  like  a  real  science  of 
the  prompt  forwarding  of  war  correspondence. 

*  Yours  very  truly, 

'  ARCHD.  FORBES.' 

All  this  had  been  impressed  on  him  since  his  earliest  experiences 
as  a  correspondent  in  the  Franco-German  war  when,  utterly 
unprepared,  he  was  commissioned  by  the  *  Morning  Advertiser.' 
That  was  both  a  pathetic  and  an  inspiring  story.  Folly  and 
extravagance,  he  admitted,  had  ingloriously  ended  his  university 
career  at  Aberdeen,  and  after  that  he  had  taken  the  Queen's  shilling 
and  enlisted  in  the  Eoyal  Dragoons,  from  which  he  had  been  dis- 
charged when  he  started  with  inadequate  capital  the  '  London 
Scotsman,'  writing  the  whole  of  it — news,  editorials  and  fiction — 
and  taking  on  his  own  shoulders  also  the  business  of  publishing 
it  without  earning  from  it  more  than  bread  and  butter. 

Then  it  was  that  James  Grant,  another  Scot,  who  edited  the 
'  Advertiser,'  despatched  him  without  credentials  and  with  only 
twenty  pounds  in  his  pocket  to  see  what  he  could  of  the  war.  He 
chose  the  German  camp,  and  by  a  lucky  chance  received  the  '  great 
Headquarters  Pass,'  which  gave  him  as  many  privileges  as  were 
allowed.  He  could  not  afford  horses,  mounts  and  remounts, 
which  nearly  all  the  other  correspondents  had.  He  covered  the 
ground  afoot  with  a  knapsack  on  his  back,  ate  gypsy-fashion  under 
the  lee  of  hedges,  and  slept  anywhere.  He  had  no  money  to  send 
couriers  back  to  the  bases  with  his  despatches,  or  even  for  telegrams, 
and  no  influence  at  headquarters  through  which  his  letters  could 
be  hastened  to  their  destinations. 

'  I  have  often  thought  since,'  he  said,  '  had  all  the  appliances 
been  then  at  my  command  such  as  in  later  campaigns  I  originated, 
elaborated,  and  strained  many  a  time  to  their  utmost  tension, 
how  I  might  have  made  the  world  ring  in  those  early,  eager,  feverish 
days  of  the  first  act  of  the  Franco-German  tragedy  ! ' 

Does  that  sound  like  brag  ?  It  is  a  characteristic  utterance, 
but  it  is  not  vainglorious.  He  did  '  make  the  world  ring  '  by  his 
exploits  whenever  his  hands  were  untied. 

Through  no  fault  of  his  the  despatches  he  sent  by  mail  were 
belated  or  lost  en  route  to  London,  and  a  letter  from  Grant  recall- 
ing him  was  on  its  way  to  him,  but  not  received,  when  he  was 
approached  by  the  head  of  the  staff  of  the  'Times,'  William 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  443 

Howard  Eussell,  with  a  proposal  that  he  should  transfer  his  services 
to  that  paper. 

'  It  was  with  a  pang  that  I  was  forced  to  tell  him  that  not  even 
for  such  promotion  could  I  desert  the  colours  under  which  I  had 
taken  service,  futile  in  the  way  of  making  a  name  for  myseK  as  I 
had  come  to  realise  that  service  to  be.' 

Grant's  letter  of  dismissal  reached  him,  and  he  struggled  back 
to  London  penniless,  weary  and  disheartened.  Meanwhile,  how- 
ever, he  had  in  his  pockets  unreported  news  of  great  importance, 
which  on  his  arrival  he  offered  to  the  '  Advertiser,'  feeling  that  he 
was  in  honour  bound  to  do  so.  Grant  coldly  and  curtly  refused  it. 
Then  he  carried  it  to  the '  Times,'  and  sent  a  card  by  the  doorkeeper 
to  the  editor,  writing  on  it,  '  Left  German  front  before  Paris  three 
days  ago,  possessed  of  exclusive  information  as  to  dispositions 
for  beleaguerment.'  He  was  not  even  invited  into  the  editor's 
office,  and  the  only  reply  was  a  message  by  the  doorkeeper  that 
if  he  chose  to  submit  an  article  '  in  the  usual  way,'  it  would  be 
considered. 

Humiliated  and  disappointed  again,  he  took  it  to  the  '  Daily 
News,'  and  after  a  gruff  reception  by  the  acting  editor,  was  asked 
to  expand  it  into  three  columns  to  be  paid  for  at  the  rate  of  five 
guineas  a  column — an  enormous  sum  to  him  in  those  days  of 
impoverishment. 

'  I  wrote  like  a  whirlwind  then,  and  I  found  that  the  faster 
I  wrote  the  better  I  wrote,'  he  said.  '  The  picture  grew  on  the 
canvas.  I  had  that  glow  and  sense  of  power  which  come  to  a  man 
when  he  knows  that  he  is  doing  good  work.  The  space  allowed 
to  me  would  not  hold  half  my  picture.  I  took  it  incomplete  to  the 
editor — three  columns  written  in  three  hours,  and  begged  him  to 
give  me  more  space.' 

The  acting  editor  glanced  at  it  and  said,  '  Very  good.  We'll 
take  as  much  of  this  kind  of  stuff  as  you  can  write.' 

1  At  five  guineas  a  column  ? ' 

'  Yes.' 

Forbes  filled  his  pipe,  and  was  happy. 

Then  the  editor  himself,  who  had  been  absent  on  a  holiday, 
came  back,  and  Forbes  told  him  of  the  offer  his  associate  had  made. 
It  was  John  Robinson  (not  then  knighted),  to  whom  I  refer  later  in 
my  reminiscences  of  James  Payn.  Robinson  was  of  those  who 
armour  themselves  against  impositions  on  their  own  kindness  by 
an  affectation  of  severity.  To  Forbes'  amazement  he  said,  '  I 


444  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

think  not,'  and  seemed  to  repudiate  the  arrangement  for  further 
contributions. 

Forbes  could  not  keep  his  temper,  and  having  expressed  his 
opinion  of  the  '  Daily  News  '  with  the  utmost  frankness  strode  out 
of  the  door  and  downstairs.  He  heard  a  call '  Come  back  !  Come 
back  ! '  but  flung  over  his  shoulder  a  retort  of  three  words,  which, 
had  Robinson  heeded  it,  would,  as  he  laughingly  declared  after- 
wards, have  relieved  him  of  the  necessity  of  ordering  coal  for  the 
rest  of  his  days. 

Robinson  followed  him  and  caught  him  before  he  had  turned 
the  corner  of  Bouverie  Street.  '  Come  back,  man,  and  don't  be  a 
fool.  I  don't  want  articles  written  in  Fleet  Street.  I  want  you  in 
the  field — to  start  for  Metz  to-night.' 

And  in  the  evening  of  that  day  Forbes,  with  unlimited  funds  at 
his  disposal,  left  Charing  Cross  as  the  accredited  correspondent  of 
the  '  News,'  to  win  for  that  paper  and  himself  a  pre-eminence  due 
to  its  liberality  and  that  rare  combination  in  him  which  united 
valour,  physical  endurance,  military  knowledge  and  military 
prescience  with  an  extraordinary  power  of  fluent  and  graphic 
literary  expression. 

He  was  too  opinionated  and  too  outspoken  not  to  make  some 
enemies,  but  none  could  impugn  his  loyalty  to  his  employers,  his 
veracity,  his  executive  abilities,  or  that  phenomenal  steadiness  of 
nerve  which  enabled  him,  while  ankle-deep  in  blood  and  enveloped 
in  smoke  and  splashing  fire,  to  describe  a  battle  as  imperturbably 
and  as  smoothly  as  though  it  were  a  garden  party.  Sometimes 
when  the  battle  was  done  and  the  combatants  recovering,  he, 
fatigued  as  the  rest,  but  oblivious  of  himself,  was  in  the  saddle 
dashing  towards  the  nearest  outlet,  telegraphic  or  postal,  for  his 
despatches.  Little  wonder  that  while  still  in  middle  life  he  broke 
down,  a  sacrifice  to  his  own  exacting  and  dauntless  sense  of  duty. 

III. 

Another  friend  of  mine  in  those  days  was  James  Payn,  then  the 
editor  of  this  magazine.  To  me  Payn  himself  was  more  interesting 
than  any  of  his  novels,  and  more  of  '  a  character  '  than  any  of  his 
fictitious  personages,  though,  as  I  see  it,  he  was  in  his  virtues  and 
in  his  defects  only  a  typical  Englishman  of  his  class — one  of  those 
who  value  above  all  things  what  is  sensible  and  what  is  sincere. 
Patient  and  generous  with  other  faults  and  impositions  he  was 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  445 

militant  against  humbug  in  every  shape,  and  it  was  the  only  thing 
of  which  he  was  suspicious  and  against  which  he  was  bitter.  I 
write  of  him  as  a  friend  and  as  an  admirer,  but  I  fear  I  must  confess 
that  he  discredited  some  things  for  no  better  reason  than  his 
inability  to  understand  or  appreciate  them.  He  discredited  the 
occult,  the  esoteric,  the  aesthetic  and  the  mystical.  But  in  that  was 
he  not  sufficiently  like  thousands  of  his  countrymen  to  justify  us 
in  speaking  of  him  as  a  type  ?  As  a  publisher's  reader  he  rejected 
'  John  Inglesant,'  and  never  recanted  his  opinion  of  it,  though  he 
was  hard  hit  by  its  immediate  acceptance  and  success  through 
another  house.  I  shrink  from  saying  how  many  conventional 
things  he  did  not  care  for.  Educated  at  Eton,  Woolwich  and 
Cambridge,  he  hated  Greek  and  never  acquired  a  foreign  language, 
not  even  a  tourist's  French  or  Italian,  as  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  has 
said.  Nor  is  he  alone  among  Englishmen  there  if  we  are  candid. 
I  repeat  that  there  are  thousands  of  others  like  him  :  Herbert 
Spencer  did  not  swallow  all  the  classics,  ancient  or  modern,  but 
disparaged  Homer,  Plato,  Dante,  Hegel,  and  Goethe.  A  smaller 
man  than  the  philosopher,  Payn  resembled  him  in  courage  and 
frankness,  and  probably  he  did  not  over-estimate  the  number  of 
people  who  admire  books  they  do  not  read  and  praise  pictures  they 
do  not  understand.  He  did  not  thunder  anathemas  like  a  Laurence 
Boythorne  against  the  things  he  challenged  and  opposed.  He 
spoke  of  them  rather  with  a  plaintive  amazement  at  their  existence, 
and  protested  rather  than  denounced.  At  the  end  of  his  charge 
his  pale  and  mild  face  had  the  troubled  look  of  one  who  sees  error 
only  to  grieve  over  it.  He  was  never  boisterous,  though  he  had  a 
ringing  laugh. 

Those  of  us  who  have  the  dubious  blessing  of  an  imagination 
nearly  always  anticipate  a  meeting  with  the  people  we  have  heard  of 
or  known  only  through  correspondence,  and  out  of  the  slenderest 
material  boldly  draw  imaginary  portraits  of  them  which  are  curiously 
and  fantastically  wide  of  the  mark.  Constant  proof  of  the  fatuity 
of  the  habit  does  not  cure  us,  and  with  many  mistakes  of  the  past 
to  discourage  us  we  are  quite  ready  to  repeat  the  effort  and  guess 
again. 

I  remember  dining  at  the  House  of  Commons  one  night — one 
of  many  nights — with  that  most  genial  of  hosts,  Justin  McCarthy, 
and  being  introduced  to  a  tall,  smiling,  hesitating  man,  who  seemed 
embarrassed  by  an  inexplicable  shyness.  His  smile  had  a  womanly 
softness.  From  his  appearance  it  was  possible  to  surmise  a  sort 


446  FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES. 

of  amiable  ineffectiveness.  I  gasped  and  doubted  my  ears  when  I 
caught  his  name.  It  was  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  I  had  always 
pictured  him  as  stern,  immutable,  forbidding,  dark  in  colouring 
and  rigid  in  feature.  That  was  the  impression  that  all  his  photo- 
graphs gave,  for  in  his  and  in  all  cases  photographs  do  not  preserve 
or  convey  complexions  or  the  full  value  of  expression. 

Of  course  I  made  a  guess  at  Payn  when  he  invited  me  to  visit 
him  at  Folkestone,  where  one  summer  in  the  early  'eighties  he  was 
sharing  a  villa  near  the  Lees  with  Sir  John  Robinson,  then  manager 
of  the  '  Daily  News,'  who  was  one  of  the  most  devoted  and  intimate 
of  his  friends.  He  was  to  be  a  dashing,  flaring,  sounding,  facetious 
person  on  the  evidence  of  a  string  of  humorous  stories  he  had 
gathered  together  under  the  appropriate  head  of  '  In  High  Spirits.' 
I  had  heard  something  of  his  escapades  in  the  days  when  he  was  a 
cadet  at  Woolwich — of  how  when  he  was  stranded  in  London  after 
a  holiday  he  raised  the  money  necessary  to  take  him  and  a  friend 
back  to  the  Academy  by  playing  the  part  of  a  street  preacher  and 
passing  his  hat  among  the  crowd  at  the  end  of  the  service. 

My  guess  at  his  appearance  proved  to  be  wide  of  the  mark. 
The  door  of  the  cab  which  met  me  at  the  station  was  opened  by  one 
who  had  all  the  marks  of  a  scholarly  country  parson,  or  a  school- 
master— a  pale,  studious,  almost  ascetic  face,  with  thin  side- 
whiskers,  spectacled  eyes,  and  a  quiet,  entreating  sort  of  manner. 
And  his  clothes  were  in  keeping  with  the  rest — a  jacket  suit  of  rough 
black  woollen  cloth,  topped  by  a  wide-brimmed,  soft  felt,  clerical- 
looking  hat.  This  was  Payn.  His  appearance,  however,  was 
deceptive.  He  was  neither  ascetic  nor  bookish,  and  his  pallor  came 
from  the  ill-health  which  even  then  had  settled  upon  him  in  the  form 
of  gout  and  deafness.  His  spirits  were  unconquerable.  He  made 
light  of  his  sufferings,  as,  for  instance,  when  speaking  of  his  deafness 
he  said  that  while  it  shut  out  some  pleasant  sounds  it  also  protected 
him  from  many  bores.  He  loved  a  good  story,  and  had  many 
good  stories  to  tell.  It  was  almost  impossible  to  bring  up  any 
subject  that  he  would  not  discuss  with  whimsical  humour,  and  his 
point  of  view,  always  original  and  independent,  was  untrammelled 
by  any  sense  of  deference  to  the  opinion  of  the  majority. 

One  day  the  three  of  us  drove  over  to  Canterbury,  and  with 
much  persuasion  Sir  John  and  I  induced  him  to  go  with  us  to  the 
cathedral.  While  the  verger  showed  us  the  sights,  and  we  became 
absorbed  in  them,  Payn  dragged  behind.  We  stood  at  the  foot  of 
the  steps  worn  deep  by  the  pilgrims  to  Becket's  shrine.  He  was 


FRIENDS   AND   ACQUAINTANCES.  447 

sighing  with  fatigue  and  heedless  of  the  verger's  reproving  eye. 
Then  we  heard  a  whisper  :  '  How  I'd  like  to  sit  on  a  tomb  and 
smoke  a  pipe  !  ' 

After  the  visit  to  Folkestone  I  was  seldom  in  London  during  the 
rest  of  his  life  without  seeing  him,  with  his  devoted  wife  and  girls, 
one  of  whom  married  Mr.  Buckle,  the  editor  of  the  '  Times,'  at  his 
home  in  Warrington  Crescent  or  at  his  office  in  Waterloo  Place. 
He  was  then  editor  of  the  CORNHILL  MAGAZINE,  and  his  room  was 
more  like  a  pleasant  study  than  a  place  of  business.  A  fire  was 
glowing  in  the  grate  even  on  warm  days,  and  in  the  afternoons  the 
fragrance  of  tea  sometimes  mingled  with  that  of  tobacco.  He  lived 
by  the  clock.  His  forenoons  were  given  to  his  editorial  work, 
Then  came  luncheon  at  the  Reform  Club  and  an  invariable  game  of 
whist — the  same  players,  day  after  day,  year  in  year  out ;  another 
hour  or  so  at  the  office,  and  then  a  cab  to  Warrington  Crescent. 

One  day  an  unannounced  caller  who  had  managed  to  evade  the 
porter  downstairs  opened  Payn's  door.  His  hair  was  long  and  his 
clothes  were  shabby  and  untidy.  He  had  a  roll  of  papers  in  his 
hand.  Payn,  surmising  a  poet  and  an  epic  several  thousand  lines 
long,  looked  up. 

'  Well,  sir  ? ' 

'  I've  brought  you  something  about  Sarcoma  and  Carcinoma.' 

'  We  are  overcrowded  with  poetry — couldn't  accept  another 
line,  not  if  it  were  by  Milton.' 

'  Poetry  !  '  the  caller  flashed.  '  Do  you  know  anything  about 
Sarcoma  and  Carcinoma  ?  ' 

'  Italian  lovers,  aren't  they  ?  '  said  Payn  imperturbably. 

The  caller  retreated  with  a  withering  glance  at  the  editor. 
Under  the  same  roof  as  the  CORNHILL  was  the  office  of  a  medical 
and  surgical  journal,  and  it  was  this  that  the  caller  sought  for  the 
disposal  of  a  treatise  on  those  cancerous  growths  with  the  euphonious 
names,  which,  with  a  layman's  ignorance,  Payn  ascribed  to  poetry. 
He  was  always  playful,  but  it  is  not  for  me  to  prove  his  stories,  and 
others  will  lose  rather  than  gain  by  insisting  on  evidence. 

WILLIAM  H.  RIDEING. 


448 

THE   OSBORNES1 
BY  E.   F.   BENSON. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  question  of  the  title  had  at  length  been  settled  :  the  simplest 
solution  was  felt  to  be  the  best ;  and  Mrs.  Osborne  need  not  have 
felt  so  strange  at  the  thought  of  changing  her  name,  for  she  only 
changed  the  '  Mrs.'  into  '  Lady.'  The  eminently  respectable  name 
of  Osborne,  after  all,  was  associated,  as  seen  on  the  labels  in  the 
fish  market  at  Venice,  with  the  idea  of  hardware  all  the  world  over, 
a  thing  which  Mr.  Osborne  had  been  anxious  to  '  bring  in,'  and, 
at  the  same  time  it  had  a  faintly  territorial  sound.  Lady  Osborne, 
however,  was  a  little  disappointed  ;  she  would  so  much  have  enjoyed 
the  necessity  of  getting  quantities  of  table  linen  with  the  new  initial 
worked  on  it.  As  it  was,  it  was  only  necessary  to  have  a  coronet 
placed  above  it.  Indeed,  within  a  week  coronets  blossomed  every- 
where, with  the  suddenness  of  the  coming  of  spring  in  the  south — 
on  the  silver,  on  the  hot- water  cans,  on  writing  paper  and  envelopes, 
on  the  panels  of  carriages  and  cars,  and  an  enormous  one,  cut  solid 
in  limestone  (the  delivery  of  which  seriously  impeded  for  a  while 
the  traffic  in  Park  Lane),  was  hoisted  into  its  appropriate  niche  above 
the  front  door  of  No.  92  by  the  aid  of  a  gang  of  perspiring  workmen 
and  a  small  steam-crane.  It  had  been  a  smart  morning's  work,  so 
said  Lord  Osborne,  who  looked  out  from  the  Gothic  windows  of  his 
snuggery  every  now  and  then  to  see  how  it  was  getting  on ;  and  it 
became  even  smarter  in  the  afternoon  when  gold-leaf  had  been 
thickly  laid  on  it. 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  that  day  that  Lady  Osborne  had  only 
a  family  party.  She  had  planned  that  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  settlement  of  the  summer  campaign,  had  declined  a  very 
grand  invitation  indeed  in  order  not  to  sacrifice  it,  and  was  going 
to  send  it  to  the  '  Morning  Post '  and  other  papers,  just  as  if  it 
had  been  a  great  party.  Lady  Austell  was  there  and  Jim,  Dora 
and  Claude,  Uncle  Alf,  Per  and  Mrs.  Per,  and  her  husband  and 
herself.  That  was  absolutely  all,  and  there  was  nobody  of  any 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  E.  F.  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


THE   OSBORNES.  449 

description  coming  in  afterwards  ;  nor  was  any  form  of  entertain- 
ment, except  such  as  they  would  indulge  in  among  themselves,  to  be 
provided.  The  idea  was  simply  to  have  a  family  gathering,  and 
not  heed  anybody  else,  for  just  this  one  evening  :  to  be  homely  and 
cosy  and  comfortable. 

So  there  they  all  were,  as  Lady  Osborne  thought  delightedly  to 
herself,  as  she  sat  down  with  Jim  on  her  right  and  Alfred  on  her 
left,  just  a  family  party,  and  yet  they  were  all  folk  of  title  now 
except  Alfred.  It  showed  that  money  was  not  everything,  for 
Alfred  was  the  richest  of  them  all,  while  the  Austells,  who  were 
the  '  highest,'  were  also  the  poorest.  She  had  looked  forward 
immensely  to  this  evening,  but  not  without  trepidation,  for  if 
Alfred  was  '  worried  '  he  could  spoil  any  party.  Alfred,  however, 
seemed  to  be  in  the  most  excellent  humour,  and  when,  as  they  sat 
down,  she  said  to  him,  '  Well,  Alfred,  it's  your  turn  next  to  be  made 
something,'  he  had  replied  that  he  had  just  received  a  most  pressing 
offer  of  a  dukedom.  And  the  witticism  was  much  appreciated. 

There  was  no  keeping  relations  apart,  of  course,  since  they  were 
all  relations,  and  Claude  was  sitting  next  his  father,  with  Mrs.  Per 
between  him  and  Jim,  and  it  was  his  voice  that  his  mother  most 
listened  for  with  the  unconscious  ear  that  hearkens  for  sounds 
that  are  most  beloved.  He  was  apologising  to  his  father  for  the 
mislaying  of  some  key. 

'  I'm  really  awfully  sorry,'  he  said,  '  but  I'm  such  a  bad  hand 
at  keys.  I  never  lock  anything  up  myself.  Everything's  always 
open  in  the  flat,  isn't  it,  Dora  ?  But  I'm  very  sorry,  Dad.  It  was 
careless.' 

'  Ah,  well,  never  mind,'  said  his  father.  '  And  I'm  not  one 
as  locks  up  overmuch  either.  Give  me  the  key  of  my  wine  cellar 
and  my  cash  box,  and  the  drawer  of  your  mother's  letters  to  me 
when  I  was  a-courting  her,  and  the  Tantalus,  and  the  drawer  where 
I  keep  my  cheque-book  and  cash  box,  and  I  don't  ask  for  more. 
I'm  no  jailer,  thank  Heaven  !  But  don't'  you  even  have  a  key  to 
your  cellar,  my  boy  ?  ' 

'  Oh,  I  suppose  there  is  one,  and  I  suppose  Parker  has  it,'  he 
said. 

Jim,  too,  had  caught  some  of  this  and  turned  to  Lady  Osborne. 

*  By  Jove  !  that's  so  like  Claude,'  he  said. 
Lady  Osborne  beamed  delightedly  on  him. 

*  Well,  and  it  is,'  she  said.     '  There  never  was  a  boy  so  free 
with  his  things.    Lor !  he  used  to  get  into  such  hot  water  with  his 

VOL.  XXVIII,— NO.  165,  N.S.  29 


450  THE   OSBORNES. 

father  when  first  he  went  to  Oxford.  There  was  no  question,  as 
you  may  guess,  of  his  being  kept  short  of  money,  but  naturally  his 
father  wanted  to  hear  where  it  went,  and  there's  no  denying  he  was 
a  bit  extravagant  when  he  first  went  up,  as  they  say.  But  when 
Claude  got  his  cheque-book,  to  look  where  and  how  it  had  all  gone, 
why,  there  wasn't  as  much  as  a  date  or  anything  on  one  of  the  bits 
you  leave  in.  I  never  can  remember  the  name.' 

'  Counterfoils  ?  '  suggested  Jim. 

'  Yes,  to  be  sure.  And  I'll  be  bound  he  doesn't  enter  half  of 
them  now.  And  his  uncle  here  played  him  a  trick  the  other  day — 
didn't  pay  in  his  quarter's  allowance,  did  you,  Alf  ?  And  Claude 
never  knew  till  he  was  told  ;  just  said  he  was  hard  up  and  didn't 
know  why,  bless  him.  Well,  he  being  his  father's  son,  it  would 
be  queer  if  he  was  tight-handed.' 

Jim  laughed. 

'  I  shall  be  down  on  Mr. — Lord  Osborne  like  a  knife,'  he  said, 
*  if  he  doesn't  pay  me  his  rent.' 

'  I'll  be  bound  you  will,  and  quite  right  too,  for  money  is  money 
when  all's  said  and  done,'  said  Lady  Osborne  cordially.  '  Well, 
I'm  sure  that  sea-trout  is  very  good.  I  feel  as  I  can  take  a  mouthful 
more,  Thoresby  ;  and  give  Lord  Austell  some  more.  I'm  sure  I  can 
tempt  you,  Lord  Austell.' 

'  Nothing  easier,'  said  Jim. 

Uncle  Alf  came  and  sat  next  Dora  in  the  drawing-room  when, 
after  a  rather  prolonged  discussion  of  the  '40  port,  the  gentlemen 
joined  the  rest  of  the  circle  again. 

'  I  came  up  here  from  Richmond,  making  no  end  of  smart 
speeches  in  the  carriage,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  in  order  to  make  Maria 
and  Eddie  jump,  but  I've  not  said  one.  She's  a  good  old  sort  is 
Maria,  and  she  was  enjoying  herself  so.  My  dear,  what's  that  great 
big  gold  thing  they've  put  up  above  the  front  door  ?  ' 

c  Oh  !  a  coronet,  I  think,'  said^Dora. 

'  I  thought  it  was,  but  I  couldn't  be  sure.  Lord,  what  a  set  out ! 
But  those  two  are  having  such  a  good  time.  I  hadn't  the  heart 
to  make  them  sit  up.  And  I  daresay  they've  got  a  lot  of  men  in 
the  House  of  Lords  not  half  so  honest  as  Eddie.' 

'  I  should  never  have  forgiven  you,  Uncle  Alf,'  said  she,  '  if  you'd 
vexed  them.' 

'  Well,  it's  a  good  thing  I  didn't,  then,'  said  he.  '  And  what's 
going  to  happen  now  ?  You  don't  mean  to  say  Mrs.  Per's  going  to 
sing  ? ' 


THE   OSBORNES.  451 

It  appeared  that  this  was  the  case.  Naturally  she  required 
a  certain  amount  of  pressing,  not  because  she  had  any  intention  of 
not  singing,  but  because  a  little  diffidence,  a  little  fear  that  she  had 
been  naughty,  and  hadn't  sung  for  weeks,  was  the  correct  thing. 

Uncle  Alfred  heard  this  latter  remark. 

'  She's  been  practising  every  day.  Per  told  us  in  the  dining- 
room,'  he  said.  '  Lord,  if  Sabincourt  would  paint  her  as  she  looks 
when  she  sings  I'd  give  him  his  price  for  it.  That  woman  will  give 
me  the  indigestion  if  I  let  my  mind  dwell  on  her.' 

Mrs.  Per  sang  with  a  great  deal  of  expression  such  simple  songs 
as  did  not  want  much  else.  Indeed,  her  rendering  of  '  Be  good, 
sweet  maid,  and  let  who  will  be  cle-he-ver,'  was  chiefly  expression. 
There  was  a  great  deal  of  expression,  too,  in  the  concluding  line, 
which  she  sang  with  her  eyes  on  the  ceiling  and  a  rapt  smile  playing 
about  her  tight  little  mouth.  '  One  lorng  sweet  sorng,'  she  sang 
on  a  quavering  and  throaty  F  :  '  One  lorng  sweet  sorng.'  And  she 
touched  the  last  chord  with  the  soft  pedal  down  and  continued 
smiling  for  several  seconds,  with  that '  lost  look,'  as  Per  described  it, 
*  that  Lizzie  gets  when  she  is  singing.' 

Her  mother-in-law  broke  the  silence. 

'  If  that  isn't  nice  !  '  she  said.  '  And  I  declare  if  I  know  whether 
I  like  the  words  or  the  music  best.  One  seems  to  fit  the  other  so. 
Lizzie,  my  dear,  you're  going  to  give  us  another,  won't  you 
now  ?  ' 

Lizzie  had  every  intention  of  doing  so,  but  again  a  little  pressing 
was  necessary,  and  she  finally  promised  to  sing  once  more,  just  once, 
if  Claude  would  '  do  '  something  afterwards.  So  she  ran  her  hands 
over  the  keys,  and  became  light  and  frolicsome,  and  sang  some- 
thing about  a  shower  and  a  maid  and  a  little  kissing,  which  was  very 
pretty  and  winsome.  After  that  she  sang  again  and  again. 

Jim  had  seated  himself  opposite  Dora,  and  in  the  middle  of  this 
their  eyes  met  for  a  moment.  A  faint  smile  quivered  on  the  corner 
of  Jim's  mouth,  but  the  moment  after  Mrs.  Per  came  to  the  end 
of  a  song  and  he  warmly  complimented  her.  Eventually  she  left 
the  piano  and  called  upon  Claude  for  the  fulfilment  of  his  promise. 

Claude  on  occasion  recited  ;  he  did  so  now.  The  piece  he  chose 
was  a  favourite  of  his  father's,  a  little  hackneyed,  perhaps,  for  it 
was  '  The  Sands  of  Dee,'  and  Lord  Osborne  blew  his  nose  when  it 
was  finished. 

'  Thank  ye,  my  boy,'  he  said.  '  You  said  that  beautiful.  Just 
to  think  of  it,  poor  thing,  her  caught  by  the  tide  like  that,  and  her 

29- -2 


452  THE   OSBORNES. 

hair  getting  into  the  salmon  nets.     I'm  glad  we  didn't  have  that 
before  dinner.     I  couldn't  have  eaten  a  morsel  of  that  salmon.' 

'  My  dear,  you're  so  fanciful,'  said  his  wife,  '  and  it  was  sea- 
trout.  But  Claude  said  it  beautiful.  I'm  sure  I've  heard  them  at 
the  music-halls,  often  and  often,  not  half  so  good  as  that,  for  all 
that  they  are  professionals.' 

'  So  that  if  your  uncle  cuts  you  off  with  a  shilling,  Claude,' 
said  his  father,  '  you  can  still  make  a  home  for  Dora  ;  hey,  Dora  ?  ' 

And  then  Per  did  several  very  remarkable  conjuring  tricks, 
which  nobody  could  guess.  You  put  a  watch  into  a  handkerchief 
and  held  it  quite  tight,  and  then  there  wasn't  any,  or  else  it  was 
a  rabbit,  or  something  quite  different.  Again,  whatever  card  you 
chose,  and  wherever  you  put  it  back  into  the  pack,  Per  was  on  it  in 
no  time.  Or  you  thought  of  something,  and  Per  blindfold,  with  the 
help  of  Mrs.  Per,  told  you  what  you  had  thought  of.  And  the 
Zanzics  were  held  not  to  be  in  it. 

After  the  strain  and  bewilderment  of  these  accomplishments 
it  was  almost  a  relief  to  sit  down  to  a  good  round  game,  the  basis  of 
which  was  a  pack  of  cards,  some  counters,  a  system  of  forfeits, 
and  plenty  of  chaff. 

And  about  twelve,  after  a  little  light  supper,  the  party  broke 
up,  Alf  driving  down  to  Richmond,  and  Lady  Austell,  who  had 
made  up  her  little  disagreement  with  Jim,  dropping  him  at  his 
rooms.  It  was  but  a  step  from  Park  Lane  there,  but  they  held  a 
short  and  pointed  conversation  on  their  way. 

'  A  delightful,  charming  evening,'  she  said  ;  '  all  so  genuine  and 
honest,  with  no  forced  gaiety  or  insincere  welcome.  How  happy 
and  content  Dora  ought  to  be !  ' 

'  The  question  being  whether  she  is,'  remarked  Jim. 

'  My  dear,  have  you  noticed  anything  ?  '  asked  his  mother  rather 
quickly.  '  Certainly  during  that  recitation  she  looked  a  little — 
a  little  inscrutable.  What  a  deplorable  performance,  was  it  not  ? 
And  if  that  odious  woman  had  sung  any  more  I  think  I  should  have 
screamed.  But  Dora  and  Claude  ?  Do  you  think  the  dear  fellow 
is  a  little  on  her  nerves  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  I  think  the  dear  fellow  is  a  little  on  her  nerves,'  said  Jim, 
with  marked  evenness  of  tone.  '  Can  you  not  imagine  the  possi- 
bility of  that  ?  Consider.' 

It  was  very  likely  that  Lady  Austell  considered.  She  did  not, 
however,  think  good  to  inform  Jim  of  the  result  of  this  consideration. 

'  And  he  ?  '  she  asked. 


THE   OSBORNES.  453 

*  I  am  not  in  his  confidence,'  said  Jim.  '  I  am  only  in  his  flat. 
And  here  it  is.  Thanks  so  much,  dear  mother,  for  the  lift.  Won't 
you  come  in  ?  No  ?  ' 

'  I  must  speak  to  Dora,'  said  she  as  the  brougham  stopped. 

'  I  think  that  would  be  very  unwise  of  you.  She  knows  all  you 
would  say,  about  his  honour,  his  kindness,  and  so  on.  But  at  the 
present  moment  I  think  she  feels  that  all  the  cardinal  virtues  do 
not  make  up  for — well,  for  things  like  that  recitation.' 

Lady  Austell  thought  over  this  for  a  moment  as  Jim  got  out. 

'  You  are  friends  with  Claude  ?  '  she  asked.  '  Real  friends, 
I  mean  ?  ' 

'  No,  I  can't  stand  him,  and  I  think  he  can't  stand  me.' 

Lady  Austell  could  not  resist  giving  her  son  a  little  dab. 

'  And  yet  you  use  his  flat  ?  '  she  said. 

'  Oh,  yes,  and  drink  his  wine  and  smoke  his  cigars.  You  would 
rather  have  liked  the  flat,  wouldn't  you  ?  Perhaps  he'll  lend  it  you 
another  time.  He  likes  doing  kind  things  that  don't  incommode  him. 
I  think  he  likes  feeling  it  doesn't  matter  to  him,  and  I  feel  that  the 
fact  that  we  dislike  each  other  gives  a  certain  piquancy  to  them. 
Good  night ;  I'm  so  glad  you  liked  your  party.  It  is  refreshing  after 
the  glitter  and  hollowness  of  the  world  to  get  close  to  family  affec- 
tion again.' 

It  seemed  to  her  that  a  little  flame  of  true  bitterness,  quite 
unlike  his  usually  genial  cynicism  and  insouciance,  shone  in  these 
words. 

'  Good  night,  dear,'  she  said  very  softly  ;  '  I  hope  nothing  has 
disagreed  with  you.' 

Jim  laughed  a  little  to  himself  as  he  ascended  the  thickly  car- 
peted stairs  to  the  flat  on  the  first  floor,  but  the  laugh  was  not 
of  long  duration  or  of  very  genuine  quality.  He  felt  at  enmity  with 
all  the  world  in  spite  of  the  excellent  dinner  he  had  eaten.  He  felt 
that  Dora  was  a  fool  to  let  little  things  like — well,  like  that  recita- 
tion— come  between  her  and  the  immense  enjoyment  that  could 
be  got  out  of  life  if  only  you  had,  as  was  the  case  with  her,  a  limit- 
less power  of  commanding  its  pleasures.  And  yet,  if  those  pleasures 
were  to  be  indissolubly  wrapped  up  with  an  Osborne  environment 
he  felt  he  almost  understood  her  absence  of  content.  To  put  a  case 
—if  he  was  given  the  choice  of  going  to  Newmarket  to-morrow 
with  Lady  Osborne  in  her  two  thousand  pound  seventy  horse-power 
Napier,  or  of  travelling  there  third  class  at  his  own  expense, 


454  THE   OSBORNES. 

what  would  he  do  ?  Certainly,  if  the  choice  was  for  one  day  only, 
he  would  go  in  the  car,  but  if  the  choice  concerned  going  there  every 
day  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  or  hers,  the  question  hardly  needed  an 
answer.  The  thing  would  become  unbearable.  And  Dora  had  to  go, 
not  to  Newmarket  only,  but  everywhere,  everywhere  with  Claude. 
And  for  himself  he  would  sooner  have  gone  anywhere  with  Mrs. 
Osborne  than  with  him. 

It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive  ;  in  many  cases  it  is 
certainly  easier  to  give  with  a  good  grace  than  to  receive  in  the 
same  spirit.  And  if  the  gift  is  made  without  sacrifice  it  is,  unless 
the  recipient  is  genuinely  attached  to  the  giver,  most  difficult  to 
receive  it  charitably.  It  may  be  received  with  gratitude  if  it  is 
much  wanted,  but  the  gratitude  here  is  felt  not  towards  the  giver, 
but  towards  the  gift.  Towards  the  giver  there  is  liable  to  spring  up, 
especiaUy  if  he  is  not  liked  before,  a  feeling  compared  with  which 
mere  dislike  is  mild.  It  was  so  with  Jim  now. 

He  squirted  some  whisky  into  a  glass,  put  a  lump  of  clinking 
ice  into  it,  and  added  some  Perrier  water.  All  these  things  were 
Claude's,  so  was  the  chair  in  which  he  sat,  so  was  the  cigar,  the  end 
of  which  he  had  just  bitten  off.  This  latter  operation  he  had  not 
performed  with  his  usual  neatness ;  there  was  a  piece  of  loose  leaf 
detached,  which  might  spoil  the  even  smoking  of  it,  and  he  threw 
it  away  and  took  another.  They  were  all  Claude's,  and  if  his 
drinks  and  his  cigars  had  been  made  of  molten  gold,  Jim  felt  he 
would  sit  up  till  morning,  even  at  the  cost  of  personal  inconvenience, 
in  order  to  consume  as  much  as  possible  of  them.  The  evening 
too,  '  the  charming,  pleasant  party,'  of  which  his  mother  had  spoken 
so  foolishly,  had  enraged  him.  There  had  been  all  there  that  money, 
the  one  thing  in  the  world  he  desired  so  much,  could  possibly  buy, 
and  they  had  found  nothing  better  to  do  than  listen  to  ridiculous 
songs,  hear  an  unspeakable  recitation,  and  play  an  absurd  round 
game.  He  hated  them  all,  not  only  because  they  were  rich,  but 
because  they  were  ill-bred  and  contented.  Jovial  happiness  (the 
more  to  be  resented  because  of  its  joviality),  a  happiness,  he  knew 
well,  that  was  really  independent  of  money,  trickled  and  oozed  from 
them  like  resin  from  a  healthy  fir  tree  ;  happiness  was  their  sap, 
their  life ;  they  were  sticky  with  it.  And  he  was  afraid  he  knew 
where  that  came  from ;  it  came  not  only  from  their  good  digestions, 
but  from  their  kindness,  their  simplicity,  their  nice  natures.  But  if 
he  at  this  moment  had  the  opportunity  of  changing  his  own  nature 
with  that  of  any  of  these  Osbornes,  to  take  their  kindness,  their 


THE   OSBORNES.  455 

joviality,  their  simple  contentment  with  and  pleasure  in  life,  with  all 
their  wealth  thrown  in,  he  would  somehow  have  preferred  himself 
with  all  his  disabilities  and  poverty.  There  was  something  about 
them  all,  some  inherent  commonness,  that  he  would  not  have  made 
part  of  himself  at  any  price.  Only  a  day  or  two  ago  he  had  been 
telling  Dora  to  put  the  purse-holders  in  a  good  temper  at  whatever 
cost,  not  to  mind  about  their  being  '  not  quite ' — and  now  he  saw 
her  difficulty.  It  was  not  possible  even  to  think  of  them  in  a 
humorous  light ;  they  were  awful  grotesques,  nightmares,  for  all 
their  happiness  and  wealth,  if  you  were  obliged  to  have  much  to  do 
with  them. 

Jim  finished  his  whisky  and  took  more.  Of  all  those  tragic  and 
irritating  figures,  the  one  who  appeared  to  him  most  deplorable 
and  exasperating  was  Claude,  on  whom  he  was  living  at  this  moment, 
and  on  whom  he  proposed  to  live  till  the  end  of  the  month.  After 
that  he  would  no  doubt  search  out  some  means  of  living  on  him 
further.  Rich  people  were  the  cows  provided  for  the  poorer.  It 
was  quite  unnecessary,  because  you  fattened  on  their  milk,  to  like 
them.  You  liked  their  milk,  not  them.  And  it  was  this  very  thing, 
this  fact  of  his  own  indebtedness  to  his  brother-in-law,  that  made 
Claude  the  more  insupportable.  That  Claude  was  kind  and  generous, 
that  Dora  had  married  him,  aggravated  his  offence,  and  the  unspeak- 
able meanness  of  his  own  relationship  to  him,  in  being  thus  depen- 
dent on  him,  aggravated  it  further.  Yet  his  own  meanness  was 
part  of  Claude's  offence ;  he  would  not  have  felt  like  this  towards 
a  gentleman.  But  Claude,  as  he  had  said  long  ago  to  his  mother, 
was  a  subtle  cad,  the  worst  variety  of  that  distressing  species. 
So  he  lit  another  of  his  cigars. 

The  butt  of  the  one  he  had  just  thrown  away  had  fallen  inside 
the  brass  fender,  and  the  Persian  rug  in  front  of  the  fender  had  been 
pulled  a  little  too  far  inwards,  so  that  its  fringe  projected  inside. 
The  smouldering  end  fell  on  to  this  fringe,  and  Jim  watched  it  singe 
the  edge  of  the  rug  without  getting  up  to  take  it  off,  justifying  him- 
self the  while.  The  interior  of  a  fender  was  a  proper  receptacle  for 
cigar  ends,  and  if  the  edge  of  a  rug  happened  to  be  there  too  it  was 
not  his  fault.  And  the  fact  that  he  sat  and  watched  it  being  singed 
was  wholly  and  completely  symptomatic  of  his  state  of  mind. 
He  liked  seeing  even  an  infinitesimal  deterioration  of  Claude's 
property.  What  business  had  Claude  with  prints  and  Persian  rugs 
and  half-filled-in  cheque-books  ?  He  was  generous  because  the 
generosity  cost  him  absolutely  nothing. 


456  THE   OSBORNES. 

Had  Jim  been  able  to  hear  the  conversation  that  took  place  in 
the  drawing-room  of  No.  92  after  he  and  his  mother  had  gone,  his 
evil  humour  would  probably  have  been  further  accentuated.  Lord 
Osborne  started  it. 

4  Well,  give  me  a  family  party  every  night,'  he  said,  '  and  I  ask 
for  nothing  more,  my  lady,  though,  to  be  sure,  I  like  your  grand 
parties  second  to  none.  Dora,  my  dear,  that  brother  of  yours  is  a 
sharp  fellow.  He  beat  us  all  at  our  round  game.  I  hope  he's  com- 
fortable in  your  flat,  eh,  Claude  ?  You've  left  some  cigars  and 
suchlike,  I  hope,  so  that  he  won't  wish  to  turn  out,  saying  there's 
more  of  comfort  to  be  had  at  his  club.' 

Claude  reassured  his  father  on  this  point,  and  Mrs.  Per  glided 
up  to  Dora.  She  usually  glided. 

'  What  a  dear  Lord  Austell  is,  Dora  ! '  she  said.  '  And  so  aris- 
tocratic-looking. I  wish  I  had  a  brother  like  that.  Do  you  think 
that  he  liked  my  little  songs  ?  Per  and  I  wondered  if  he  would 
come  down  to  Sheffield  in  the  autumn.  Per  has  some  good  shooting, 
I  believe,  though  I  can't  bear  the  thought  of  it.  Poor  little  birds  ! 
to  be  shot  like  that  when  they're  so  happy.  I  always  stop  my  ears 
if  they  are  shooting  near  the  house.' 

'  Lizzie,  my  dear,  you're  too  kind-hearted,'  said  Lady  Osborne. 
*  What  would  our  dinners  be  like  if  it  wasn't  for  the  shooting  ? 
Perpetual  beef  and  mutton,  nothing  tasty.' 

Mrs.  Per  wheeled  round  with  a  twist  of  her  serpentine  neck. 

'  Ah,  but  you  can  never  have  read  that  dear  little  story  by 
Gautier — or  is  it  Daudet  ? — about  the  quails,'  she  said.  '  I  have 
never  touched  a  quail  since  I  read  it.  But  Lord  Austell,  dear 
Dora.  We  were  going  to  have  a  little  party,  very  select,  about  the 
middle  of  September,  and  Per  and  I  wondered  if  Lord  Austell 
would  come.  There  are  the  races,  you  know,  for  two  days,  and 
with  two  days'  shooting,  and  perhaps  an  expedition  to  Fountains, 
I  think  he  might  like  it.  He  told  me  he  was  so  interested  in 
antiquities.  And  if  you  and  Claude  would  come  too — 

Mrs.  Per  broke  off  in  some  confusion.  She  had  forgotten  for 
the  moment.  And  she  drew  Dora  a  little  aside. 

'  Dear  Dora,'  she  said,  '  I  quite  forgot.  Quite,  quite,  quite  ! 
So  stupid  !  But  Claude,  perhaps,  if  all  is  well  ?  They  are  great 
friends,  are  they  not  ?  Claude  told  me  that  Lord  Austell  was 
keeping  his  flat  warm  for  him.  So  kind  and  so  nice  of  Claude  to 
lend  it,  too,  of  course.' 

Then  Lord  Osborne's  voice  broke  in  again. 


THE   OSBORNES.  457 

*  Yes,  the  family  party  is  the  party  to  my  mind,'  he  said.     c  No 
pomp  ;  just  a  plain  dinner,  and  a  song,  and  a  conjuring  trick,  and 
no  fatigue  for  my  lady,  with  standing  up  and  saying  "  Glad  to  see 
you  "  a  thousand  times — not  but  what  she  isn't  glad,  as  we  all  are 
to  see  our  friends  ;  but  Lord,  Mrs.  0. — I  beg  your  pardon,  my 

(jy — now  nice  to  have  a  quiet  evening  such  as  to-night,  with  my 
Lady  Austell  and  her  son  just  dropping  in  neighbour-like,  and  no 
bother  to  anybody.  Per,  my  boy,  you've  made  a  conquest  of 
Lord  Austell ;  he  was  wrapped  up  in  your  tricks,  and  each  puzzled 
him  more  than  the  last.  As  he  said  to  me,  "  You  don't  know  what 
to  expect :  it  may  be  an  egg,  or  a  watch,  or  the  ten  of  spades."  : 

'  Well,  I  expect  it  would  take  a  professional  to  see  through  my 
tricks,'  said  Per  ;  '  and  even  then  I'd  warrant  I'd  puzzle  him  as 
often  as  not.  There's  a  lot  of  practice  goes  to  each,  and  there's 
many  evenings,  when  Lizzie  and  I  have  been  alone,  when  we've  gone 
through  them,  and  she  pulled  me  up  short  if  ever  she  saw,  so  I 
might  say,  the  wink  of  a  shirt  cuff.  But  they  went  off  pretty  well 
to-night,  though  I  say  that  who  shouldn't.' 

'  And  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  pleased  me  best  to-night,' 
said  Lady  Osborne,  '  whether  it  was  the  conjuring  tricks,  or  Lizzie's 
singing,  or  the  "  Sands  of  Dee,"  or  the  round  game.  Bless  me  ! 
and  it's  nearly  one  o'clock.  It's  time  we  were  all  in  bed,  for  there's 
no  rest  for  anybody  to-morrow,  I'm  sure,  not  after  the  clock's  gone 
ten  in  the  morning  till  two  the  next  morning  and  later.' 

Lord  Osborne  gave  a  gigantic  yawn. 

'  I'm  sure  I  apologise  to  the  company  for  gaping,'  he  said,  '  but 
it  comes  upon  one  sometimes  without  knowing.  And  what  has 
my  lady  planned  for  to-morrow  ?  ' 

'  As  if  it  was  me  as  had  planned  it,'  said  his  wife,  '  when  you 
would  have  half  the  Cabinet  to  take  their  lunch  with  you,  and  a 
Mercy  League  of  some  kind  in  the  ballroom  in  the  afternoon  ! 
Three  hundred  teas  ordered,  and  by  your  orders,  Mr.  0.,  which 
will  but  give  you  time  to  dress,  if  you're  thinking  to  make  a  speech 
to  them.  But  do  be  up  to  the  time  for  dinner,  for  we  sit  down 
thirty  at  table  at  a  quarter  past  eight,  and  out  of  the  ballroom  you 
must  go,  for  if  the  servants  clear  it  and  air  it  for  my  dance  by 
eleven  o'clock,  it's  as  much  as  you  can  expect  of  flesh  and  blood  !  ' 

*  And  she  carries  it  all  in  her  head,'  said  her  husband,  '  as  if  it 
was  twice  five's  ten  !     Maria,  my  dear,  you're  right,  and  it's  time 
to  go  to  the  land  of  Nod.     Not  that  there'll  be  much  nodding  for 
me  ;  I  shall  sleep  without  them  sort  of  preliminaries.' 


458  THE   OSBORNES. 

4  Well,  and  I'm  sure  you  ought  to  after  all  the  snoring  exercise 
you  went  through  last  night,'  said  Lady  Osborne  genially.  '  I  couldn't 
have  believed  it  if  I  hadn't  heard  it.  There,  there,  my  dear,  it's 
only  my  joke.  And  they  tell  me  it  shows  a  healthy  pair  of  lungs  to 
make  all  that  night  music,  as  I  may  say.  And,  Dora,  be  sure  as 
your  brother  knows  he's  welcome  to  dinner  as  well  as  the  dance 
afterwards,  in  case  I  didn't  say  it  to  him.  I  can  always  find  an 
extra  place  at  my  table  for  them  as  are  always  welcome.' 

Lord  Osborne  got  up. 

'  Not  but  what  you  didn't  fair  stick  him  over  your  conjuring 
tricks,  Per,'  he  said.  '  And  did  you  cast  your  eye  over  the  coronet 
I've  had  put  up  above  the  front  door  ?  It's  a  fine  bit  of  carving. 
Well,  good-night  to  all  and  sundry.  Claude,  my  boy,  you  take 
good  care  of  Per,  and  mind  to  put  out  the  lights  when  you  come 
to  bed.  One  o'clock  !  I  should  never  have  guessed  it  was  past 
twelve.' 

The  Newmarket  meeting  began  next  day,  and  Jim  was  not 
put  to  the  odious  degradation  of  paying  for  his  own  ticket,  as  he 
motored  down  with  a  friend.  No  more  delightful  way  of  spending 
the  morning  could  be  desired  than  this  swift  progress  through  the 
summer  air  over  these  smooth  roads  ;  and  that,  with  a  confident 
belief  in  the  soundness  of  his  betting  book  and  the  anticipation  of 
a  pleasant  and  lucrative  afternoon,  entirely  dissipated  the  evil 
humour  of  the  evening  before.  After  all,  in  this  imperfect  world, 
it  was  wiser  to  take  the  bad  with  the  good,  and  if  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  Osborne  family  got  on  his  nerves,  it  must  be  put 
down  to  their  credit,  not  to  the  aggravation  of  their  offences,  as 
he  had  been  disposed  to  think  last  night,  that  they  treated  him  in 
so  open-handed  a  way.  Certainly  they  would  appear  in  a  far  more 
disagreeable  light  if  they  were  close-handed  with  their  money. 
It  was,  of  course,  a  sin  and  an  iniquity  that  other  people  should 
have  money  and  not  he  ;  but  since  Providence  (and  that  deplorable 
Derby  week)  had  chosen  to  make  this  disposition  of  affairs,  it  was 
as  well  that  certain  mines  of  bullion  should  be  accessible  to  him. 
And  here  already  was  the  Heath,  and  the  crowds,  and  the  roar 
of  the  ring. 

Like  most  gamblers,  Jim,  though  practical  enough  in  the  ordinary 
affairs  of  life,  had  a  vein  of  fantastic  superstition  about  him,  and  it 
occurred  to  him  after  the  first  race,  in  which  he  had  the  good  fortune 
to  back  the  winner,  that  his  luck  had  turned,  and  he  cast  about  to 
think  of  the  cause  that  had  turned  it.  At  once  he  hit  on  it :  he 


THE   OSBORNES.  459 

had  paid  Claude  back  the  sovereign  which  he  had  found  on  his 
dressing-table  and  had  given  to  the  cook.  That  had  been  a  happy 
inspiration  of  his  :  the  action  itself  had  been  of  the  nature  of 
casting  bread  on  the  waters,  for  Claude  probably  was  unconscious 
of  having  left  a  sovereign  there,  and  in  any  case  would  not  ask 
for  it ;  and  here,  not  after  many  days,  but  the  very  next  day, 
he  had  picked  up  fifty  of  them  before  lunch.  Apparently  some 
sort  of  broad-minded  guardian  angel  looked  after  his  bets  and  his 
morals,  and,  if  he  was  good,  turned  the  luck  for  him  (for  this  broad- 
minded  angel  clearly  did  not  object  to  a  little  horse-racing)  and 
enabled  him  to  back  winners.  And  after  this  initial  success  Jim 
went  back  to  his  friend's  motor  and  ate  an  extremely  good  lunch. 

Whether  the  broad-minded  angel  looked  back  over  Jim's  past 
record  and  found  something  that  he  could  not  quite  stand,  Jim 
never  reasoned  out  with  any  certainty ;  all  that  was  certain  was 
that  after  that  first  race  the  carefully  made  up,  almost  gilt-edged 
book  went  to  pieces.  Once  in  a  sudden  access  of  caution  he  hedged 
over  a  horse  he  had  backed  ;  that  was  the  only  winner  he  was 
concerned  with  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Jim  returned  to  town  that  evening  in  a  frame  of  mind  that  was 
not  yet  desperate,  but  sufficiently  serious  to  make  him  uncom- 
fortable. Outwardly,  he  took  his  losses  admirably,  was  cheer- 
fully cynical  about  them,  and  behaved  in  nowise  other  than  he 
would  have  behaved  if  he  had  been  winning  all  afternoon.  He 
had  promised  to  dine  at  the  Savoy,  but  on  arrival  at  the  flat  he 
found  a  telephone  message  written  out  which  had  come  from  Dora 
after  his  departure  that  morning,  asking  him  to  dine  at  No.  92. 
At  that  his  mood  of  last  evening  flashed  up  again. 

'  I'll  be  damned  if  I  ever  set  foot  in  that  house  again  !  '  he  said 
to  himself.  And  regretted  into  the  telephone. 

There  was  a  telegram  for  him  as  well.  It  was  from  a  very  well- 
informed  quarter,  giving  him  the  tip  to  back  CaUisto,  an  outsider, 
for  the  big  race  to-morrow. 

He  crumpled  it  up  impatiently  ;  how  many  well-informed  tips, 
he  wondered,  had  he  acted  on,  and  what  percentage  of  them  had 
come  off  ?  Scarcely  one  in  a  hundred.  No  ;  backing  outsiders  was 
a  good  enough  game  if  you  were  on  your  luck,  and  also  happened 
to  be  solvent. 

He  did  not  go  to  Newmarket  next  day,  but  sat  all  afternoon  in 
his  club,  making  frequent  journeys  to  the  tape,  that  ticked  out 
inexorably  and  without  emotion  things  so  momentous  to  him. 


460  THE   OSBORNES. 

It  was  a  little  out  of  order,  and  now  and  then,  after  the  announce- 
ment '  Newmarket,'  it  would  reel  off  a  rapid  gabble  of  meaningless 
letters  like  a  voluble  drunkard,  or  give  some  extraneous  information 
about  what  was  happening  at  Lord's.  Then  it  pulled  itself  together 
again,  and  he  saw  that  Callisto  had  won.  Harry  Franklin  was 
looking  over  his  shoulder  as  this  information  came  out,  and  gave  a 
cackle  of  laughter. 

'  Hurrah  !  fur  coat  for  May  and  new  gun  for  me,'  he  said. 

'  Lucky  dog  !  '  said  Jim.     '  I  thought  you  never  betted.' 

'  Oh,  once  in  a  blue  moon  !  Moon  was  blue  yesterday.  Some- 
body gave  me  the  tip  last  night,  and  I  had  a  shy.' 

'  I  didn't  shy,'  said  Jim.  '  Bather  a  pity.  Twenty-five  to  one, 
wasn't  it  ?  ' 

4  Yes  ;  that  fiver  of  mine  will  go  a  long  way,'  said  Harry. 
*  Come  and  dine  to-night.  Dora  and  Claude  Osborne  are  coming.' 

'  Thanks  awfully,  but  I'm  engaged,'  said  Jim. 

He  went  back  to  his  flat  when  the  last  race  was  recorded  to  see 
just  where  he  stood.  He  had  nothing  more  on  for  the  last  day  of 
the  meeting,  and  thus  his  accounts  were  ready  to  be  made  up. 
A  rather  lengthy  addition,  with  a  very  short  subtraction  of  winnings, 
showed  him  just  what  he  had  lost.  And  he  owed  nearly  five  hundred 
pounds  more  than  he  could  possibly  pay.  The  exact  sum  was 
476?.  It  would  have  to  be  paid  by  Monday  next. 

It  was  true,  in  a  sense,  that,  as  he  told  Harry  Franklin,  he  was 
engaged  that  night,  though  the  engagement  was  to  himself  only. 
It  was  necessary  to  sit  and  think.  The  money  was  necessary  to 
him,  and  necessity  is  a  lawless  force.  The  money  had  to  be  obtained ; 
so  much  might  be  taken  for  granted.  It  was  no  use  considering 
what  would  happen  if  it  was  not  obtained,  therefore,  all  that  might 
be  dismissed,  for  it  had  to  be  obtained.  That  was  the  terminus 
from  which  he  started. 

He  had  telephoned  from  the  club  that  he  would  be  in  for  dinner, 
and  would  dine  alone,  and  Claude's  admirable  cook,  it  appeared, 
understood  the  science  of  providing  single  dinners  as  well  as  she 
understood  more  festive  provisions.  Dinner  was  light  and  short, 
and  Parker,  without  prompting,  gave  him  a  half-bottle  of  Veuve 
Clicquot,  iced  to  the  right  point  and  no  further,  and  a  glass  of  port 
that  seemed  to  restore  him  to  his  normal  level.  What  he  had  to 
face  was  no  longer  unfaceable  ;  he  felt  he  could  go  out  and  meet 
necessity. 

Other  possibilities  detained  him  but  little  ;  it  was  no  use  apply- 


THE   OSBORNES.  461 

ing  to  his  mother  for  money,  for  he  might  as  well  apply  to  the 
workhouse ;  and  he  could  not  apply  to  the  Osbornes.  He  tried  to 
think  of  himself  asking  Claude  to  lend  him  this  sum  ;  he  tried  to 
picture  himself  going  to  Lord  Osborne  with  his  story.  But  the  picture 
was  unpaintable  :  it  had  no  possible  existence. 

And  the  other  way — the  way  which  already  had  taken  form 
and  feature  in  his  mind — was  not  so  difficult,  far  less  impossible  of 
contemplation,  simply  because  his  nature  was  not  straight,  and  the 
moral  difficulty  of  stealing  appeared  to  him  to  be  within  his  power 
to  deal  with.  He  had  never  been  straight ;  but  even  now  he  made 
excuses  for  himself,  said  that  it  was  a  necessity  that  forced  him  into 
a  path  that  was  abhorrent  to  him.  Perhaps  he  did  dislike  it  a 
little ;  certainly  he  did  not  take  it  for  amusement.  Simply  there 
was  no  other  way  open  to  him.  There  remained  only  to  consider 
the  chances  of  detection.  They  did  not  seem  to  him  great.  The 
cheque-book  with  which  he  would  shortly  be  concerned  had  clearly 
been  left  in  its  drawer  as  finished  with,  for  the  last  cheque  was  used, 
though  not  the  one  immediately  preceding  it.  Claude,  too,  had  almost 
bragged  about  his  carelessness  with  regard  to  money,  and  the  truth 
of  his  boast  had  been  endorsed  by  his  mother  only  two  nights  ago, 
when  she  told  him  how  he  had  never  noticed  that  his  quarter's 
allowance  had  not  been  paid  in.  That  was  a  matter  of  nearlv 
four  thousand  pounds  ;  this  of  hardly  more  than  the  same  number 
of  hundreds. 

Besides,  if  it  were  detected,  what  would  Claude  do  ?  Proceed 
against  his  wife's  brother  ?  He  believed  he  need  not  waste  time  in 
considering  such  a  possibility,  for,  to  begin  with,  the  possibility 
itself  was  so  remote. 

Then  for  a  moment  some  little  voice  of  honour  made  itself 
heard,  and  he  had  to  argue  it  down.  Not  to  pay  such  debts — debts 
of  honour,  as  they  were  called — was  among  those  very  few  things 
that  a  man  must  not  do,  and  for  which,  if  he  does  them,  he  gets  no 
quarter  from  society  in  general.  No  doubt  he  could  get  his  debts 
paid  if  he  went  to  the  Osbornes  ;  but  that  he  could  not  do.  It 
was  much  harder  for  him  than  that  which  he  proposed  to  do.  So 
the  little  voice  was  silenced  again,  almost  before  it  began  to  speak. 
But  it  was  used  to  being  taken  lightly,  to  be  not  listened  to. 

He  was  not  often  at  home  in  the  evening,  but  when  he  was  he 
usually  sat  in  Claude's  room,  which,  though  small,  was  cooler  than 
the  southward-facing  drawing-room,  and  he  took  his  cigar  there 
now.  A  tray  of  whisky  and  Perrier  had  already  been  placed  there, 


462  THE   OSBORNES. 

but  since  he  did  not  wish  to  be  disturbed  he  rang  the  bell  to  tell 
Parker  he  wished  to  be  called  at  eight  next  morning,  and  wanted 
nothing  more  that  night.  And  then  he  took  some  writing  paper 
from  a  drawer  in  the  knee-hole  table,  and  drew  up  his  chair  to  it. 
He  had  found  there  also  a  carefully  written  out  speech  by  Claude, 
designed  for  his  constituents.  He  read  a  page  or  two,  and  found  it 
dealt  with  local  taxation.  Large  sums  like  *  five  million '  were 
written  in  figures.  Smaller  sums,  as  in  phrases  '  fivepence  in  the 
pound,'  were  written  out  in  full.  This  was  convenient.  There  was 
also  a  frequent  occurrence  of  '  myself '  in  the  speech.  Part  of 
that  word  concerned  Jim.  And  Claude  wrote  with  a  stylograph  : 
there  were  several  of  them  in  the  pen-tray.  Jim  had  used  them 
regularly  since  he  came  into  the  flat. 

Dora  was  to  call  for  him  next  morning  at  twelve,  with  the 
design  of  spending  the  afternoon  at  Lord's  to  see  the  cricket,  and, 
arriving  there  a  little  before  her  appointed  time,  was  told  that  he 
was  out,  but  had  left  word  that  he  would  be  back  by  twelve. 
Accordingly,  since  the  heat  was  great  in  the  street,  she  came  up 
to  the  flat  and  waited  for  him  there. 

She  felt  rather  fagged  this  morning,  for  the  last  week  had  been 
strenuous,  while  privately  her  emotional  calendar  had  made  many 
entries  against  the  days.  That  estrangement  from  Claude,  that 
alienation  without  a  quarrel,  and  therefore  the  more  difficult  to 
terminate,  had  in  some  secret  way  got  very  much  worse  ;  his  pre- 
sence even  had  begun  to  irritate  her ;  and  he  certainly  saw  that 
irritation  (it  did  not  require  much  perspicacity),  and  spared  her  as 
much  as  he  could,  never,  if  possible,  being  alone  with  her.  Instead 
he  threw  himself  into  the  hospitalities  of  the  house  ;  looked  after 
Mrs.  Per,  taking  her  to  picture-galleries  and  concerts,  until  Per  had 
declared  that  he  was  getting  to  feel  quite  an  Othello,  and  per- 
formed with  zeal  all  the  duties  of  a  resident  son  of  the  house. 
And  bitterly  Dora  saw  how  easy  it  was  to  him,  how  without  any 
effort  he  caught  the  role.  Like  some  mysterious  stain,  appearing 
again  after  years,  the  resemblance  between  him  and  his  family 
daily  manifested  itself  more  clearly. 

The  sight  of  the  flat  caused  these  thoughts  to  inflict  themselves 
very  vividly  on  her  mind,  and,  sitting  here  alone,  waiting,  it  was 
almost  with  shuddering  that  she  expected  Claude  to  enter.  How 
often  in  these  familiar  surroundings  she  had  sat  just  here,  expecting 
and  longing  for  him  to  come,  to  know  that  he  and  she  would  be 


THE   OSBORNES.  463 

alone  together  in  their  nest !  And  now  the  walls  seemed  to  observe 
her  with  alien  eyes,  even  as  with  alien  eyes  she  looked  at  them.  It 
was  a  blessing,  anyhow,  that  they  had  gone  to  Park  Lane  :  the 
dual  solitude  here  would  have  been  intolerable. 

She  had  not  got  to  wait  long,  for  Jim's  step  soon  sounded  in 
the  passage.  She  heard  him  whistling  to  himself  as  he  went  into 
his  bedroom,  and  next  moment  he  came  in. 

'  I'm  not  late,'  he  said,  '  so  don't  scold  me.  It's  you  who  are 
early,  which  is  the  most  outrageous  form  of  unpunctuality.  Well, 
Dora,  how  goes  it  ?  ' 

She  got  up  and  came  across  the  room  to  him. 

'  It  doesn't  go  very  nicely,'  she  said  *  '  but  you  seem  cheerful, 
which  is  to  the  good.  Jim,  it  is  so  nice  to  see  somebody  cheerful 
without  being  jocose.  We  are  all  very  jocose  at  Park  Lane,  and 
Claude  flirts  with  Mrs.  Per.' 

Dora  gave  a  little  laugh. 

'  I  didn't  mean  to  speak  of  it,'  she  said,  '  and  I  won't  again. 
Let's  have  a  day  off,  and  not  regret  or  wonder  or  wish.  What 
lots  of  times  you  and  I  have  gone  up  to  Lord's  together,  though 
we  usually  went  by  Underground.  Now  we  go  in  a  great,  noble 
motor.  Let's  have  fun  for  one  day  ;  I  haven't  had  fun  for  ages.' 

Jim  nodded  at  her. 

'  That  just  suits  me,'  he  said.  '  I  want  a  day  off,  and  we'll 
have  it.  Pretend  you're  about  eighteen  again  and  me  twenty-one. 
After  all,  it's  only  putting  the  clock  back  a  couple  of  years.' 

'  And  I  feel  a  hundred,'  said  Dora  pathetically. 

4  Well,  don't.  I  felt  a  hundred  yesterday,  and  it  was  a 
mistake.' 

'  Jim,  I  was  so  sorry  about  your  bad  luck  at  Newmarket.  Some- 
body told  me  you  had  done  nothing  but  lose.  What  an  ass  you 
are,  dear  !  Why  do  you  go  on  ?  ' 

Jim's  face  darkened  but  for  a  moment. 

'  It's  nothing  the  least  serious,'  he  said.  '  I  did  have  rather  a 
bad  time,  but  I've  pulled  through  and  have  paid  every  penny. 
In  fact,  that  is  what  kept  me  this  morning.  I  hate  to  give  away 
all  those  great,  crisp,  crackling  notes  !  I  hate  it !  And  then  on 
my  way  home  I  determined  not  to  think  about  it  any  more,  nor 
about  anything  unpleasant  that  had  ever  happened,  and  I  get  here 
to  find  you  have  come  to  the  same  excellent  determination.  Let's 
have  a  truce  for  one  day.' 

'  Amen  !  '  said  Dora. 


464  THE   OSBORNES. 

It  is  astonishing  what  can  be  done  by  acting  in  pairs.  Dora 
would  have  been  perfectly  incapable  alone  of  watching  cricket 
with  attention,  far  less,  as  proved  to  be  possible,  with  rapture  ; 
and  it  might  also  be  open  to  reasonable  doubt  as  to  whether  alone 
Jim  could  have  found  any  occupation  that  would  have  deeply 
interested  him.  But  together  they  gave  the  slip  to  their  anxieties 
and  preoccupations,  and  Jim  did  not  even  want  to  bet  on  the  result 
of  the  match.  All  afternoon  they  sat  there,  and  waited  till  at 
half-past  six  the  stumps  were  drawn.  Then  Dora  gave  a  great 
sigh. 

'  Oh  dear  !  it's  over,'  she  said,  '  and  I  suppose  we've  got  to 
begin  again.  What  a  nice  day  we've  had  !  I — I  quite  forgot 
everything.' 

Jim  came  home  rather  late  that  night,  and  found  letters  waiting 
for  him  in  the  little  room  where  he  had  sat  the  night  before.  There 
was  nothing  of  importance,  and  nothing  that  needed  an  answer, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  he  moved  towards  the  door  in  order  to  go  to 
bed.  And  then  quite  suddenly,  with  the  pent-up  rush  of  thought 
which  all  day  he  had  dammed  up  in  a  corner  of  his  brain,  he  realised 
what  he  had  done,  and  his  face  went  suddenly  white,  and  strange 
noises  buzzed  in  his  ears,  and  his  very  soul  was  drowned  in  terror. 
But  it  was  too  late  :  his  terror  should  have  been  imagined  by  him 
twenty-four  hours  ago.  Now  it  was  authentic;  there  was  no 
imagination  required,  and  he  was  alone  with  it. 


(To  be  continued.) 


THE 

COKNHILL    MAGAZINE 


APRIL   1910. 

CANADIAN  BORN> 
BY  MBS.  HUMPHBY  WABD. 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

'  WHAT  about  the  shooters,  Wilson  ?  I  suppose  they'll  be  in 
directly  ?  ' 

'  They're  just  finishing  the  last  beat,  Ma'am.  Shall  I  bring  in 
tea?' 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  assented,  and  then  leaving  her  seat  by  the  fire 
she  moved  to  the  window  to  see  if  she  could  discover  any  signs 
in  the  wintry  landscape  outside  of  Philip  and  his  shooting  party. 
As  she  did  so  she  heard  the  rattle  of  distant  shots  coming  from 
a  point  to  her  right  beyond  the  girdling  trees  of  the  garden.  But 
she  saw  none  of  the  shooters — only  two  persons,  walking  up  and  down 
the  stone  terrace  outside,  in  the  glow  of  the  November  sunset. 
One  was  Elizabeth,  the  other,  a  tall  ungainly,  yet  remarkable  figure, 
was  a  Canadian  friend  of  Elizabeth's  who  had  only  arrived  that 
forenoon — M.  Felix  Mariette,  of  Quebec.  According  to  Elizabeth, 
he  had  come  over  to  attend  a  Catholic  Congress  in  London.  Mrs. 
Gaddesden  understood  that  he  was  an  Ultramontane,  and  that  she 
was  not  to  mention  to  him  the  word  '  Empire.'  She  knew  also  that 
Elizabeth  had  made  arrangements  with  a  neighbouring  landowner, 
who  was  also  a  Catholic,  that  he  should  be  motored  fifteen  miles  to 
Mass  on  the  following  morning,  which  was  Sunday ;  and  her  own 
easy-going  Anglican  temper,  which  carried  her  to  the  parish  church 
about  twelve  times  a  year,  had  been  thereby  a  good  deal  impressed. 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  30 


466  CANADIAN    BORN. 

How  well  those  furs  became  Elizabeth  !  It  was  a  chill  frosty 
evening,  and  Elizabeth's  slight  form  was  wrapped  in  the  sables 
which  had  been  one  of  poor  Merton's  earliest  gifts  to  her.  The 
mother's  eye  dwelt  with  an  habitual  pride  on  the  daughter's  grace 
of  movement  and  carriage.  '  She  is  always  so  distinguished,' 
she  thought,  and  then  checked  herself  by  the  remembrance  that  she 
was  applying  to  Elizabeth  an  adjective  that  Elizabeth  particularly 
disliked.  Nevertheless  Mrs.  Gaddesden  knew  very  well  what 
she  herself  meant  by  it.  She  meant  something — some  quality  in 
Elizabeth — which  was  always  provoking  in  her  mother's  mind 
despairing  comparisons  between  what  she  might  make  of  her  life 
and  what  she  was  actually  making,  or  threatening  to  make  of  it. 

Alas,  for  that  Canadian  journey! — that  disastrous  Canadian 
journey !  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  thoughts,  as  she  watched  the  two 
strollers  outside,  were  carried  back  to  the  moment  in  early  August 
when  Arthur  Delaine  had  reappeared  in  her  drawing-room,  three 
weeks  before  Elizabeth's  return,  and  she  had  gathered  from  his 
cautious  and  stammering  revelations  what  kind  of  man  it  was 
who  seemed  to  have  established  this  strange  hold  on  her  daughter. 
Delaine,  she  thought,  had  spoken  most  generously  of  Elizabeth 
and  his  own  disappointment,  and  most  kindly  of  this  Mr. 
Anderson. 

'  I  know  nothing  against  him  personally — nothing  !  No  doubt 
a  very  estimable  young  fellow,  with  just  the  kind  of  ability  that  will 
help  him  in  Canada.  Lady  Merton,  I  imagine,  will  have  told  you 
of  the  sad  events  in  which  we  found  him  involved  ?  ' 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  replied  that  certainly  Elizabeth  had  told 
her  the  whole  story,  so  far  as  it  concerned  Mr.  Anderson.  She 
pointed  to  the  letters  beside  her. 

'  But  you  cannot  suppose,'  had  been  her  further  indignant 
remark,  '  that  Elizabeth  would  ever  dream  of  marrying  him  !  ' 

'  That,  my  dear  old  friend,  is  for  her  mother  to  find  out/ 
Delaine  had  replied,  not  without  a  touch  of  venom.  '  I  can  certainly 
assure  you  that  Lady  Merton  is  deeply  interested  in  this  young 
man,  and  he  in  her.' 

'  Elizabeth — exiling  herself  to  Canada  ! — burying  herself  on  the 
prairies  ! — when  she  might  have  everything  here — the  best  of  every- 
thing— at  her  feet.  It  is  inconceivable  !  ' 

Delaine  had  agreed  that  it  was  inconceivable,  and  they  had 
mourned  together  over  the  grotesque  possibilities  of  life.  '  But  you 
will  save  her,'  he  had  said  at  last.  '  You  will  save  her  !  You  will 


CANADIAN   BORN.  467 

point  out  to  her  all  she  would  be  giving  up — the  absurdity,  the 
really  criminal  waste  of  it !  ' 

On  which  he  had  gloomily  taken  his  departure  for  an  archaeo- 
logical congress  at  Berlin,  and  an  autumn  in  Italy ;  and  a  few 
weeks  later  she  had  recovered  her  darling  Elizabeth,  paler  and 
thinner  than  before — and  quite,  quite  incomprehensible  ! 

As  for  '  saving  '  her,  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  not  been  allowed  to 
attempt  it.  In  the  first  place,  Elizabeth  had  stoutly  denied  that 
there  was  anything  to  save  her  from.  '  Don't  believe  anything  at 
all,  dear  Mummy,  that  Arthur  Delaine  may  have  said  to  you !  I 
have  made  a  great  friend — of  a  very  interesting  man  ;  and  I  am 
going  to  correspond  with  him.  He  is  coming  to  London  in  November, 
and  I  have  asked  him  to  stay  here.  And  you  must  be  very  kind  to 
him,  darling — just  as  kind  as  you  can  be — for  he  has  had  a  hard 
time — he  saved  Philip's  life — and  he  is  an  uncommonly  fine  fellow ! ' 

And  with  that — great  readiness  to  talk  about  everything  except 
just  what  Mrs.  Gaddesden  most  wanted  to  know.  Elizabeth 
sitting  on  her  mother's  bed  at  night,  crooning  about  Canada — her 
soft  brown  hair  over  her  shoulders,  and  her  eyes  sparkling  with 
patriotic  enthusiasm,  was  a  charming  figure.  But  let  Mrs.  Gad- 
desden attempt  to  probe  and  penetrate  beyond  a  certain  point, 
and  the  way  was  resolutely  barred.  Elizabeth  would  kiss  her 
mother  tenderly — it  was  as  though  her  own  reticence  hurt  her — 
but  would  say  nothing.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  could  only  feel  sorely  that 
a  great  change  had  come  over  the  being  she  loved  best  in  the  world, 
and  that  she  was  not  to  know  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  it. 

And  Philip — alack  !  had  been  of  very  little  use  to  her  in  the 
matter  ! 

'  Don't  you  bother  your  head,  Mother  !  Anderson's  an  awfully 
good  chap — but  he's  not  going  to  marry  Elizabeth.  Told  me  he 
knew  he  wasn't  the  kind.  And  of  course  he  isn't — must  draw  the 
line  somewhere — hang  it !  But  he's  an  awfully  decent  fellow. 
He's  not  going  to  push  himself  in  where  he  isn't  wanted.  You  let 
Elizabeth  alone,  Mummy — it'll  work  off.  And  of  course  we  must 
be  civil  to  him  when  he  comes  over — I  should  jolly  well  think  we 
must — considering  he  saved  my  life  !  ' 

Certainly  they  must  be  civil !  News  of  Anderson's  sailing  and 
arrival  had  been  anxiously  looked  for.  He  had  reached  London 
three  days  before  this  date,  had  presented  his  credentials  at  the 
Board  of  Trade  and  the  Colonial  Office,  and,  after  various  pre- 
liminary interviews  with  ministers,  was  now  coming  down  to 

30—2 


468  CANADIAN    BORN. 

Martindale  for  a  week-end  before  the  assembling  of  the  small 
conference  of  English  and  colonial  representatives  to  which  he  had 
been  sent. 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  saw  from  the  various  notices  of  his  arrival  in 
the  English  papers  that  even  in  England,  among  the  initiated  he 
was  understood  to  be  a  man  of  mark.  She  was  all  impatience  to 
see  him,  and  had  shown  it  outwardly  much  more  plainly  than 
Elizabeth.  How  quiet  Elizabeth  had  been  these  last  days  !  moving 
about  the  house  so  silently,  with  vaguely  smiling  eyes,  like  one 
husbanding  her  strength  before  an  ordeal. 

What  was  going  to  happen  ?  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  conscious 
in  her  own  mind  of  a  strained  hush  of  expectation.  But  she  had 
never  ventured  to  say  a  word  to  Elizabeth.  In  half  an  hour — 
or  less — he  would  be  here.  A  motor  had  been  sent  to  meet  the 
express  train  at  the  country  town  fifteen  miles  off.  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
looked  round  her  in  the  warm  dusk,  as  though  trying  to  forecast 
how  Martindale  and  its  inmates  would  look  to  the  new  comer. 
She  saw  a  room  of  medium  size,  which  from  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  had  been  known  as  the  Ked  Drawing-room — a  room 
panelled  in  stamped  Cordovan  leather,  and  filled  with  rare  and 
beautiful  things  ;  with  ebony  cabinets,  and  fine  lacquer ;  with 
the  rarest  of  Oriental  carpets,  with  carved  chairs,  and  luxurious 
sofas.  Set  here  and  there,  sparingly,  among  the  shadows,  as 
though  in  scorn  of  any  vulgar  profusion,  the  eye  caught  the  gleam 
of  old  silver,  or  rock  crystal,  or  agate  ;  bibelots  collected  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago  by  a  Gaddesden  of  taste,  and  still  in  their 
original  places.  Overhead,  the  uneven  stucco  ceiling  showed  a 
pattern  of  Tudor  roses  ;  opposite  to  Mrs.  Gaddesden  the  wall  was 
divided  between  a  round  mirror  in  whose  depths  she  saw  herself 
reflected  and  a  fine  Holbein  portrait  of  a  man,  in  a  flat  velvet  hat 
on  a  green  background.  Over  the  carved  mantelpiece  with  its 
date  of  1586,  there  reigned  a  Romney  portrait — one  of  the  most 
famous  in  existence — of  a  young  girl  in  black.  Elizabeth  Merton 
bore  a  curious  resemblance  to  it.  Chrysanthemums,  white,  yellow 
and  purple,  gleamed  amid  the  richness  of  the  room  ;  while  the 
light  of  the  solitary  lamp  beside  which  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  been 
sitting  with  her  embroidery,  blended  with  the  orange  glow  from 
outside  now  streaming  in  through  the  unshuttered  windows,  to 
deepen  a  colour  effect  of  extraordinary  beauty,  produced  partly  by 
time,  partly  by  the  conscious  effort  of  a  dozen  generations. 

And   from   the  window,  under  the  winter  sunset,  Mrs.  Gad- 


CANADIAN   BORN.  469 

desden  could  see,  at  right  angles  to  her  on  either  side,  the  northern 
and  southern  wings  of  the  great  house  ;  the  sloping  lawns  ;  the  river 
winding  through  the  park  ;  the  ivy-grown  church  among  the  trees  ; 
the  distant  woods  and  plantations  ;  the  purple  outlines  of  the  fells. 
Just  as  in  the  room  within,  so  the  scene  without  was  fused  into  a 
perfect  harmony  and  keeping  by  the  mellowing  light.  There  was 
in  it  not  a  jarring  note,  a  ragged  line — age,  and  dignity,  wealth  and 
undisputed  place  :  Martindale  expressed  them  all.  The  Gaddes- 
dens  had  twice  refused  a  peerage  ;  and  with  contempt.  In  their 
belief,  to  be  Mr.  Gaddesden  of  Martindale  was  enough  ;  a  dukedom 
could  not  have  bettered  it.  And  the  whole  country-side  in  which 
they  had  been  rooted  for  centuries  agreed  with  them.  There  had 
even  been  a  certain  disapproval  of  the  financial  successes  of  Philip 
Gaddesden's  father.  It  was  true  that  the  Gaddesden  rents  had 
gone  down.  But  the  county,  however  commercialised  itself, 
looked  with  jealousy  on  any  intrusion  of  '  commercialism '  into  the 
guarded  and  venerable  precincts  of  Martindale. 

The  little  lady  who  was  now,  till  Philip's  majority  and  marriage, 
mistress  of  Martindale,  was  a  small,  soft,  tremulous  person,  without 
the  intelligence  of  her  daughter,  but  by  no  means  without  character. 
Secretly  she  had  often  felt  oppressed  by  her  surroundings.  Whenever 
Philip  married,  she  would  find  it  no  hardship  at  all  to  retire  to  the 
dower  house  at  the  edge  of  the  park.  Meanwhile  she  did  her  best 
to  uphold  the  ancient  ways.  But  if  she  sometimes  found  Martin- 
dale  oppressive — too  old,  too  large,  too  rich,  too  perfect — how  was 
it  going  to  strike  a  young  Canadian,  fresh  from  the  prairies,  who 
had  never  been  in  England  before  ? 

A  sudden  sound  of  many  footsteps  in  the  hall.  The  drawing- 
room  door  was  thrown  open  by  Philip,  and  a  troop  of  men  entered. 
A  fresh-coloured  man  with  grizzled  hair  led  the  van. 

'  Well,  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  here  we  all  are.  Philip  has  given  us  a 
capital  day ! ' 

A  group  of  men  followed  him;  the  agent  of  the  property, 
two  small  neighbouring  squires,  a  broad-browed  burly  man  in 
knickerbockers,  who  was  apparently  a  clergyman,  to  judge  from 
his  white  tie,  the  adjutant  of  the  local  regiment,  and  a  couple  of 
good-looking  youths,  Etonian  friends  of  Philip.  Elizabeth  and 
Mariette  came  in  from  the  garden,  and  a  young  cousin  of 
the  Gaddesdens,  a  Miss  Lucas,  slipped  into  the  room  under 
Elizabeth's  wing.  She  was  a  pretty  girl,  dressed  in  an  elaborate 


470  CANADIAN    BORN. 

demi-toilette  of  white  chiffon,  and  the  younger  men  of  the 
party  in  their  shooting  dress — with  Philip  at  their  head — were 
presently  clustered  thick  about  her,  like  bees  after  pollen.  It  was 
clear,  indeed,  that  Philip  was  paying  her  considerable  attention, 
and  as  he  laughed  and  sparred  with  her,  the  transient  colour  that 
exercise  had  given  him  disappeared,  and  a  pale  look  of  excitement 
took  its  place. 

Mariette  glanced  from  one  to  another  with  a  scarcely  disguised 
curiosity.  This  was  only  his  third  visit  to  England  and  he  felt 
himself  in  a  foreign  country.  That  was  a  pasteur  he  supposed,  in 
the  gaiters, — grotesque !  And  why  was  the  young  lady  in  evening 
dress,  while  Lady  Merton,  now  that  she  had  thrown  off  her  furs, 
appeared  in  the  severest  of  tweed  coats  and  skirts  ?  The  rosy  old 
fellow  beside  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was,  he  understood  from  Lady 
Merton,  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  county. 

But  at  that  moment  his  hostess  laid  hands  upon  him  to 
present  him  to  her  neighbour.  '  Monsieur  Mariette — Lord 
Waynflete.' 

'  Delighted  to  see  you,'  said  the  great  man  affably,  holding  out 
his  hand.  '  What  a  fine  place  Canada  is  getting  !  I  am  thinking 
of  sending  my  third  son  there.' 

Mariette  bowed. 

'  There  will  be  room  for  him.' 

'  I  am  afraid  he  hasn't  brains  enough  to  do  much  here, — but 
perhaps  in  a  new  country ' 

'  He  will  not  require  them  ?  Yes,  it  is  a  common  opinion,'  said 
Mariette,  with  composure.  Lord  Waynflete  stared  a  little,  and 
returned  to  his  hostess.  Mariette  betook  himself  to  Elizabeth  for 
tea,  and  she  introduced  him  to  the  girl  in  white,  who  looked  at  him 
with  enthusiasm,  and  at  once  threw  over  her  bevy  of  young  men, 
in  favour  of  the  spectacled  and  lean-faced  stranger. 

'  You  are  a  Catholic,  Monsieur  ?  '  she  asked  him,  fervently. 
'  How  I  envy  you  !  I  adore  the  Oratory  !  When  we  are  in  town 
I  always  go  there  to  Benediction — unless  Mamma  wants  me  at  home 
to  pour  out  tea.  Do  you  know  Cardinal  C ?  ' 

She  named  a  Cardinal  Archbishop,  then  presiding  over  the 
diocese  of  Westminster. 

'  Yes,  Mademoiselle,  I  know  him  quite  well.  1  have  just  been 
staying  with  him.' 

She  clasped  her  hands  eagerly. 

'  How  very  interesting  !     I  know  him  a  little.     Isn't  he  nice  ?  ' 


CANADIAN    BORN.  471 

'  No,'  said  Mariette  resolutely.  '  He  is  magnificent — a  saint — 
a  scholar — everything — but  not  nice  !  ' 

The  girl  looked  a  little  puzzled,  then  angry,  and  after  a  few 
minutes'  more  conversation  she  returned  to  her  young  men,  con- 
spicuously turning  her  back  on  Mariette. 

He  threw  a  deprecating,  half-penitent  look  at  Elizabeth,  whose 
face  twitched  with  amusement,  and  sat  down  in  a  corner  behind 
her  that  he  might  observe  without  talking.  His  quick  intelligence 
sorted  the  people  about  him  almost  at  once — the  two  yeoman- 
squires,  who  were  not  quite  at  home  in  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  drawing- 
room,  were  awkward  with  their  tea-cups,  and  talked  to  each  other 
in  subdued  voices,  till  Elizabeth  found  them  out,  summoned  them 
to  her  side,  and  made  them  happy ;  the  agent,  who  was  helping 
Lady  Merton  with  tea,  making  himself  generally  useful ;  Philip  and 
another  gilded  youth,  the  son,  he  understood,  of  a  neighbouring 
peer,  who  were  flirting  with  the  girl  in  white ;  and  yet  a  third 
fastidious  Etonian,  who  was  clearly  bored  by  the  ladies,  and  was 
amusing  himself  with  the  adjutant  and  a  cigarette  in  a  distant 
corner.  His  eyes  came  back  at  last  to  the  pasteur.  An  able  face 
after  all;  cool,  shrewd,  and  not  unspiritual.  Very  soon,  he,  the 
parson — whose  name  was  Everett — and  Elizabeth  were  drawn  into 
conversation,  and  Mariette  under  Everett's  good-humoured  glance 
found  himself  observed  as  well  as  observer. 

'  You  are  trying  to  decipher  us  ?  '  said  Everett,  at  last,  with  a 
smile.  '  Well,  we  are  not  easy.' 

'  Could  you  be  a  great  nation  if  you  were  ?  ' 

'  Perhaps  not.  England  just  now  is  a  palimpsest — the  new 
writing  everywhere  on  top  of  the  old.  Yet  it  is  the  same  parch- 
ment, and  the  old  is  there.  Now  you  are  writing  on  a  fresh  skin.' 

'  But  with  the  old  ideas ! '  said  Mariette,  a  flash  in  his  dark 
eyes.  '  Church — State — family  ! — there  is  nothing  else  to  write 
with.' 

The  two  men  drew  closer  together,  and  plunged  into  conversa- 
tion. Elizabeth  was  left  solitary  a  moment,  behind  the  tea  things. 
The  buzz  of  the  room,  the  hearty  laugh  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant, 
reached  the  outer  ear.  But  every  deeper  sense  was  strained  to 
catch  a  voice — a  step — that  must  soon  be  here.  And  presently 
across  the  room,  her  eyes  met  her  mother's,  and  their  two  expec- 
tancies touched. 

'  Mother  ! — here  is  Mr.  Anderson  !  ' 


472  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Philip  entered  joyously,  escorting  his  guest. 

To  Anderson's  half-dazzled  sight,  the  room,  which  was  now  fully 
lit  by  lamplight  and  fire,  seemed  crowded.  He  found  himself 
greeted  by  a  gentle  grey-haired  lady  of  fifty-five,  with  a  strong  like- 
ness to  a  face  he  knew  ;  and  then  his  hand  touched  Elizabeth's. 
Various  commonplaces  passed  between  him  and  her,  as  to  his 
journey,  the  new  motor  which  had  brought  him  to  the  house,  the 
frosty  evening.  Mariette  gave  him  a  nod  and  smile,  and  he  was 
introduced  to  various  men  who  bowed  without  any  change  of 
expression,  and  to  a  girl,  who  smiled  carelessly,  and  turned 
immediately  towards  Philip,  hanging  over  the  back  of  her 
chair. 

Elizabeth  pointed  to  a  seat  beside  her,  and  gave  him  tea.  They 
talked  of  London  a  little,  and  his  first  impressions.  All  the  time 
he  was  trying  to  grasp  the  identity  of  the  woman  speaking  with  the 
woman  he  had  parted  from  in  Canada.  Something  surely  had 
gone  ?  This  restrained  and  rather  cold  person  was  not  the  Eliza- 
beth of  the  Rockies.  He  watched  her  when  she  turned  from  him 
to  her  other  guests  ;  her  light  impersonal  manner  towards  the 
younger  men,  with  its  occasional  touch  of  satire  ;  the  friendly  rela- 
tion between  her  and  the  parson ;  the  kindly  deference  she  showed 
the  old  Lord  Lieutenant.  Evidently  she  was  mistress  here,  much 
more  than  her  mother.  Everything  seemed  to  be  referred  to  her, 
to  circle  round  her. 

Presently  there  was  a  stir  in  the  room.  Lord  Waynflete  asked 
for  his  carriage. 

'  Don't  forget,  my  dear  lady,  that  you  open  the  new  Town  Hall 
next  Wednesday,'  he  said,  as  he  made  his  way  to  Elizabeth. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

1  But  you  make  the  speech  !  ' 

'  Not  at  all.  They  only  want  to  hear  you.  And  there'll  be  a 
great  crowd.' 

4  Elizabeth  can't  speak  worth  a  cent ! '  said  Philip,  with  brotherly 
candour.  '  Can  you,  Lisa  ?  ' 

'  I  don't  believe  it,'  said  Lord  Waynflete,  '  but  it  don't 
matter.  All  they  want  is  that  a  Gaddesden  should  say  something. 
Ah,  Mrs.  Gaddesden — how  glorious  the  Romney  looks  to-night !  ' 
He  turned  to  the  fireplace,  admiring  the  illuminated  picture,  his 
hands  on  his  sides. 

'  Is  it  an  ancestress  ?  '  Mariette  addressed  the  question  to 
Elizabeth. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  473 

*  Yes.  She  had  three  husbands,  and  is  supposed  to  have 
murdered  the  fourth,'  said  Elizabeth  drily. 

'  All  the  same  she's  an  extremely  handsome  woman,'  put  in 
Lord  Waynflete.  '  And  as  you're  the  image  of  her,  Lady  Merton, 
you'd  better  not  run  her  down.'  Elizabeth  joined  in  the  laugh 
against  herself  and  the  speaker  turned  to  Anderson. 

'  You'll  find  this  place  a  perfect  treasure-house,  Mr.  Anderson, 
and  I  advise  you  to  study  it — for  the  Radicals  won't  leave  any  of  us 
anything,  before  many  years  are  out.  You're  from  Manitoba  ? 
Ah,  you're  not  troubled  with  any  of  these  Socialist  fellows  yet ! 
But  you'll  get  'em — you'll  get  'em — like  rats  in  the  corn.  They'll 
pull  the  old  flag  down  if  they  can.  But  you'll  help  us  to  keep  it 
flying.  The  Colonies  are  our  hope — we  look  to  the  Colonies  !  ' 

The  handsome  old  man  raised  an  oratorical  hand,  and  looked 
round  on  his  audience,  like  one  to  whom  public  speaking  was 
second  nature.  Anderson  made  a  gesture  of  assent ;  he  was  not 
really  expected  to  say  anything.  Mariette  in  the  background 
observed  the  speaker  with  an  amused  and  critical  detachment. 

'  Your  carriage  will  be  round  directly,  Lord  Waynflete,'  said 
Philip,  '  but  I  don't  see  why  you  should  go.' 

'  My  dear  fellow ! — I  have  to  catch  the  night  train.  There  is  a 
most  important  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  to-morrow.'  He 
turned  to  the  Canadian  politely.  '  Of  course  you  know  there  is 
an  autumn  session  on.  With  these  Radical  Governments  we 
shall  soon  have  one  every  year.' 

'  What !  the  Education  Bill  again  to-morrow  ?  '  said  Everett. 
'  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it  ?  ' 

Lord  Waynflete  looked  at  the  speaker  with  some  distaste.  He 
did  not  much  approve  of  sporting  parsons,  and  Everett's  opinions 
were  too  Liberal  to  please  him.  But  he  let  himself  be  drawn,  and 
soon  the  whole  room  was  in  eager  debate  on  some  of  the  old  hot 
issues  between  Church  and  Dissent.  Lord  Waynflete  ceased  to  be 
merely  fatuous  and  kindly.  His  talk  became  shrewd,  statesman- 
like even  ;  he  was  the  typical  English  aristocrat  and  Anglican 
Churchman,  discussing  topics  with  which  he  had  been  familiar 
from  his  cradle,  and  in  a  manner  and  tone  which  every  man  in  the 
room — save  the  two  Canadians — accepted  without  question.  He 
was  the  natural  leader  of  these  men  of  the  landowning  or  military 
class  ;  they  liked  to  hear  him  harangue ;  and  harangue  he  did, 
till  the  striking  of  a  clock  suddenly  checked  him. 

'  I  must  be  off  !     Well,  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  it's  the  Church— the 


474  CANADIAN   BORN. 

Church  we  have  to  think  of ! — the  Church  we  have  to  fight  for ! 
What  would  England  be  without  the  Church  ! — let's  ask  ourselves 
that.  Good-bye — good-bye  !  ' 

'  Is  he  talking  of  the  Anglican  establishment  ?  '  muttered 
Mariette.  '  Quel  drole  de  vieillard  ! ' 

The  parson  heard  him,  and,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eyes,  turned 
and  proposed  to  shew  the  French  Canadian  the  famous  library  of 
the  house. 

The  party  melted  away.  Even  Elizabeth  had  been  summoned 
for  some  last  word  with  Lord  Waynfl^te  on  the  subject  of  the 
opening  of  the  Town  Hall.  Anderson  was  left  alone. 

He  looked  round  him,  at  the  room,  the  pictures,  the  panelled 
walls,  and  then  moving  to  the  window  which  was  still  unshuttered, 
he  gazed  out  into  the  starlit  dusk,  and  the  dim  stately  landscape. 
There  were  lights  in  the  church,  shewing  the  stained  glass  of  the 
Perpendicular  windows,  and  a  flight  of  rooks  was  circling  round 
the  old  tower. 

As  he  stood  there,  somebody  came  back  into  the  room.  It  was 
the  adjutant,  looking  for  his  hat. 

'  Jolly  old  place,  isn't  it  ?  '  said  the  young  man  civilly,  seeing 
that  the  stranger  was  studying  the  view.  '  It's  to  be  hoped  that 
Philip  will  keep  it  up  properly.' 

'  He  seems  fond  of  it,'  said  Anderson. 

'  Oh,  yes  !  But  you've  got  to  be  a  big  man  to  fill  the  position. 
However,  there's  money  enough.  They're  all  rich — and  they 
marry  money.' 

Anderson  murmured  something  inaudible,  and  the  young  man 
departed. 

A  little  later  Anderson  and  Elizabeth  were  seated  together  in 
the  Red  Drawing-room.  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  after  a  little  perfunctory 
conversation  with  the  new-comer,  had  disappeared  on  the  plea 
of  letters  to  write.  The  girl  in  white,  the  centre  of  a  large  party 
in  the  hall,  was  flirting  to  her  heart's  content.  Philip  would  have 
dearly  liked  to  stay  and  flirt  with  her  himself ;  but  his  mother, 
terrified  by  his  pallor  and  fatigue  after  the  exertion  of  the  shoot, 
had  hurried  him  off  to  take  a  warm  bath  and  rest  before  dinner. 
So  that  Anderson  and  Elizabeth  were  alone. 

Conversation  between  them  did  not  move  easily.  Elizabeth 
was  conscious  of  an  oppression  against  which  it  seemed  vain  to 
fight.  Up  to  the  moment  of  his  sailing  from  Canada  his  letters 


CANADIAN   BORN.  475 

had  been  frank  and  full,  the  letters  of  a  deeply  attached  friend, 
though  with  no  trace  in  them  of  the  language  of  love.  What 
change  was  it  that  the  touch  of  English  ground — the  sight  of  Martin- 
dale — had  wrought  ?  He  talked  with  some  readiness  of  the  early 
stages  of  his  mission— of  the  kindness  shewn  to  him  by  English 
public  men,  and  the  impressions  of  a  first  night  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  But  his  manner  was  constrained  ;  anything  that  he 
said  might  have  been  heard  by  all  the  world ;  and  as  their  talk 
progressed,  Elizabeth  felt  a  miserable  paralysis  descending  on  her 
own  will.  She  grew  whiter  and  whiter.  This  old  house  in  which 
they  sat,  with  its  splendours  and  treasures,  this  environment  of 
the  past  all  about  them  seemed  to  engulf  and  entomb  them  both. 
She  had  looked  forward  with  a  girlish  pleasure, — and  yet  with  a 
certain  tremor — to  shewing  Anderson  her  old  home,  the  things  she 
loved  and  had  inherited.  And  now  it  was  as  though  she  were 
vulgarly  conscious  of  wealth  and  ancestry  as  dividing  her  from  him. 
The  wildness  within  her  which  had  found  its  scope  and  its  voice  in 
Canada  was  here  like  an  imprisoned  stream,  chafing  in  caverns 
underground.  Ah  !  it  had  been  easy  to  defy  the  Old  World  in 
Canada,  its  myriad  voices  and  claims — the  many-fingered  magic 
with  which  an  old  society  plays  on  those  born  into  it ! 

'  I  shall  be  here  perhaps  a  month,'  said  Anderson,  '  but  then 
I  shall  be  wanted  at  Ottawa.' 

And  he  began  to  describe  a  new  matter  in  which  he  had  been 
lately  engaged — a  large  development  scheme  applying  to  some  of 
the  great  Peace  Kiver  region  north  of  Edmonton.  And  as  he  told 
her  of  his  August  journey  through  this  noble  country,  with  its 
superb  rivers,  its  shining  lakes  and  forests,  and  its  scattered  settlers, 
waiting  for  a  Government  which  was  their  servant  and  not  their 
tyrant,  to  come  and  help  their  first  steps  in  ordered  civilisation ;  to 
bring  steamers  to  their  waters,  railways  to  link  their  settlements, 
and  fresh  settlers  to  let  loose  the  fertile  forces  of  their  earth : — she 
suddenly  saw  in  him  his  old  self — the  Anderson  who  had  sat  beside 
her  in  the  crossing  of  the  prairies,  who  had  looked  into  her  eyes 
the  day  of  Rogers  Pass.  He  had  grown  older  and  thinner ;  his 
hair  was  even  lightly  touched  with  grey.  But  the  traces  in  him 
of  endurance  and  of  pain  were  like  the  weathering  of  a  fine 
building  ;  mellowing  had  come,  and  strength  had  not  been  lost. 

Yet  still  no  word  of  feeling,  of  intimacy  even.  Her  soul  cried 
out  within  her,  but  there  was  no  answer.  Then,  when  it  was  time 
to  dress,  and  she  led  him  through  the  hall,  to  the  inlaid  staircase 


476  CANADIAN    BORN. 

with  its  famous  balustrading — early  English  ironwork  of  extra- 
ordinary delicacy — and  through  the  endless  corridors  upstairs,  old 
and  dim,  but  crowded  with  portraits  and  fine  furniture,  Anderson 
looked  round  him  in  amazement. 

'  What  a  wonderful  place  !  ' 

'  It  is  too  old  ! '  cried  Elizabeth,  petulantly  ;  then  with  a  touch  of 
repentance — '  Yet  of  course  we  love  it.  We  are  not  so  stifled  here 
as  you  would  be.' 

He  smiled  and  did  not  reply. 

'  Confess  you  have  been  stifled ! — ever  since  you  came  to  England.' 

He  drew  a  long  breath,  throwing  back  his  head  with  a  gesture 
which  made  Elizabeth  smile.  He  smiled  in  return. 

'  It  was  you  who  warned  me  how  small  it  would  all  seem.  Such 
little  fields — such  little  rivers — such  tiny  journeys  !  And  these 
immense  towns  treading  on  each  other's  heels.  Don't  you  feel 
crowded  up  ?  ' 

'  You  are  home-sick  already  ?  ' 

He  laughed — '  No,  no  ! '  But  the  gleam  in  his  eyes  admitted  it. 
And  Elizabeth's  heart  sank — down  and  down. 

A  few  more  guests  arrived  for  Sunday — a  couple  of  politicians, 
a  journalist,  a  poet,  one  or  two  agreeable  women,  a  young  Lord  S., 
who  had  just  succeeded  to  one  of  the  oldest  of  English  marquisates, 
and  so  on. 

Elizabeth  had  chosen  the  party  to  give  Anderson  pleasure,  and 
as  a  guest  he  did  not  disappoint  her  pride  in  him.  He  talked  well 
and  modestly,  and  the  feeling  towards  Canada  and  the  Canadians 
in  English  society  has  been  of  late  years  so  friendly  that  although 
there  was  often  colossal  ignorance  there  was  no  coolness  in  the 
atmosphere  about  him.  Lord  S.  confused  Lake  Superior  with  Lake 
Ontario,  and  was  of  opinion  that  the  Mackenzie  River  flowed  into 
the  Ottawa.  But  he  was  kind  enough  to  say  that  he  would  far 
sooner  go  to  Canada  than  to  any  of  '  those  beastly  places  abroad  '- 
and  as  he  was  just  a  simple  handsome  youth,  Anderson  took  to  him, 
as  he  had  taken  to  Philip  at  Lake  Louise,  and  by  the  afternoon  of 
Sunday  was  talking  sport  and  big  game  in  a  manner  to  hold  the 
smoking-room  enthralled. 

Only  unfortunately  Philip  was  not  there  to  hear.  He  had  been 
over-tired  by  the  shoot,  and  had  caught  a  chill  beside.  The  doctor 
was  in  the  house,  and  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  very  little  mind  to  give 
to  her  Sunday  party.  Elizabeth  felt  a  thrill  of  something  like 


CANADIAN    BORN.  477 

comfort  as  she  noticed  how  in  the  course  of  the  day  Anderson 
unconsciously  slipped  back  into  the  old  Canadian  position  ;  sitting 
with  Philip,  amusing  him  and  '  chaffing '  him  ;  inducing  him  to 
obey  his  doctor  ;  cheering  his  mother,  and  in  general  producing  in 
Martindale  itself  the  same  impression  of  masculine  help  and  support 
which  he  had  produced  on  Elizabeth,  five  months  before,  in  a 
Canadian  hotel. 

By  Sunday  evening  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  instead  of  a  watchful 
enemy,  had  become  his  firm  friend  ;  and  in  her  timid  confused  way 
she  asked  him  to  come  for  a  walk  with  her  in  the  November  dusk. 
Then,  to  his  astonishment,  she  poured  out  her  heart  to  him  about 
her  son,  whose  health,  together  with  his  recklessness,  his  determina- 
tion to  live  like  other  and  sound  men,  was  making  the  two  women 
who  loved  him  more  and  more  anxious.  Anderson  was  very  sorry 
for  the  little  lady,  and  genuinely  alarmed  himself  with  regard  to 
Philip,  whose  physical  condition  seemed  to  him  to  have  changed 
considerably  for  the  worse  since  the  Canadian  journey.  His 
kindness,  his  real  concern  melted  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  heart. 

'  I  hope  we  shall  find  you  in  town  when  we  come  up  ! '  she  said, 
eagerly,  as  they  turned  back  to  the  house,  forgetting,  in  her  maternal 
egotism,  everything  but  her  boy.  '  Our  man  here  wants  a  consulta- 
tion. We  shall  go  up  next  week  for  a  short  time  before  Christmas.' 

Anderson  hesitated  a  moment. 

'  Yes,'  he  said,  slowly,  but  in  a  changed  voice,  '  Yes,  I  shall  still 
be  there.' 

Whereupon,  with  perturbation,  Mrs.  Gaddesden  at  last  remem- 
bered there  were  other  lions  in  the  path.  They  had  not  said  a  single 
word — however  conventional — of  Elizabeth.  But  she  quickly  con- 
soled herself  by  the  reflection  that  he  must  have  seen  by  now,  poor 
fellow,  how  hopeless  it  was  ;  and  that  being  so,  what  was  there  to  be 
said  against  admitting  him  to  their  circle,  as  a  real  friend  of  all  the 
family — Philip's  friend,  Elizabeth's,  and  her  own  ? 

That  night,  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  awakened  by  her  maid  between 
twelve  and  one.  Mr.  Gaddesden  wanted  a  certain  medicine  that  he 
thought  was  in  his  mother's  room.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  threw  on  her 
dressing-gown  and  looked  for  it  anxiously  in  vain.  Perhaps  Eliza- 
beth might  remember  where  it  was  last  seen.  She  hurried  to  her. 
Elizabeth  had  a  sitting-room  and  bedroom  at  the  end  of  the 
corridor,  and  Mrs.  Gaddesden  went  into  the  sitting-room  first,  as 
quietly  as  possible,  so  as  not  to  startle  her  daughter. 


478  CANADIAN    BORN. 

She  had  hardly  entered  and  closed  the  door  behind  her,  guided 
by  the  light  of  a  still  flickering  fire,  when  a  sound  from  the  inner 
room  arrested  her. 

Elizabeth  ?— Elizabeth  in  distress  ? 

The  mother  stood  rooted  to  the  spot,  in  a  sudden  anguish. 
Elizabeth — sobbing  ?  Only  once  in  her  life  had  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
heard  that  sound  before — the  night  that  the  news  of  Francis 
Merton's  death  reached  Martindale,  and  Elizabeth  had  wept,  as 
her  mother  believed,  more  for  what  her  young  husband  might  have 
been  to  her,  than  for  what  he  had  been.  Elizabeth's  eyes  filled  readily 
with  tears  answering  to  pity  or  high  feeling  ;  but  this  fierce  stifled 
emotion — this  abandonment  of  pain  ! 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  stood  trembling  and  motionless,  the  tears  on 
her  own  cheeks.  Conjecture  hurried  through  her  mind.  She 
seemed  to  be  learning  her  daughter,  her  gay  and  tender  Elizabeth, 
afresh.  At  last  she  turned  and  crept  out  of  the  room,  noiselessly 
shutting  the  door.  After  lingering  a  while  in  the  passage,  she 
knocked,  with  an  uncertain  hand,  and  waited  till  Elizabeth  came — 
Elizabeth,  hardly  visible  in  the  firelight,  her  brown  hair  falling 
like  a  veil  round  her  face. 

CHAPTEK  XIV. 

A  PEW  days  later  the  Gaddesdens  were  in  town,  settled  in  a 
house  in  Portman  Square.  Philip  was  increasingly  ill,  and  moreover 
shrouded  in  a  bitterness  of  spirit  which  wrung  his  mother's  heart. 
She  suspected  a  new  cause  for  it  in  the  fancy  that  he  had  lately 
taken  for  Alice  Lucas,  the  girl  in  white  chiffon  who  had  piped  to 
Mariette  in  vain.  Not  that  he  ever  now  wanted  to  see  her.  He  had 
passed  into  a  phase  indeed  of  refusing  all  society, — except  that  of 
George  Anderson.  A  floor  of  the  Portman  Square  house  was  given 
up  to  him.  Various  treatments  were  being  tried,  and  as  soon  as  he 
was  strong  enough  his  mother  was  to  take  him  to  the  South. 
Meanwhile  his  only  pleasure  seemed  to  lie  in  Anderson's  visits, 
which  however  could  not  be  frequent,  for  the  business  of  the  Con- 
ference was  heavy,  and  after  the  daily  sittings  were  over,  the 
interviews  and  correspondence  connected  with  them  took  much 
time. 

On  these  occasions,  whether  early  in  the  morning  before  the 
business  of  the  day  began,  or  in  the  hour  before  dinner — sometimes 
even  late  at  night — Anderson  after  his  chat  with  the  invalid 


CANADIAN   BORN.  479 

would  descend  from  Philip's  room  to  the  drawing-room  below,  only 
allowing  himself  a  few  minutes,  and  glancing  always  with  a  quicken- 
ing of  the  pulse  through  the  shadows  of  the  large  room,  to  see 
whether  it  held  two  persons  or  one.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  invariably 
there  ;  a  small  faded  woman,  in  trailing  lace  dresses,  who  would  sit 
waiting  for  him,  her  embroidery  on  her  knee,  and  when  he  appeared 
would  hurry  across  the  floor  to  meet  him,  dropping  silks,  scissors, 
handkerchiefs  on  the  way.  This  dropping  of  all  her  incidental 
possessions — a  performance  repeated  night  after  night,  and  followed 
always  by  her  soft  fluttering  apologies — soon  came  to  be  symbolic, 
in  Anderson's  eyes.  She  moved  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment, 
without  thinking  what  she  might  scatter  by  the  way.  Yet  the 
impulse  was  always  a  loving  impulse, — and  the  regrets  were  sincere. 
As  to  the  relation  to  Anderson,  Philip  was  here  the  pivot  of  the 
situation  exactly  as  he  had  been  in  Canada.  Just  as  his  physical 
weakness,  and  the  demands  he  founded  upon  it,  had  bound  the 
Canadian  to  their  chariot  wheels  in  the  Eockies,  so  now — mutatis 
mutandis — in  London.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  before  a  week  was  over 
had  become  pitifully  dependent  upon  him,  simply  because  Philip 
was  pleased  to  desire  his  society,  and  showed  a  flicker  of  cheerfulness 
whenever  he  appeared.  She  was  torn  indeed  between  her  memory 
of  Elizabeth's  sobbing,  and  her  hunger  to  give  Philip  the  moon  out 
of  the  sky,  should  he  happen  to  want  it.  Sons  must  come  first, 
daughters  second  ;  such  has  been  the  philosophy  of  mothers  from 
the  beginning.  She  feared — desperately  feared — that  Elizabeth 
had  given  her  heart  away.  And  as  she  agreed  with  Philip  that  it 
would  not  be  a  seemly  or  tolerable  marriage  for  Elizabeth,  she  would, 
in  the  natural  course  of  things  both  for  Elizabeth's  sake  and  the 
family's,  have  tried  to  keep  the  unseemly  suitor  at  a  distance.  But 
here  he  was,  planted  somehow  in  the  very  midst  of  their  life,  and 
she,  making  her  feeble  efforts  day  after  day  to  induce  him  to  root 
himself  there  still  more  firmly  !  Sometimes  indeed  she  would  try 
to  press  alternatives  on  Philip.  But  Philip  would  not  have  them. 
What  with  the  physical  and  moral  force  that  seemed  to  radiate 
from  Anderson,  and  bring  stimulus  with  them  to  the  weaker  life, — 
and  what  with  the  lad's  sick  alienation  for  the  moment  from  his 
ordinary  friends  and  occupations,  Anderson  reigned  supreme, 
often  clearly  to  his  own  trouble  and  embarrassment.  Had  it  not 
been  for  Philip,  Portman  Square  would  have  seen  him  but  seldom. 
That  Elizabeth  knew,  with  a  sharp  certainty,  dim  though  it  might 
be  to  her  mother.  But  as  it  was,  the  boy's  tragic  clinging  to  his 


480  CANADIAN    BORN. 

new  friend  governed  all  else,  simply  because  at  the  bottom  of  each 
heart,  unrecognised  and  unexpressed,  lurked  the  same  foreboding, 
the  same  fear  of  fears. 

The  tragic  clinging  was  also,  alack,  a  tragic  selfishness.  Philip 
had  a  substantial  share  of  that  quick  perception  which  in  Elizabeth 
became  something  exquisite  and  impersonal,  the  source  of  all  high 
emotions.  When  Delaine  had  first  suggested  to  him  '  an  attach- 
ment '  between  Anderson  and  his  sister,  a  hundred  impressions  of 
his  own  had  emerged  to  verify  the  statement  and  aggravate  his 
wrath  ;  and  when  Anderson  had  said  '  A  man  with  my  story  is  not 
going  to  ask  your  sister  to  marry  him  '  Philip  perfectly  understood 
that  but  for  the  story  the  attempt  would  have  been  made. 
Anderson  was  therefore — most  unreasonably  and  presumptuously— 
in  love  with  Elizabeth ;  and  as  to  Elizabeth,  the  indications  here  also 
were  not  lost  upon  Philip.  It  was  all  very  amazing,  and  he  wished, 
to  use  his  phrase  to  his  mother,  that  it  would  '  work  off.'  But 
whether  or  no,  he  could  not  do  without  Anderson — if  Anderson 
was  to  be  had.  He  threw  him  and  Elizabeth  together,  recklessly ; 
trusting  to  Anderson's  word,  and  unable  to  resist  his  own  craving 
for  comfort  and  distraction. 

The  days  passed  on,  days  so  charged  with  feeling  for  Elizabeth 
that  they  could  only  be  met  at  all  by  a  kind  of  resolute  stillness  and 
self-control.  Philip  was  very  dependent  on  the  gossip  his  mother 
and  sister  brought  him  from  the  world  outside.  Elizabeth  there- 
fore, to  please  him,  went  into  society  as  usual,  and  forgot  her  heart- 
aches, for  her  brother  and  for  herself,  as  best  she  could.  Outwardly 
she  was  much  occupied  in  doing  all  that  could  be  done — socially 
and  even  politically — for  Anderson  and  Mariette.  She  had  power 
and  she  used  it.  The  two  friends  found  themselves  the  object  of 
one  of  those  sudden  cordialities  that  open  all  doors,  even  the  most 
difficult,  and  run  like  a  warm  wave  through  London  society. 
Mariette  remained  throughout  the  ironic  spectator — friendly  on 
his  own  terms,  but  entirely  rejecting,  often,  the  terms  offered  him, 
tacitly  or  openly,  by  his  English  acquaintance. 

'  Your  ways  are  not  mine — your  ideals  are  not  mine,  God  forbid 
they  should  be  !  ' — he  seemed  to  be  constantly  saying.  '  But  we 
happen  to  be  oxen  bound  under  the  same  yoke,  and  dragging  the 
same  plough.  No  gush,  please  ! — but  at  the  same  time  no  ill-will ! 
Loyal  ? — to  your  loyalties  ?  Oh  yes — quite  sufficiently—  so  long  as 
you  don't  ask  us  to  let  it  interfere  with  our  loyalty  to  our  own ! 
Don't  be  such  fools  as  to  expect  us  to  take  much  interest  in  your 


CANADIAN   BORN.  481 

Imperial  orgies.  But  we're  all  right !  Only  let  us  alone! — we're 
aU  right !  ' 

Such  seemed  to  be  the  voice  of  this  queer,  kindly,  satiric  per- 
sonality. London  generally  falls  into  the  arms  of  those  who  flout 
her  ;  and  Mariette,  with  his  militant  Catholicism,  and  his  contempt 
for  our  governing  ideals,  became  the  fashion.  As  for  Anderson, 
the  contact  with  English  Ministers  and  men  of  affairs  had  but 
carried  on  the  generous  process  of  development  that  Nature  had 
designed  for  a  strong  man.  Whereas  in  Mariette  the  vigorous,  self- 
confident  English  world — based  on  the  Protestant  idea — produced 
a  bitter  and  profound  irritation,  Anderson  seemed  to  find  in  that 
world  something  ripening  and  favouring  that  brought  out  all  the 
powers — the  intellectual  powers  at  least — of  his  nature.  He  did  his 
work  admirably  ;  left  the  impression  of  '  a  coming  man  '  on  a  great 
many  leading  persons  interested  in  the  relations  between  England 
and  Canada  ;  and  when,  as  often  happened,  Elizabeth  and  he  found 
themselves  at  the  same  dinner-table,  she  would  watch  the  changes 
in  him  that  a  larger  experience  was  bringing  about,  with  a  heart  half 
proud,  half  miserable.  As  for  his  story,  which  was  very  commonly 
known,  in  general  society,  it  only  added  to  his  attractions.  Mothers 
who  were  under  no  anxiety  lest  he  might  want  to  marry  their 
daughters,  murmured  the  facts  of  his  unlucky  provenance  to  each 
other,  and  then  the  more  eagerly  asked  him  to  dinner. 

Meanwhile,  for  Elizabeth,  life  was  one  long  debate,  which  left 
her  often  at  night  exhausted  and  spiritless.  The  shock  of  their 
first  meeting  at  Martindale,  when  all  her  pent-up  yearning  and 
vague  expectation  had  been  met  and  crushed  by  the  silent  force  of 
the  man's  unaltered  will,  had  passed  away.  She  understood  him 
better.  The  woman  who  is  beloved  penetrates  to  the  fact  through 
all  the  disguises  that  a  lover  may  attempt.  Elizabeth  knew  well 
that  Anderson  had  tones  and  expressions  for  her  that  no  other 
woman  could  win  from  him ;  and  looking  back  to  their  conversa- 
tion at  the  Glacier  House,  she  realised,  night  after  night,  in  the 
silence  of  wakeful  hours,  the  fulness  of  his  confession,  together  with 
the  strength  of  his  recoil  from  any  pretension  to  marry  her. 

Yes,  he  loved  her,  and  his  mere  anxiety — now,  and  as  things 
stood, — to  avoid  any  extension  or  even  repetition  of  their  short- 
lived intimacy,  only  betrayed  the  fact  the  more  eloquently.  More- 
over, he  had  reason,  good  reason,  to  think,  as  she  often  passionately 
reminded  herself,  that  he  had  touched  her  heart,  and  that  had  the 
course  been  clear,  he  might  have  won  her. 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  31 


482  CANADIAN    BORN. 

But — the  course  was  not  clear.  From  many  signs,  she  under- 
stood how  deeply  the  humiliation  of  the  scene  at  Sicamous  had 
entered  into  a  proud  man's  blood.  Others  might  forget ;  he  re- 
membered. Moreover  that  sense  of  responsibility — partial  respon- 
sibility at  least — for  his  father's  guilt  and  degradation,  of  which 
he  had  spoken  to  her  at  Glacier,  had,  she  perceived,  gone  deep 
with  him.  It  had  strengthened  a  stern  and  melancholy  view  of  life, 
inclining  him  to  turn  away  from  personal  joy,  to  an  exclusive 
concern  with  public  duties  and  responsibilities. 

And  this  whole  temper  had  no  doubt  been  increased  by  his 
perception  of  the  Gaddesdens'  place  in  English  society.  He 
dared  not — he  would  not — ask  a  woman  so  reared  in  the  best  that 
England  had  to  give,  now  that  he  understood  what  that  best  might 
be,  to  renounce  it  all  in  favour  of  what  he  had  to  offer.  He  realised 
that  there  was  a  generous  weakness  in  her  own  heart  on  which  he 
might  have  played.  But  he  would  not  play ;  his  fixed  intention 
was  to  disappear  as  soon  as  possible  from  her  life ;  and  it  was 
his  honest  hope  that  she  would  marry  in  her  own  world  and  forget 
him.  In  fact  he  was  the  prey  of  a  kind  of  moral  terror  that  here 
also,  as  in  the  case  of  his  father,  he  might  make  some  ghastly  mis- 
take, pursuing  his  own  will  under  the  guise  of  love,  as  he  had  once 
pursued  it  under  the  guise  of  retribution — to  Elizabeth's  hurt  and 
his  own  remorse. 

All  this  Elizabeth  understood,  more  or  less  plainly.  Then 
came  the  question — granted  the  situation,  how  was  she  to  deal 
with  it  ?  Just  as  he  surmised  that  he  could  win  her  if  he  would,  she 
too  believed  that  were  she  merely  to  set  herself  to  prove  her  own 
love  and  evoke  his,  she  could  probably  break  down  his  resistance. 
A  woman  knows  her  own  power.  Feverishly,  Elizabeth  was 
sometimes  on  the  point  of  putting  it  out,  of  so  provoking  and 
appealing  to  the  passion  she  divined,  as  to  bring  him,  whether  he 
would  or  no,  to  her  feet. 

But  she  hesitated.  She  too  felt  the  responsibility  of  his 
life,  as  he  of  hers.  Could  she  really  do  this  thing  ? — not  only 
begin  it,  but  carry  it  through  without  repentance,  and  without 
recoil  ? 

She  made  herself  look  steadily  at  this  English  spectacle  with  its 
luxurious  complexity,  its  concentration  within  a  small  space  of  all 
the  delicacies  of  sense  and  soul,  its  command  of  a  rich  European 
tradition,  in  which  art  and  literature  are  living  streams  spring- 
ing from  fathomless  depths  of  life.  Could  she,  whose  every  fibre 


CANADIAN   BORN.  483 

responded  so  perfectly  to  the  stimulus  of  this  environment,  who  up 
till  now — but  for  moments  of  revolt — had  been  so  happy  and  at 
ease  in  it,  could  she  wrench  herself  from  it — put  it  behind  her — 
and  adapt  herself  to  quite  another,  without,  so  to  speak,  losing 
herself,  and  half  her  value,  whatever  that  might  be,  as  a  human 
being  ? 

As  we  know,  she  had  akeady  asked  herself  the  question  in  some 
fashion,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Kockies.  But  to  handle  it  in 
London  was  a  more  pressing  and  poignant  affair.  It  was  partly  the 
characteristic  question  of  the  modern  woman,  jealous,  as  women 
have  never  been  before  in  the  world's  history,  on  behalf  of  her  own 
individuality.  But  Elizabeth  put  it  still  more  in  the  interests 
of  her  pure  and  passionate  feeling  for  Anderson.  He  must  not — 
he  should  not — run  any  risks  in  loving  her  ! 

On  a  certain  night  early  in  December,  Elizabeth  had  been  dining 
at  one  of  the  great  houses  of  London.  Anderson  too  had  been 
there.  The  dinner  party,  held  in  a  famous  room  panelled  with 
full-length  Vandycks,  had  been  of  the  kind  that  only  London  can 
show  ;  since  only  in  England  is  society  at  once  homogeneous  enough 
and  open  enough  to  provide  it.  In  this  house,  also,  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  an  older  regime  still  prevailed,  and  its  gatherings  recalled — 
not  without  some  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  the  hostess — the 
days  of  Holland  House,  and  Lady  Palmerston.  To  its  smaller 
dinner  parties,  which  were  the  object  of  so  many  social  ambitions, 
nobody  was  admitted  who  could  not  bring  a  personal  contribution. 
)ukes  had  no  more  claim  than  other  people,  but  as  most  of  the 
wen ty- eight  were  blood-relations  of  the  house,  and  some  Dukes 
are  agreeable,  they  took  their  turn.  Cabinet  Ministers,  Viceroys, 
Ambassadors,  mingled  with  the  men  of  letters  and  affairs.  There 
was  indeed  a  certain  old-fashioned  measure  in  it  all.  To  be  merely 
notorious — even  though  you  were  amusing — was  not  passport 
enough.  The  hostess, — a  beautiful  tall  woman,  with  the  brow  of  a 
child,  a  quick  intellect,  and  an  amazing  experience  of  life — created 
round  her  an  atmosphere  that  was  really  the  expression  of  her  own 
personality  ;  fastidious,  and  yet  eager  ;  cold,  and  yet  steeped  in 
ntellectual  curiosities  and  passions.  Under  the  mingled  stimulus 
and  restraint  of  it,  men  and  women  brought  out  the  best  that  was 
in  them.  The  talk  was  good,  and  nothing, — neither  the  last 
violinist,  nor  the  latest  danseuse — was  allowed  to  interfere  with  it. 
And  while  the  dress  and  jewels  of  the  women  were  generally  what  a 
luxurious  capital  expects  and  provides,  you  might  often  find  some 

31—2 


484  CANADIAN    BORN. 

little  girl  in  a  dyed  frock — with  courage,  charm  and  breeding — the 
centre  of  the  scene. 

Elizabeth,  in  white,  and  wearing  some  fine  jewels  which  had 
been  her  mother's,  had  found  herself  placed  on  the  left  of  her 
host,  with  an  ex- Viceroy  of  India  on  her  other  hand.  Anderson, 
who  was  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table,  watched  her  animation, 
and  the  homage  that  was  eagerly  paid  her  by  the  men  around  her. 
Those  indeed  who  had  known  her  of  old  were  of  opinion  that 
whereas  she  had  always  been  an  agreeable  companion,  Lady 
Merton  had  now  for  some  mysterious  reason  blossomed  into  a 
beauty.  Some  kindling  change  had  passed  over  the  small  features. 
Delicacy  and  reserve  were  still  there,  but  interfused  now  with  a 
shimmering  and  transforming  brightness,  as  though  some  flame 
within  leapt  intermittently  to  sight. 

Elizabeth  more  than  held  her  own  with  the  ex- Viceroy,  who 
was  a  person  of  brilliant  parts,  accustomed  to  be  flattered  by 
women.  She  did  not  flatter  him,  and  he  was  reduced  in  the  end 
to  making  those  efforts  for  himself,  which  he  generally  expected 
other  people  to  make  for  him.  Elizabeth's  success  with  him  drew 
the  attention  of  several  other  persons  at  the  table  besides  Anderson. 
The  ex- Viceroy  was  a  bachelor,  and  one  of  the  great  partis  of  the 
day.  What  could  be  more  fitting  than  that  Elizabeth  Merton 
should  carry  him  off,  to  the  discomfiture  of  innumerable  intriguers  ? 

After  dinner,  Elizabeth  waited  for  Anderson  in  the  magnificent 
gallery  upstairs  where  the  guests  of  the  evening  party  were  begin- 
ning to  gather,  and  the  musicians  were  arriving.  When  he  came 
she  played  her  usual  fairy  godmother's  part ;  introducing  him  to 
this  person  and  that,  creating  an  interest  in  him  and  in  his  work, 
wherever  it  might  be  useful  to  him.  It  was  understood  that  she 
had  met  him  in  Canada,  and  that  he  had  been  useful  to  the  poor 
delicate  brother.  No  other  idea  entered  in.  That  she  could  have 
any  interest  in  him  for  herself  would  have  seemed  incredible  to 
this  world  looking  on. 

'  I  must  slip  away,5  said  Anderson,  presently,  in  her  ear ;  'I 
promised  to  look  in  on  Philip  if  possible.  And  to-morrow  I  fear 
I  shall  be  too  busy.' 

And  he  went  on  to  tell  her  his  own  news  of  the  day, — that  the 
Conference  would  be  over  sooner  than  he  supposed,  and  that  he 
must  get  back  to  Ottawa  without  delay  to  report  to  the  Canadian 
Ministry.  That  afternoon  he  had  written  to  take  his  passage  for 
the  following  week. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  485 

It  seemed  to  her  that  he  faltered  in  telling  her  ;  and,  as  for  her, 
the  crowd  of  uniformed  or  jewelled  figures  around  them  became  to 
her,  as  he  spoke,  a  mere  meaningless  confusion.  She  was  only 
conscious  of  him,  and  of  the  emotion  which  at  last  he  could  not 
hide. 

She  quietly  said  that  she  would  soon  follow  him  to  Portman 
Square,  and  he  went  away.  A  few  minutes  afterwards,  Elizabeth 
said  good-night  to  her  hostess,  and  emerged  upon  the  gallery 
running  round  the  fine  Italianate  hall  which  occupied  the  centre  of 
the  house.  Hundreds  of  people  were  hanging  over  the  balustrading 
of  the  gallery,  watching  the  guests  coming  and  going  on  the  marble 
staircase  which  occupied  the  centre  of  the  hall. 

Elizabeth's  slight  figure  slowly  descended. 

*  Pretty  creature  !  '  said  one  old  General,  looking  down  upon 
her.  '  You  remember  ? — she  was  a  Gaddesden  of  Martindale. 
She  has  been  a  widow  a  long  time  now.  Why  doesn't  someone 
carry  her  off  ?  ' 

Meanwhile  Elizabeth,  as  she  went  down,  dreamily,  from  step  to 
step,  her  eyes  bent  apparently  upon  the  crowd  which  filled  all  the 
spaces  of  the  great  pictorial  house,  was  conscious  of  one  of  those 
transforming  impressions  which  represent  the  sudden  uprush  and 
consummation  in  the  mind  of  some  obscure  and  long-continued 
process. 

One  moment,  she  saw  the  restless  scene  below  her,  the  diamonds, 
the  uniforms,  the  blaze  of  electric  light,  the  tapestries  on  the  walls, 
the  handsome  faces  of  men  and  women,  the  next,  it  had  been  wiped 
out ;  the  prairies  unrolled  before  her  ;  she  beheld  a  green,  boundless 
land,  invaded  by  a  mirage  of  sunny  water  ;  scattered  through  it, 
the  white  farms  ;  above  it,  a  vast  dome  of  sky,  with  summer  clouds 
in  glistening  ranks  climbing  the  steep  of  blue  ;  and  at  the  horizon's 
edge,  a  line  of  snow-peaks.  Her  soul  leapt  within  her.  It  was  as 
though  she  felt  the  freshness  of  the  prairie  wind  upon  her  cheek, 
while  the  call  of  that  distant  land — Anderson's  country — its  simpler 
iife,  its  undetermined  fates,  beat  through  her  heart. 

And  as  she  answered  to  it,  there  was  no  sense  of  renunciation. 
She  was  denying  no  old  affection,  deserting  no  ancient  loyalty. 
Old  and  new  : — she  seemed  to  be  the  child  of  both, — gathering 
them  both  into  her  breast. 

Yet,  practically,  what  was  going  to  happen  to  her,  she  did  not 
know.  She  did  not  say  to  herself,  '  It  is  all  clear,  and  I  am  going 
to  marry  George  Anderson  ! '  But  what  she  knew  at  last  was  that 


486  CANADIAN   BORN. 


there  was  no  dull  hindrance  in  herself,  no  cowardice  in  her  own 
will ;  she  was  ready,  when  life  and  Anderson  should  call  her. 


At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  Mariette's  gaunt  and  spectacled  face 
broke  in  upon  her  trance.  He  had  just  arrived  as  she  was  departing. 

'  You  are  off — so  early  ?  '  he  asked  her,  reproachfully. 

'  I  want  to  see  Philip  before  he  settles  for  the  night.' 

'  Anderson,  too,  meant  to  look  in  upon  your  brother.' 

'  Yes  ?  '  said  Elizabeth  vaguely,  conscious  of  her  own  reddening, 
and  of  Mariette's  glance. 

'  You  have  heard  his  news  ?  '  He  drew  her  a  little  apart  into 
the  shelter  of  a  stand  of  flowers.  '  We  both  go  next  week.  You — 
Lady  Merton — have  been  our  good  angel — our  providence.  Has 
he  been  saying  that  to  you  ?  All  the  same — ma  collegue  ! — I  am 
disappointed  in  you  !  ' 

Elizabeth's  eye  wavered  under  his. 

'  We  agreed,  did  we  not  ? — at  Glacier — on  what  was  to  be  done 
next  for  our  friend.  Oh  !  don't  dispute !  I  laid  it  down — and  you 
accepted  it.  As  for  me,  I  have  done  nothing  but  pursue  that  object 
ever  since — in  my  own  way.  And  you,  Madame  ?  ' 

As  he  stood  over  her,  a  lean  Don  Quixotish  figure,  his  long  arms 
akimbo,  Elizabeth's  fluttering  laugh  broke  out. 

'  Inquisitor  !     Good  night !  ' 

'  Good-night — but — just  a  word  !  Anderson  has  done  well  here. 
Your  public  men  say  agreeable  things  of  him.  He  will  play  your 
English  game — your  English  Imperialist  game — which  I  can't  play. 
But  only,  if  he  is  happy ! — if  the  fire  in  him  is  fed.  Consider ! 
Is  it  not  a  patriotic  duty  to  feed  it  ?  ' 

And  grasping  her  hand,  he  looked  at  her  with  a  gentle  mockery 
that  passed  immediately  into  that  sudden  seriousness — that  uncon- 
scious air  of  command — of  which  the  man  of  interior  life  holds  the 
secret.  In  his  jests  even,  he  is  still,  by  natural  gift,  the  confessor, 
the  director,  since  he  sees  everything  as  the  mystic  sees  it,  sub  specie 
ceternitatis. 

Elizabeth's  soft  colour  came  and  went.  But  she  made  no  reply — 
except  it  were  through  an  imperceptible  pressure  of  the  hand 
holding  her  own. 

At  that  moment  the  ex- Viceroy,  resplendent  in  his  ribbon  of 
the  Garter,  who  was  passing  through  the  hall,  perceived  her, 
pounced  upon  her,  and  insisted  on  seeing  her  to  her  carriage 
Mariette  as  he  mounted  the  staircase  watched  the  two  figures 
disappear — smiling  to  himself. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  487 

But  on  the  way  home  the  cloud  of  sisterly  grief  descended  on 
Elizabeth.  How  could  she  think  of  herself — when  Philip  was  ill — 
suffering — threatened  ?  And  how  would  he  bear  the  news  of 
Anderson's  hastened  departure  ? 

As  soon  as  she  reached  home,  she  was  told  by  the  sleepy  butler 
that  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  in  the  drawing-room,  and  that 
Mr.  Anderson  was  still  upstairs  with  Mr.  Philip. 

As  she  entered  the  drawing-room,  her  mother  came  running 
towards  her  with  a  stifled  cry  : 

'  Oh  Lisa,  Lisa  !  ' 

In  terror,  Elizabeth  caught  her  mother  in  her  arms. 

'  Mother  ! — is  he  worse  ?  ' 

c  No  !  At  least  Barnett  declares  to  me  there  is  no  real  change. 
But  he  has  made  up  his  mind,  to-day,  that  he  will  never  get  better. 
He  told  me  so  this  evening,  just  after  you  had  gone  ;  and  Barnett 
could  not  satisfy  him.  He  has  sent  for  Mr.  Bobson.'  Kobson  was 
the  family  lawyer. 

The  two  women  looked  at  one  another  in  a  pale  despair.  They 
had  reached  the  moment  when,  in  dealing  with  a  sick  man,  the 
fictions  of  love  drop  away,  and  the  inexorable  appears. 

'  And  now  he'll  break  his  heart  over  Mr.  Anderson's  going !  ' 
murmured  the  mother,  in  an  anguish.  '  I  didn't  want  him  to  see 
Philip  to-night, — but  Philip  heard  his  ring — and  sent  down  for  him.' 

They  sat  looking  at  each  other,  hand  in  hand, — waiting — and 
listening.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  murmured  a  broken  report  of  the  few 
words  of  conversation  which  rose  now,  like  a  blank  wall,  between 
all  the  past,  and  this  present ;  and  Elizabeth  listened,  the  diamonds 
in  her  hair  and  the  folds  of  her  satin  dress  glistening  among  the 
shadows  of  the  half-lit  room,  the  slow  tears  on  her  cheeks. 

At  last  a  step  descended.    Anderson  entered  the  room. 

'  He  wants  you,'  he  said,  to  Elizabeth,  as  the  two  women  rose. 
'  I  am  afraid  you  must  go  to  him.' 

The  electric  light  immediately  above  him  shewed  his  frowning 
shaken  look. 

4  He  is  so  distressed  by  your  going  ? '  asked  Elizabeth,  trembling. 

Anderson  did  not  answer,  except  to  repeat  insistently — 

1  You  must  go  to  him.  I  don't  myself  think  he  is  any 
worse but — ' 

Elizabeth  hurried  away.  Anderson  sat  down  beside  Mrs. 
Gaddesden,  and  began  to  talk  to  her. 


488  CANADIAN    BORN. 

When  his  sister  entered  his  room,  Philip  was  sitting  up  in  an 
arm-chair  near  the  fire  ;  looking  so  hectic,  so  death-doomed,  so 
young,  that  his  sister  ran  to  him  in  an  agony — 4  Darling  Philip  ! — My 
precious  Philip  ! — why  did  you  want  me  ?  Why  aren't  you  asleep  ? ' 

She  bent  over  him  and  kissed  his  forehead,  and  then  taking  his 
hand  she  laid  it  against  her  cheek,  caressing  it  tenderly. 

'  I'm  not  asleep, — because  I've  had  to  think  of  a  great  many 
things,'  said  the  boy  in  a  firm  tone.  '  Sit  down,  please,  Elizabeth. 
For  a  few  days  past,  I've  been  pretty  certain  about  myself — and 
to-night  I  screwed  it  out  of  Barnett.  I  haven't  said  anything  to 
you  and  mother,  but — well,  the  long  and  short  of  it  is,  Lisa,  I'm 
not  going  to  recover — that's  all  nonsense — my  heart's  too  dicky— 
I'm  going  to  die.' 

She  protested,  with  tears,  but  he  impatiently  asked  her  to  be 
calm.  '  I've  got  to  say  something — something  important — and 
don't  you  make  it  harder,  Elizabeth  !  I'm  not  going  to  get  well, 
I  tell  you — and  though  I'm  not  of  age — legally — yet  I  do  repre- 
sent father — I  am  the  head  of  the  family — and  I  have  a  right  to 
think  for  you  and  mother.  Haven't  I  ?  ' 

The  contrast  between  the  authoritative  voice,  the  echo  of  things 
in  him,  ancestral  and  instinctive,  and  the  poor  lad's  tremulous 
fragility,  was  moving  indeed.  But  he  would  not  let  her  caress  him. 

'  Well,  these  last  weeks,  I've  been  thinking  a  great  deal,  I  can 
tell  you,  and  I  wasn't  going  to  say  anything  to  you  and  mother 
till  I'd  got  it  straight. — But  now,  all  of  a  sudden,  Anderson  comes 

and  says  that  he's  going  back .  Look  here,  Elizabeth  ! — I've 

just  been  speaking  to  Anderson.  You  know  that  he's  in  love  with 
you  ? — of  course  you  do  ! ' 

With  a  great  effort,  Elizabeth  controlled  herself.  She  lifted 
her  face  to  her  brother's  as  she  sat  on  a  low  chair  beside  him. 
<  Yes,  dear  Philip,  I  know.' 

4  And  did  you  know  too  that  he  had  promised  me  not  to  ask 
you  to  marry  him  ?  ' 

Elizabeth  started. 

4  No — not  exactly.    But  perhaps — I  guessed.' 

'  He  did  then  !  '  said  Philip,  wearily.  '  Of  course  I  told  him 
what  I  thought  of  his  wanting  to  marry  you,  in  the  Kockies ; 
and  he  behaved  awfully  decently.  He'd  never  have  said  a  word, 
I  think,  without  my  leave.  Well ! — now  I've  changed  my 
mind ! ' 

Elizabeth  could  not  help  smiling  through  her  tears.    With  what 


CANADIAN   BORN.  489 

merry  scorn  would  she  have  met  this  assertion  of  the  patria  potestas 
from  the  mouth  of  a  sound  brother !  Her  poor  Philip  ! 

'  Dear  old  boy  ! — what  have  you  been  saying  to  Mr.  Anderson  ? ' 

'  Well !  '—the  boy  choked  a  little—'  I've  been  telling  him  that- 
well,  never  mind ! — he  knows  what  I  think  about  him.  Perhaps 
if  I'd  known  him  years  ago — I'd  have  been  different.  That  don't 
matter.  But  I  want  to  settle  things  up  for  you  and  him.  Because 
you  know,  Elizabeth,  you're  pretty  gone  on  him,  too  !  ' 

Elizabeth  hid  her  face  against  his  knee — without  speaking.  The 
boy  resumed  : 

'  And  so  I've  been  telling  him  that  now  I  thought  differently — 
I  hoped  he  would  ask  you  to  marry  him — and  I  knew  that  you  cared 
for  him — but  that  he  mustn't  dream  of  taking  you  to  Canada.  That 
was  all  nonsense  ! — couldn't  be  thought  of !  He  must  settle  here. 
You've  lots  of  money ; — and — well,  when  I'm  gone, — you'll  have 
more.  Of  course  Martindale  will  go  away  from  us,  and  I  know  he 
will  look  after  mother  as  well  as  you.' 

There  was  silence — till  Elizabeth  murmured — 

'  And  what  did  he  say  ?  ' 

The  lad  drew  himself  away  from  her  with  an  angry  movement. 

'  He  refused  ! ' 

Elizabeth  lifted  herself,  a  gleam  of  something  splendid  and 
passionate  lighting  up  her  small  face. 

'  And  what  else,  dear  Philip,  did  you  expect  ?  ' 

'  I  expected  him  to  look  at  it  reasonably  ! '  cried  the  boy. 
'  How  can  he  ask  a  woman  like  you  to  go  and  live  with  him  on  the 
prairies  ?  It's  ridiculous  !  He  can  go  into  English  politics,  if 
he  wants  politics.  Why  shouldn't  he  live  on  your  money  ? 
Everybody  does  it !  ' 

'  Did  you  really  understand  what  you  were  asking  him  to  do, 
Philip  ?  ' 

*  Of  course  I  did !  Why,  what's  Canada  compared  to  Eng- 
land ?  Jolly  good  thing  for  him.  Why  he  might  be  anything 
here  !  And  as  if  I  wouldn't  rather  be  a  dustman  in  England 
than  a ' 

'  Philip,  my  dear  boy !  do  rest ! — do  go  to  bed,'  cried  his  mother 
imploringly,  coming  into  the  room  with  her  soft  hurrying  step. 
'  It's  going  on  for  one  o'clock.  Elizabeth  mustn't  keep  you  talking 
like  this ! ' 

She  smiled  at  him  with  uplifted  finger,  trying  to  hide  from  him 
all  traces  of  emotion. 


490  CANADIAN   BORN. 

But  her  son  looked  at  her  steadily. 

'  Mother,  is  Anderson  gone  ?  ' 

'  No,'  said  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  with  hesitation.  '  But  he  doesn't 
want  you  to  talk  any  more  to-night — he  begs  you  not.  Please  !— 
Philip ! ' 

'  Ask  him  to  come  here ! '  said  Philip,  peremptorily.  '  I  want  to 
talk  both  to  him  and  Elizabeth.' 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  protested  in  vain.  The  mother  and  daughter 
looked  at  each  other  with  flushed  faces,  holding  a  kind  of  mute 
dialogue.  Then  Elizabeth  rose  from  her  seat  by  the  fire. 

4 1  will  call  Mr.  Anderson,  Philip.  But  if  we  convince  you  that 
what  you  ask  is  quite  impossible,  will  you  promise  to  go  quietly  to 
bed  and  try  to  sleep  ?  It  breaks  Mother's  heart,  you  know,  to  see 
you  straining  yourself  like  this.' 

Philip  nodded, — a  crimson  spot  in  each  cheek,  his  frail  hands 
twining  and  untwining  as  he  tried  to  compose  himself. 

Elizabeth  went  half-way  down  the  stairs  and  called.  Anderson 
hurried  out  of  the  drawing-room,  and  saw  her  bending  to  him  from 
the  shadows,  very  white  and  calm. 

'  Will  you  come  back  to  Philip  a  moment  ?  '  she  said,  gently. 
4  Philip  has  told  me  what  he  proposed  to  you.' 

Anderson  could  not  find  a  word  to  say.  In  a  blind  tumult  of 
feeling  he  caught  her  hand,  and  pressed  his  lips  to  it,  as  though 
appealing  to  her  dumbly  to  understand  him. 

She  smiled  at  him. 

4  It  will  be  all  right,'  she  whispered.  '  My  poor  Philip  !  '  and 
she  led  him  back  to  the  sick  room. 

'  George — I  wanted  you  to  come  back,  to  talk  this  thing  out,' 
said  Philip,  turning  to  him  as  he  entered,  with  the  tyranny  of  weak- 
ness. *  There's  no  time  to  waste.  You  know, — everybody  knows — 
I  may  get  worse — and  there'll  be  nothing  settled.  It's  my  duty  to 
settle ' 

Elizabeth  interrupted  him. 

4  Philip  darling—  - !  ' 

She  was  hanging  over  his  chair,  while  Anderson  stood  a  few  feet 
away,  leaning  against  the  mantelpiece,  his  face  turned  from  the 
brother  and  sister.  The  intimacy — solemnity  almost — of  the  sick 
room,  the  midnight  hour,  seemed  to  strike  through  Elizabeth's 
being,  deepening  and  yet  liberating  emotion. 

'  Dear  Philip ! — It  is  not  for  Mr.  Anderson  to  answer  you — it  is 
for  me.  If  he  could  give  up  his  country — for  happiness — even  for 


CANADIAN    BORN.  491 

love  I — I  should  not  ever  marry  him — for — I  should  not  love  him 
any  more.' 

Anderson  turned  to  look  at  her.  She  had  moved,  and  was  now 
standing  in  front  of  Philip,  her  head  thrown  back  a  little,  her  hands 
lightly  clasped  in  front  of  her.  Her  youth,  her  dress,  her  diamonds, 
combined  strangely  with  the  touch  of  high  passion  in  her  shining 
eyes,  her  resolute  voice. 

'  You  see,  dear  Philip,  I  love  George  Anderson ' 

Anderson  gave  a  low  cry — and,  moving  to  her  side,  he  grasped 
her  hand.  She  gave  it  him,  smiling, — and  went  on  : 

*  I  love  him — partly — because  he  is  so  true  to  his  own  people — 
because  I  saw  him  first — and  knew  him  first — among  them. 
No!  dear  Philip,  he  has  his  work  to  do  in  Canada — in  that 
great,  great  nation  that  is  to  be.  He  has  been  trained  for  it 
— no  one  else  can  do  it  but  he — and  neither  you  nor  I  must 
tempt  him  from  it.' 

The  eyes  of  the  brother  and  sister  met.  Elizabeth  tried  for  a 
lighter  tone. 

'  But  as  neither  of  us  could  tempt  him  from  it — it  is  no  use 
talking — is  it  ?  ' 

Philip  looked  from  her  to  Anderson  in  a  frowning  silence.  No 
one  spoke  for  a  little  while.  Then  it  seemed  to  them  as  though  the 
young  man  recognised  that  his  effort  had  failed,  and  his  physical 
weakness  shrank  from  renewing  it.  But  he  still  resisted  his 
mother's  attempt  to  put  an  end  to  the  scene. 

'  That's  all  very  well,  Lisa,'  he  said  at  last,  '  but  what  are  you 
going  to  do  ?  ' 

Elizabeth  withdrew  her  hand  from  Anderson's. 

'  What  am  I  going  to  do  ?     Wait  / — just  that !  ' 

But  her  lip  trembled.  And  to  hide  it  she  sank  down  again  in 
the  low  chair  in  front  of  her  brother,  propping  her  face  in  both 
hands. 

'  Wait  ?  '  repeated  Philip,  scornfully, — '  and  what  for  ?  ' 

'  Till  you  and  Mother — come  to  my  way  of  thinking — and  ' — 
she  faltered — '  till  Mr.  Anderson ' 

Her  voice  failed  her  a  moment.  Anderson  stood  motion- 
less, bending  towards  her,  hanging  upon  her  every  gesture  and 
tone. 

'  Till  Mr.  Anderson ' — she  resumed,  'is — well ! — is  brave  enough 
to — trust  a  woman ! — and ! — oh  !  good  Heavens  ! ' — she  dashed  the 
tears  from  her  eyes,  half  laughing,  as  her  self-control  broke  down— 


492  CANADIAN    BORN. 

4  clever  enough  to  save  her  from  proposing  to  him  in  this  abomin- 
able way  !  ' 

She  sprang  to  her  feet  impatiently.  Anderson  would  have 
caught  her  in  his  arms  ;  but  with  a  flashing  look,  she  put  him 
aside.  A  wail  broke  from  Mrs.  Gaddesden  : 

'  Lisa  ! — you  won't  leave  us  !  ' 

'  Never,  darling — unless  you  send  me  ! — or  come  with  me  ! 
And  now,  don't  you  think,  Philip  dearest,  you  might  let  us 
all  go  to  bed  ?  You  are  not  really  worse,  you  know ;  and  Mother 
and  I  are  going  to  carry  you  off  south — very  very  soon.' 

She  bent  to  him  and  kissed  his  brow.  Philip's  face  gradually 
changed  beneath  her  look,  from  the  tension  and  gloom  with  which  he 
had  begun  the  scene  to  a  kind  of  boyish  relief, — a  touch  of  pleasure — 
of  mischief  even.  His  high,  majestical  pretensions  vanished  away  ; 
a  light  and  volatile  mind  thought  no  more  of  them  ;  and  he  turned 
eagerly  to  another  idea. 

'  Elizabeth,  do  you  know  that  you  have  proposed  to  Ander- 
son ?  ' 

'  If  I  have,  it  was  your  fault.' 

'  He  hasn't  said  Yes  ?  ' 

Elizabeth  was  silent.  Anderson  came  forward — but  Philip 
stopped  him  with  a  gesture. 

'  He  can't  say  Yes — till  I  give  him  back  his  promise,'  said  the 
boy,  triumphantly.  '  Well,  George,  I  do  give  it  you  back — on  one 
condition — that  you  put  off  going  for  a  week,  and  that  you  come 
back  as  soon  as  you  can.  By  Jove,  1  think  you  owe  me  that ! ' 

Anderson's  difficult  smile  answered  him. 

*  And  now  you've  got  rid  of  your  beastly  Conference,  you  can 
come  in,  and  talk  business  with  me  to-morrow — next  day — every 
day  ! '  Philip  resumed,  '  can't  he,  Elizabeth  ?  If  you're  going  to  be 
my  brother,  I'll  jolly  well  get  you  to  tackle  the  lawyers  instead  of 
me — boring  old  idiots !  I  say — I'm  going  to  take  it  easy  now ! ' 

He  settled  himself  in  his  chair  with  a  long  breath,  and  his 
eyelids  fell.  He  was  speaking,  as  they  all  knew,  of  the  making  of 
his  will.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  stooped  piteously  and  kissed  him.  Eliza- 
beth's face  quivered.  She  put  her  arm  round  her  mother  and  led 
her  away.  Anderson  went  to  summon  Philip's  servant. 

A  little  later  Anderson  again  descended  the  dark  staircase, 
leaving  Philip  in  high  spirits  and  apparently  much  better. 

In  the  doorway  of  the  drawing-room,  stood  a  white  form.  Then 
the  man's  passion,  so  long  dyked  and  barriered,  had  its  way.  He 


CANADIAN   BORN.  493 

sprang  towards  her.  She  retreated,  catching  her  breath  ;  and  in 
the  shadows  of  the  empty  room  she  sank  into  his  arms.  In  the 
crucible  of  that  embrace  all  things  melted  and  changed.  His  hesita- 
tions and  doubts,  all  that  hampered  his  free  will  and  purpose, 
whether  it  were  the  sorrows  and  humiliations  of  the  past — or  the 
compunctions  and  demurs  of  the  present — dropped  away  from  him 
as  unworthy  not  of  himself,  but  of  Elizabeth.  She  had  made  him 
master  of  herself,  and  her  fate ;  and  he  boldly  and  loyally  took  up 
the  part.  He  had  refused  to  become  the  mere  appanage  of  her 
life,  because  he  was  already  pledged  to  that  great  idea  he  called 
his  country.  She  loved  him  the  more  for  it ;  and  now  he  had  only 
to  abound  in  the  same  sense,  in  order  to  hold  and  keep  the  nature 
which  had  answered  so  finely  to  his  own.  He  had  so  borne  himself 
as  to  wipe  out  all  the  social  and  external  inequalities  between 
them.  What  she  had  given  him,  she  had  had  to  sue  him  to  take. 
But  now  that  he  had  taken  it,  she  knew  herself  a  weak  woman  on 
his  breast,  and  she  realised  with  a  happy  tremor  that  he  would 
make  her  no  more  apologies  for  his  love,  or  for  his  story.  Rather, 
he  stood  upon  that  dignity  she  herself  had  given  him, — her  lover, 
and  the  captain  of  her  life ! 

{To  be  concluded.) 


494 


THE    BRONTE    FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER. 

THE  meeting  of  the  Bronte  Society  in  Manchester,  with  the  request 
so  kindly  made  to  me  for  a  short  address  not  inappropriate  to  the 
meeting,  naturally  suggests  the  relation  of  the  Bronte  family,  and 
of  Charlotte  Bronte  in  particular,  to  this  city.  For  while  her  life  and 
the  lives  of  the  members  of  her  family  were  essentially  not  urban,  but 
rural,  yet,  if  there  is  any  city  which  may  claim  a  direct  and  almost 
personal  interest  in  her  biography,  it  is  Manchester.  Manchester 
was  the  home  of  the  accomplished  and  distinguished  lady  Mrs. 
Gaskell,  who  not  only  entertained  Charlotte  Bronto  several  times 
as  a  guest,  but  eventually  at  the  desire  of  her  father  wrote  her 
life.  The  '  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte  '  has  won  a  classical  place  in 
English  literature ;  it  is  of  course  familiarly  known  to  you  all. 
So  far  as  I  shall  be  able  to  supplement  it  by  any  letters  or  reminis- 
cences which  have  not  hitherto  seen  the  light,  you  and  I  alike  are 
debtors  to  the  courtesy  of  Miss  Gaskell,  who  still  lives  at  Plymouth 
Grove  in  the  house  where  Charlotte  Bronte  was  wont  to  stay,  and 
is  the  one  intimate  surviving  link  between  her  or  her  biographer 
and  the  city  of  Manchester. 

Let  me  begin  by  referring  to  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte.  In  the 
'  Manchester  Courier '  of  August  21,  1906,  the  following  notice 
occurred  : 

On  the  21st  August,  1846,  sixty  years  ago  to-day,  the  distinguished  novelist 
Charlotte  Bronte  visited  Manchester  with  her  father.  They  remained  for  about 
a  month,  lodging  in  one  of  the  suburbs  of  the  town — Manchester  was  not  then  a 
city — and  during  that  period  the  operation  of  extraction  of  cataract  was  performed 
on  the  father,  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte.  On  the  day  of  the  operation  Charlotte 
received  from  a  London  publisher  a  curt  refusal  of  '  The  Professor,'  which  had 
been  offered  for  publication. 

Mrs.  Gaskell  speaks  of  '  The  Professor '  as  '  passing  slowly 
about  that  time  from  publisher  to  publisher ' ;  and  she  adds  that 
among  the  many  refusals  from  different  publishers,  some  were 
'  not  over-courteously  worded  in  writing  to  an  unknown  author.' 
It  must  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  the  publishers  who  knew 
Charlotte  Bronte  only  as  Currer  Bell  supposed  themselves  to  be 
addressing  a  man.  At  last  the  manuscript  was  sent  to  Messrs. 


THE   BRONTE   FAMILY  AT   MANCHESTER.         495 

Smith  &  Elder,  the  famous  firm  of  publishers  now  in  Waterloo  Place, 
— so  inexperienced  was  Charlotte  Bronte  in  the  ways  of  the  world 
that  she  is  said  to  have  actually  sent  it  in  a  brown  paper  parcel 
on  which  the  names  of  other  publishers  who  had  already  rejected 
it  were  simply  erased  without  being  rendered  illegible,  and  the 
answer  of  the  firm,  while  declining  to  undertake  the  publication, 
yet  in  Charlotte  Bronte's  own  words  '  discussed  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  the  book  so  courteously,  so  considerately,  in  a  spirit 
so  rational,  with  a  discrimination  so  enlightened,  that  the  very 
refusal  cheered  the  author  better  than  a  vulgarly  expressed  accept- 
ance would  have  done,'  and  laid  the  first  stone  of  a  close  personal 
and  professional  association  which  lasted  to  the  end  of  her  life. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1846  that  Mr.  Bronte's  eyesight  became 
gravely  affected  by  cataract.  He  was  then  a  man  in  his  seventieth 
year.  An  operation  for  cataract  was  a  more  serious  matter  in  those 
days  than  it  is  now.  There  was  at  that  time  a  celebrated  oculist 
named  Wilson  living  in  Mosley  Street  in  Manchester.  An  engraving  of 
his  portrait  may  still  be  seen  here  in  the  Royal  Eye  Hospital.  To  him 
Charlotte  and  Emily  Bronte  resorted  some  time  in  July  1846,  with 
an  account  of  their  father's  malady.  He  replied  naturally  enough 
that  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  see  his  patient  before  deciding 
whether  it  was  the  time  to  perform  an  operation  or  not.  Accord- 
ingly Charlotte  Bronte  brought  her  father  to  Manchester  at  the 
end  of  August.  They  lodged  at  83  Mount  Pleasant,  in  Boundary 
Street,  Oxford  Koad,  a  house  which  has  been  identified  by  Dr. 
Axon's  researches,1  although  the  houses  in  the  street  have  been 
renumbered ;  and  it  is  a  striking  fact  that  Charlotte  Bronte  wrote 
the  first  pages  of  '  Jane  Eyre  '  at  that  address,  during  the  period 
of  her  father's  convalescence  after  his  operation. 

The  following  extracts  are  parts  of  two  letters  written  by 
Charlotte  Bronte  from  the  house,  83  Mount  Pleasant,  in  August 
1846.  On  the  21st  she  wrote  to  her  friend  Miss  Nussey  : 

Papa  and  I  came  here  on  Wednesday.  We  saw  Mr.  Wilson,  the  oculist,  the 
same  day.  He  pronounced  papa's  eyes  quite  ready  for  an  operation,  and  has 
fixed  next  Monday  for  the  performance  of  it.  Think  of  us  on  that  day  !  We  got 
into  our  lodgings  yesterday.  I  think  we  shall  be  comfortable  ;  at  least,  our  rooms 
are  very  good,  but  there  is  no  mistress  of  the  house  (she  is  very  ill,  and  gone  out 
into  the  country),  and  I  am  somewhat  puzzled  in  managing  about  provisions ; 
we  board  ourselves.  I  find  myself  excessively  ignorant.  I  can't  tell  what  to 
order  in  the  way  of  meat.  For  ourselves  I  could  contrive,  papa's  diet  is  so  very 


1  See  his  article  in  the  Manchester  Guardian  of  March  31,  1905,  where  a  drawing 
of  the  house  is  given. 


496         THE   BRONTE   FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER. 

simple ;  but  there  will  be  a  nurse  coming  in  a  day  or  two,  and  I  am  afraid  of  not 
having  things  good  enough  for  her.  Papa  requires  nothing,  you  know,  but  plain 
beef  and  mutton,  tea  and  bread  and  butter ;  but  a  nurse  will  probably  expect  to 
live  much  better  ;  give  me  some  hints  if  you  can. 

All  that  is  known  of  the  oculist,  Mr.  William  James  Wilson, 
is  told  by  Dr.  Brocklebank  in  his  '  Sketches  of  the  Lives  and  Work 
of  the  Honorary  Medical  Staff  of  the  Manchester  Infirmary.' 

Five  days  after  the  date  of  the  last  letter,  on  August  26, 
Charlotte  Bronte  wrote  again  : 

The  operation  is  over.  It  took  place  yesterday.  Mr.  Wilson  performed  it ; 
two  other  surgeons  assisted.  Mr.  Wilson  says  he  considers  it  quite  successful ; 
but  papa  cannot  yet  see  anything.  The  affair  lasted  precisely  a  quarter  of  an 
hour ;  it  was  not  the  simple  operation  of  couching  Mr.  C.  [i.e.  Mr.  Carr]  described, 
but  the  more  complicated  one  of  extracting  the  cataract.  Mr.  Wilson  entirely 
disapproves  of  couching.  Papa  displayed  extraordinary  patience  and  firmness ; 
the  surgeons  seemed  surprised.  I  was  in  the  room  all  the  time,  as  it  was  his  wish 
that  I  should  be  there ;  of  course,  I  neither  spoke  nor  moved  till  the  thing  was 
done,  and  then  I  felt  that  the  less  I  said,  either  to  papa  or  to  the  surgeons,  the 
better.  Papa  is  now  confined  to  his  bed  in  a  dark  room,  and  is  not  to  be  stirred 
for  four  days  ;  he  is  to  speak  and  be  spoken  to  as  little  as  possible. 

Other  letters  written  from  Manchester  during  Mr.  Bronte's 
convalescence  are  quoted  by  Mr.  Clement  Shorter,  as  well  as  these, 
in  '  The  Brontes.  Life  and  Letters.'  l 

Mr.  Bronte  and  his  daughter  returned  to  Haworth  at  the  end 
of  September. 

The  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte  is  an  interesting  figure,  not  only  as 
being  the  father  of  Currer,  Ellis  and  Acton  Bell.  No  clergyman  of 
the  present  day  could  hold  so  rigid  a  creed  or  wear  so  formidable 
a  cravat  as  he.  Miss  Gaskell  has  kindly  put  into  my  hands  some 
private  letters  addressed  by  him  to  her  mother,  and  I  will  try  to 
make  a  discreet  and  scrupulous  use  of  them. 

One  of  the  letters,  dated  August  27,  1855,  relates  to  his  own 
parish  and  to  the  affection  felt  by  the  parishioners  for  his  daughters  ; 
it  will  be  realised  as  being  Miss  Gaskell's  authority  for  a  touching 
incident  which  she  tells  about  Charlotte  Bronte's  funeral : 

The  people  here  [says  Mr.  Bronte]  generally  are  poor,  but,  whether  rich  or 
poor,  they  have  always  been  not  only  civil  to  me  and  mine,  but  friendly,  when  an 
opportunity  offered  for  showing  their  disposition.  On  a  solemn  occasion  I  saw 
this  clearly  exhibited.  My  children,  generally,  and  my  dear  daughter  Charlotte 
in  particular,  were  both  kind,  liberal,  and  affable  with  the  inhabitants.  A  thorough 
sense  of  this  proceeding  was  not  wanting  on  the  death  of  each  of  them,  and  when 
the  last  death  took  place,  when  my  dear  Charlotte  was  no  more — both  rich  and 

1  Vol.  i.  pp.  337-8. 


THE   BRONTE   FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER          497 

poor  throughout  the  village  and  the  neighbourhood,  both  publicly  and  privately, 
gave  sure  proofs  of  genuine  sorrow.  The  poor  have  often  been  accused  of  in- 
gratitude— I  think  wrongfully.  There  was  no  instance  of  this  when  my  dear 
Charlotte  died.  A  case  or  two  I  might  mention,  as  an  illustration  of  what  I  say. 
One  moral  and  amiable  girl,  who  had  been  deceived  and  deserted  by  a  deceitful 
man,  who  had  promised  her  marriage — when  she  heard  of  my  daughter's  hopeless 
illness,  without  our  knowing  it  at  the  time — she  spent  a  week  of  sleepless  distress, 
and  ever  since  deeply  mourns  her  loss,  and  all  this,  because  my  daughter  had 
kindly  sympathised  with  her  in  her  distress,  and  given  her  good  advice,  and 
helped  her  in  her  time  of  need,  and  enabled  her  to  get  on  till  she  made  a  prudent 
marriage  with  a  worthier  man.  Another  case  which  I  would  speak  of,  which  is 
only  one  amongst  many — a  poor  blind  girl  who  received  an  annual  donation 
from  my  daughter,  after  her  death  required  to  be  led  four  miles,  to  be  at  my 
daughter's  funeral,  over  which  she  wept  many  tears  of  gratitude  and  sorrow. 
In  her  acts  of  kindness,  my  dear  daughter  was,  as  I  thought,  often  rather  im- 
pulsive. Two  or  three  winters  ago  a  poor  man  fell  on  the  ice,  and  broke  his 
thigh,  and  had  to  be  carried  home  to  his  comfortless  cottage,  where  he  had  a  wife 
with  twins,  and  six  other  small  children.  My  daughter,  having  heard  of  their 
situation,  sent  the  servant  to  see  how  they  were.  On  her  return  she  made  a  very 
eloquent  and  pathetic  report.  My  daughter,  being  touched,  got  up  directly  and 
sent  them  a  sovereign,  to  their  great  astonishment  and  pleasure,  for  which  they 
have  been  ever  afterwards  grateful.  Though  I  could  not  help  being  pleased  with 
this  act,  though  hardly  in  accordance  with  my  daughter's  means,  I  observed  to 
her  that  women  were  often  impulsive  in  deeds  of  charity.  She  jocularly  replied  : 
'  In  deeds  of  charity  men  reason  much  and  do  little — women  reason  little  and  do 
much,  and  I  will  act  the  woman  still.' 

in  1857,  two  years  after  Charlotte  Bronte's  death,  the  year 
which  saw  the  first  edition  of  Mrs.  Gaskell's  '  Life  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,'  Mr.  Bronte  addressed  to  her  two  letters  which  are  still 
in  Miss  Gaskell's  possession.  The  handwriting  of  the  letters  testi- 
fies to  the  writer's  advanced  age  and  failing  eyesight.  In  one  of 
them,  a  letter  which  Mr.  Clement  Shorter  l  has  already  given  to 
the  world,  Mr.  Bronte  writes  on  April  2,  1857  : 

I  thank  you  for  the  books  you  have  sent  me  containing  the  memoir  of  my 
daughter.  I  have  perused  them  with  a  degree  of  pleasure  and  pain  which  can 
be  known  only  to  myself.  As  you  will  have  the  opinion  of  abler  critics  than 
myself,  I  shall  not  say  much  in  the  way  of  criticism.  I  shall  only  make  a  few 
remarks  in  unison  with  the  feelings  of  my  heart.  With  a  tenacity  of  purpose 
usual  with  me  in  all  cases  of  importance,  I  was  fully  determined  that  the  biography 
of  my  daughter  should,  if  possible,  be  written  by  one  not  unworthy  of  the  under- 
taking. My  mind  first  turned  to  you,  and  you  kindly  acceded  to  my  wishes.  Had 
you  refused,  I  would  have  applied  to  the  next  best,  and  so  on  ;  and  had  all  applica- 
tions failed,  as  the  last  resource,  though  about  eighty  years  of  age  and  feeble  and 
unfit  for  the  task,  I  would  myself  have  written  a  short,  though  inadequate,  memoir, 
rather  than  have  left  it  to  selfish,  hostile,  or  ignorant  scribblers.  But  the  work  is 
now  done,  and  done  rightly,  as  I  wished  it  to  be,  and  in  its  completion  has  afforded 


1  The  Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte;  by  Mrs.  Gaskell.     With  an  Introduction  and 
Notes  by  Clement  K.  Shorter.     Introduction  p.  xxviii. 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  166,  N.S.  32 


498         THE   BRONTE   FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER. 

me  more  satisfaction  than  I  have  felt  during  many  years  of  a  life  in  which  has 
been  exemplified  the  saying  that '  man  is  born  to  trouble  as  the  sparks  fly  upward.' 

The  second  letter  is  dated  August  24,  in  the  same  year.  It 
refers  to  criticisms  passed  upon  the  '  Life.' 

Why  should  you  disturb  yourself  [he  says]  concerning  what  has  been,  is, 
and  ever  will  be  the  lot  of  eminent  writers  ?  But  here,  as  in  other  cases,  according 
to  the  old  adage,  '  the  more  cost  the  more  honour.'  Above  three  thousand 
years  since  Solomon  said  '  he  that  increase th  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow,' 
'  much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.'  So  you  may  find  it,  and  so  my  daughter 
Charlotte  found  it,  and  so  thousands  may  find  it  till  the  end  of  the  world,  should 
this  sinful  perverse  world  last  so  long  as  to  produce  so  many  authors  like  you  and 
my  daughter  Charlotte.  You  have  had  and  will  have  much  praise  with  a  little 
blame.  Then  drink  the  mixed  cup  with  thankfulness  to  the  great  Physician  of 
souls.  It  will  be  far  more  salutary  to  you  in  the  end,  and  even  in  the  beginning, 
than  if  it  were  all  unmixed  sweetness. 

Still  more  interesting  is  a  letter  of  April  7,  1857,  as  it  touches 
upon  his  parental  authority  over  his  children.  He  writes  : 

The  principal  mistake  in  the  Memoir  which  I  wish  to  mention  is  that  which 
states  that  I  laid  my  daughters  under  restriction  with  regard  to  their  diet,  obliging 
them  to  live  chiefly  on  vegetable  food.  This  I  never  did.  After  their  aunt's 
death,  with  regard  to  the  housekeeping  affairs  they  had  all  their  own  way.  Think- 
ing their  constitutions  to  be  delicate,  the  advice  I  repeatedly  gave  them  was  that 
they  should  wear  flannel,  eat  as  much  wholesome  animal  food  as  they  could  digest, 
take  air  and  exercise  in  moderation,  and  not  devote  too  much  time  and  attention 
to  study  and  composition.  I  should  wish  this  to  be  mentioned  in  the  second 
edition. 

This  is  all  that  I  can  say  about  Mr.  Bronte,  except,  indeed, 
for  one  letter  of  his  which  will  be  quoted  presently  ;  but  I  hope  it 
may  be  felt  to  throw  a  not  unpleasing  light  on  the  character  of 
that  singular  but  honest  and  conscientious  clergyman. 

Let  me  now  pass  to  Charlotte  Bronte  and  her  friendship  with 
Mrs.  Gaskell. 

Mr.  Birrell  in  his  monograph  on  Charlotte  Bronte  has  described, 
almost  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  own  words,  the  earliest  meeting  of  these 
two  celebrated  ladies.  It  took  place  in  the  beginning  of  August 
1850.  The  meeting  occurred  at  Briery  Close,  a  house  high  above 
Low  Wood  on  Windermere,  then  occupied  by  Sir  James  Kay 
Shuttleworth.  Mrs.  Gaskell,  writing  at  the  time  to  a  friend, 
describes  Miss  Bronte  as 

thin  and  more  than  half  a  head  shorter  than  I  am,  soft  brown  hair,  not  very 
dark,  eyes  (very  good  and  expressive,  looking  straight  and  open  at  you)  of  the 
same  colour  as  her  hair,  a  large  mouth,  the  forehead  square,  broad,  and  rather 
overhanging.  She  has  a  very  sweet  voice,  rather  hesitates  in  choosing  her 


THE   BRONTE   FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER.         499 

expressions,  but  when  chosen  they  seem  without  an  effort  admirable,  and  just 
befitting  the  occasion ;  there  is  nothing  overstrained,  but  perfectly  simple.  She 
told  me  about  Father  Newman's  lectures  at  the  Oratory  in  a  very  quiet,  concise, 
graphic  way. 

Even  before  that  meeting  Charlotte  Bronte  had  written  on 
November  20,  1849,  to  her  friend  Mr.  Williams  :  '  The  letter  you 
forwarded  this  morning  was  from  Mrs.  Gaskell,  authoress  of  "  Mary 
Barton  "  ;  she  said  I  was  not  to  answer  it,  but  I  cannot  help  doing 
so.  The  note  brought  the  tears  to  my  eyes.  She  is  a  good,  she  is 
a  great  woman ' ;  and  on  January  1,  1850,  she  had  instructed  her 
publishers  to  send  Mrs.  Gaskell  a  copy  of  '  Wuthering  Heights  ' 
as  a  return  for  her  present  of  '  The  Moorland  Cottage.'  The  meeting 
at  Briery  Close  led  to  a  visit  of  Mrs.  Gaskell  to  Haworth  and  to 
several  visits  of  Charlotte  Bronte  to  Manchester. 

Mrs.  Gaskell  visited  Haworth  in  September  1853,  and  her 
impression  of  the  Vicarage  and  of  its  inhabitants  is  printed  in  the 
'  Life.'  There  is  in  Miss  Gaskell's  possession  a  letter  written  to  her 
mother  after  the  visit,  and  in  it  Charlotte  Bronte  says  : 

After  you  left  the  house  felt  very  much  as  if  the  shutters  had  been  suddenly 
closed  and  the  blinds  let  down.  One  was  sensible  during  the  remainder  of  the 
day  of  a  depressing  silence,  shadow,  loss  and  want.  However,  if  the  going  away 
was  sad,  the  stay  was  very  pleasant  and  did  permanent  good.  Papa,  I  am  sure, 
derived  real  benefit  from  your  visit ;  he  has  been  better  ever  since. 

Charlotte  Bronte,  apart  from  her  visit  in  connexion  with  her 
father's  illness,  came  to  Manchester  in  June  1851  on  her  way  from 
London  to  Haworth,  again  in  April  1853,  and  lastly,  just  before  her 
marriage,  in  May  1854.  She  describes  the  house  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Gaskell  in  Plymouth  Grove  as  '  a  large,  cheerful,  airy  house  quite 
out  of  Manchester  smoke.'  '  A  garden,'  she  says,  '  surrounds  it, 
and  as  in  this  hot  weather  the  windows  were  kept  open,  a  whis- 
pering of  leaves  and  a  perfume  of  flowers  always  pervaded  the 
rooms.'  Plymouth  Grove  of  to-day  has,  I  am  afraid,  lost  some- 
thing of  its  smokeless  atmosphere  ;  but  the  house  and  the  garden 
are  still  there.  Mrs.  Gaskell,  in  describing  Charlotte  Bronte's 
second  visit,  tells  a  curious  story  of  the  shyness  which  she  evinced 
after  having  lived  so  long  out  of  the  world. 

We  had  a  friend,  a  young  lady,  staying  with  us,  and  although  our  friend  was 
gentle  and  sensible  after  Miss  Bronte's  own  heart,  yet  her  presence  was  enough  to 
create  a  nervous  tremour.  I  was  aware  that  both  of  our  guests  were  unusually 
silent,  and  I  saw  a  little  shiver  run  from  time  to  time  over  Miss  Bronte's  frame. 
I  could  account  for  the  modest  reserve  of  the  young  lady,  and  the  next  day  Miss 
Bronte  told  me  how  the  unexpected  sight  of  a  strange  face  had  affected  her. 

32—2 


500         THE   BRONTE    FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER. 

An  even  more  curious  story  lives  in  Miss  Gaskell's  memory. 
It  happened  that  Mrs.  Sidney  Potter,  the  author  of  that  interesting 
book  '  Lancashire  Memories,'  came  to  call  on  Mrs.  Gaskell  during 
Charlotte  Bronte's  visit.  She  was  shown  into  the  drawing-room, 
where  Mrs.  Gaskell  and  her  guest  were  conversing.  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
after  greeting  Mrs.  Potter,  turned  to  introduce  her  to  Charlotte 
Bronte,  but  Charlotte  Bronte  had  vanished.  Mrs.  Gaskell  naturally 
assumed  that  she  had  slipped  out  of  the  room  by  one  of  its  doors  ; 
but  after  Mrs.  Potter's  departure  she  reappeared  from  behind  one 
of  the  heavy  window  curtains,  into  which  she  had  fled  for  conceal- 
ment at  the  sight  of  a  stranger. 

The  following  letter  is,  I  think,  a  beautiful  expression  of 
Charlotte  Bronte's  feeling  for  her  friend  and  future  biographer. 
Writing  from  Haworth  on  March  28,  1853,  she  says  : 

It  may  seem  rather  impulsive  to  write  again  immediately  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  without  having  anything  of  special  importance  to  communicate  ;  but 
really  it  is  sometimes  right  to  yield  to  impulses — and  mine  is  to  say  out  of  my 
heart  that  I  feel  in  your  letters  something  kind  and  good  which  does  me  good. 
Why  do  they  never  betray  anything  of  the  bitterness  of  jealousy,  or  of  the  poison 
of  secret  acridity  ?  Why  are  they  at  once  so  frank  and  so  gentle  ?  All  my  '  kind 
friends ' — all  my  affectionate  correspondents  are  not  thus — to  your  goodness  is 
not  wanting  the  foil  of  contrast — Heaven  knows  !  Perhaps  it  is  this  foil  make  (sic) 
me  feel  the  opposite  keenly. 

As  to  the  coming  reviews  to  which  you  allude,  I  bend  to  them  my  head,  and 
shall  expect  more  blows  than  benedictions.  Surely  I  even  deserve  them.  Your 
modesty  touches,  melts,  humbles  me  more  than  I  can  express. 

Keep  your  heart  kind  and  warm  towards  me  till  we  meet.  If  I  fix  my  visit  for 
the  first  week  in  May  (D.V.)  will  that  suit  ?  I  promise  not  to  be  demonstrative, 
sentimental,  fatiguing  in  a  word ;  but  I  shall  be  glad  to  take  hold  of  your  hand, 
to  have  it  in  mine,  not  to  squeeze  it  too  hard,  lest  it  should  be  crushed,  but  to 
make  much  of  it  as  a  hand  prone  to  administer  comfort  and  loathe  (sic)  to  inflict 
pain. 

It  was  after  this  proposed  visit,  which  took  place  in  April  1853, 
that  Charlotte  Bronte  wrote  to  Mrs.  Gaskell  :  '  The  week  I  spent  in 
Manchester  has  impressed  me  as  the  very  brightest  and  healthiest 
1  have  known  for  these  five  years  past.' 

The  last  of  the  three  visits  to  Manchester  extended  only  over 
three  days.  Charlotte  Bronte  was  then  occupied  in  preparing  for 
her  marriage,  and  she  went  to  Leeds  for  the  sake  of  making  the 
necessary  purchases.  Her  preparations,  as  she  herself  said,  could 
*  neither  be  expensive  nor  extensive,  consisting  chiefly  in  a  modest 
replenishing  of  her  wardrobe,  some  repainting  and  repapering  in 
the  Parsonage  which  was  to  be  her  home,  and  above  all  converting 
the  small  flagged  passage  room  hitherto  used  only  for  stores  (which 
was  behind  her  sitting-room)  into  a  study  for  her  husband.' 


THE   BRONTE   FAMILY   AT   MANCHESTER.         501 

There  is  not  much  to  be  added.  But  the  following  letter  of 
Charlotte  Bronte  possesses  a  peculiar  interest,  as  it  reveals  the 
story  of  her  engagement.  On  April  18,  1854,  she  writes  to  Mrs. 
Gaskell  from  Haworth  : 

I  should  have  deferred  writing  to  you  till  I  could  fix  the  day  of  coming  to 
Manchester,  but  I  have  a  thing  or  two  to  communicate  which  I  want  to  get  done 
with.  You  remember — or  perhaps  do  not  remember — what  I  told  you  when 
you  were  at  Haworth.  Towards  the  end  of  autumn  the  matter  was  again  brought 
prominently  forward.  There  was  much  reluctance  and  many  difficulties  to  be 
overcome.  I  cannot  deny  that  I  had  a  battle  to  fight  with  myself  ;  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  have  even  yet  conquered  certain  inward  combatants.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
in  Jany  last  papa  gave  his  sanction  for  a  renewal  of  acquaintance.  Things  have 
progressed  I  don't  know  how.  It  is  of  no  use  going  into  detail.  After  various 
visits  and  as  the  result  of  perseverance  in  one  quarter  and  a  gradual  change  of 
feeling  in  others,  I  find  myself  what  people  call  '  engaged.' 

Mr.  Nicholls  returns  to  Haworth.  The  people  are  very  glad,  especially  the 
poor  and  old  and  very  young,  to  all  of  whom  he  was  kind,  with  a  kindness  that 
showed  no  flash  at  first,  but  left  a  very  durable  impression.  He  is  to  become 
a  resident  in  this  house.  I  believe  it  is  expected  that  I  shall  change  my  name  in 
the  course  of  summer — perhaps  in  July.  He  promises  to  prove  his  gratitude  to 
papa  by  offering  faithful  support  and  consolation  to  his  age.  As  he  is  not  a  man 
of  fine  words,  I  believe  him.  The  Rubicon  once  passed,  papa  seems  cheerful 
and  satisfied ;  he  says  he  has  been  '  far  too  stern  '  ;  he  even  admits  that  he  was 
unjust — terribly  unjust  he  certainly  was  for  a  time,  but  now  all  this  is  effaced  from 
memory,  now  that  he  is  kind  again  and  declares  himself  happy,  and  talks  reason- 
ably and  without  invective.  I  could  almost  cry  sometimes  that  in  this  important 
action  in  my  life  I  cannot  better  satisfy  papa's  perhaps  natural  pride.  My  destiny 
will  not  be  brilliant  certainly,  but  Mr.  Nicholls  is  conscientious,  affectionate,  pure 
in  heart  and  life.  He  offers  a  most  constant  and  tried  attachment,  I  am  very 
grateful  to  him ;  I  mean  to  try  to  make  him  happy,  and  papa  too. 

1  will  close  my  paper  with  some  words  taken  from  a  letter 
of  Mr.  Bronte's  on  his  daughter  Charlotte's  death.  He  writes  to 
Mrs.  Gaskell  on  April  6,  1855  : 

My  daughter  is  indeed  dead — the  solemn  truth  presses  upon  her  worthy  and 
affectionate  husband  and  me  with  great  and,  it  may  be,  with  unusual  weight. 
But  others  also  have  or  shall  have  their  sorrows,  and  we  feel  our  own  the  most. 
The  marriage  that  took  place  seemed  to  hold  forth  long  and  bright  prospects  of 
happiness.  But  in  the  inscrutable  providence  of  God  all  our  hopes  have  ended 
in  disappointment  and  our  joy  in  mourning.  May  we  resign  to  the  will  of  the 
Most  High  !  After  three  months  of  sickness  tranquil  death  closed  the  scene. 
But  our  loss,  we  trust,  is  her  gain.  But  why  should  I  trouble  you  longer  with 
our  sorrows  ?  '  The  heart  knoweth  its  own  bitterness,'  and  we  ought  to  bear 
with  fortitude  our  own  grievances  and  not  to  bring  others  into  our  sufferings. 

There  is  something  of  Stoicism  as  well  as  of  Christianity  in  the 
bereaved  father's  calm  and  stern  submission  to  the  Almighty  Will. 

J.  E.  C.  WELLDON. 


502 


BECKY. 

BECKY  belonged  to  Somebody's  Light  Horse,  a  corps  comprising  a 
set  of  typical  scallywags,  always  ready  at  the  very  shortest 
notice  to  embark  on  any  military  enterprise,  from  the  storming  of 
a  koppie  held  by  desperadoes  to  the  clearing  of  a  canteen  stocked 
from  floor  to  ceiling  with  liquid  and  with  solid  goods.  Blithe, 
resourceful  and  unaffected,  his  boisterous  gbod  humour  was 
warranted  to  exorcise  despondency  in  the  darkest  hour,  and  by  those 
inclined  to  judge  by  appearances  he  was  often  put  down  as  a  simple 
soul.  By  some  mysterious  process  he  had  acquired  the  position  of 
Supply- Officer  to  the  Column,  and  there  was  not  in  all  South  Africa 
an  official  more  strenuous  or  indefatigable  in  carrying  out  what  were 
often  irksome  and  unattractive  duties,  duties  which  kept  him 
trekking  along  familiar,  glaring,  dust-smothered  roads,  while  the 
Column  reposing  in  some  deftly  chosen  bivouac  wondered  idly  why 
it  took  him  such  an  unconscionable  time  to  fetch  rations  from  a 
railway  distant  sixty  miles.  Still,  tireless  and  energetic  as  he  was, 
Becky  had  his  little  peccadilloes  like  the  best  of  us,  peccadilloes 
which  made  his  merits  the  more  conspicuous  by  contrast. 

He  suffered  from  a  predisposition,  a  predisposition  amounting 
almost  to  a  passion,  for  accumulating  forms  of  provender  which 
under  no  conceivable  circumstances  could  prove  of  any  service. 
The  transport  placed  at  his  disposal  was  strictly  limited  in  its 
carrying  capacity,  and  its  employment  to  the  best  purpose  was 
therefore  manifestly  of  paramount  importance.  The  mobility  of 
the  commando,  and  consequently  its  efficiency  for  carrying  out  its 
peripatetic  functions,  virtually  hinged  upon  the  amount  of  forage 
which  accompanied  it  when  on  the  move.  That  being  the  case,  it 
came  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  governing  its  commissariat 
organisation  that  only  just  sufficient  sustenance  was  to  be  carried 
for  man,  while  the  remaining  space  at  the  disposal  of  the  Supply- 
Officer  was  to  be  piled  up,  to  the  utmost  extent  compatible  with 
the  power  of  the  teams,  with  sustenance  for  beast.  Nor  was  Becky 
opposed  to  this  doctrine  in  the  abstract.  He  was  in  the  habit 
indeed  of  waxing  eloquent  on  the  subject  from  time  to  time.  But 
when  it  came  to  practice  there  were  lamentable  backslidings,  for 


BECKY.  503 

his  soul  delighted  in  amassing  hoards  of  pepper,  or  of  those  dried 
vegetables  which  in  defiance  of  a  resolute  refusal  on  the  part  of 
everybody  to  eat  them  were  served  out  solemnly  from  the  depots, 
or  of  anything  of  an  edible  nature  upon  which  he  could  lay  his 
hands  ;  then  having  collected  these  attractive  impedimenta  he 
took  delight  in  dragging  them  about  the  Karoo  with  him,  apparently 
to  serve  as  ballast. 

The  impropriety  of  such  procedure  had  been  strongly  impressed 
upon  the  delinquent  on  several  occasions,  and  the  Staff  had  at  last 
persuaded  themselves  that  he  had  conquered  his  reprehensible 
weakness.  Judge,  then,  of  their  indignation  when  it  came  to  their 
ears  one  evening  that  there  were  wagons  in  his  charge  which  were 
groaning  under  articles  of  diet  over  and  above  requirements,  of  a 
character  that  by  no  stretch  of  the  imagination  nor  misapplication 
of  the  English  language  could  be  classed  as  forage.  They  raged 
furiously  together  against  him  for  some  minutes,  and  ultimately 
resolved  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  the  taking  of  measures  disciplinary 
and  drastic.  '  Always  the  way  with  these  irregulars — orders  are 
about  as  much  use  to  them  as  a  sick  headache.  They  don't  care 
for  rules  nor  regulations,  nor  the  written  and  unwritten  law,  no 
more  than  if  they  were  a  ladies'  club  ! '  the  Staff- Officer  declared 
with  angry  vehemence.  There  was  a  tiger  glint  in  the  Column- 
Commander's  eye.  '  Irregular  or  not,'  he  snarled,  '  I'm  about  fed 
up  with  him,  and  won't  have  any  more  of  his  nonsense.'  A  halt 
had  already  been  ordained  for  the  morrow,  so  it  was  decided  that 
Becky  was  to  be  inspected  first  thing  on  the  following  morning, 
formally,  searchingly  and  without  any  warning  having  been  allowed 
to  reach  him  of  what  there  was  in  store. 

Becky  was  not  one  of  those  busybodies  who  will  fool  away  the 
early  hours  of  a  day  of  rest  on  rising  prematurely  to  poke  aimlessly 
about  in  camp.  He  was  still  curled  up  snugly  in  his  blankets  when 
the  enemy  came  down  prepared  for  battle  on  him  in  his  lines. 
Being  no  slave  to  appearances,  however,  his  toilet  caused  him  no 
anxieties  and  did  not  take  him  long,  so  that  in  a  very  few  minutes 
he  had  made  himself  moderately  presentable  and  was  expressing 
unbounded  gratification  at  the  honour  of  a  visit  from  his  chief. 
'  Having  nothing  better  to  do,  Becky,  we've  just  strolled  across  to 
see  what  you've  got  in  your  wagons,'  was  the  greeting  of  the 
Column-Commander,  hiding  his  fell  purpose  under  the  cloak  of  a 
spurious  bonhomie  ; '  just  get  your  boys  together  and  turn  everything 
out  and  sort  the  different  odds  and  ends  of  things  into  stacks.7 


504  BECKY. 

The  Supply- Officer  looked  for  a  moment  slightly  disconcerted, 
but  he  issued  the  necessary  instructions  promptly  and  a  scene  of 
hilariously  noisy  disorder  ensued,  the  Kaffirs  chattering  like  a  lot 
of  monkeys  and  entering  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing  with  as  much 
zest  and  vigour  as  if  they  had  never  unloaded  a  wagon  before  in  the 
whole  course  of  their  lives. 

While  the  work  was  in  progress  the  Supply- Officer  dexterously 
manoeuvred  his  chief  away  to  a  spot  at  one  end  of  his  row  of  vehicles, 
where  oats  and  compressed  fodder  were  being  bundled  out  and  piled 
up  into  goodly  heaps.  Having  accomplished  this,  he  began 
inveighing  against  the  staff  of  the  supply- depots  for  never  having 
bran  to  issue  and  for  so  often  being  able  to  produce  nothing  else 
but  oats,  being  aware  that  the  Column-Commander  held  strong 
views  upon  the  point.  '  You'll  find  there's  three  days'  stuff  here 
for  all  the  horses  and  mules,  Colonel,  with  just  a  trifle  over,'  he 
said  ;  '  we  carry  seven  days  as  you  know,  and  have  expended  four.' 
Becky  had,  however,  reckoned  without  his  host  in  the  shape  of  the 
Staff- Officer.  That  official  had  quietly  withdrawn  himself  during 
this  confabulation  and  he  now  came  up  with  the  report :  '  There  are 
two  wagons  at  the  far  end  of  the  lines  which  you  will  find  are  not 
being  unloaded,  Sir.  One  is  full  of  biscuits,  as  far  as  I  can  make 
out,  the  other  appears  to  have  everything  in  the  world  in  it,  except 

forage.'     *  I  told  you,  Mr.  S ,'  said  the  Column-Commander, 

assuming  that  official  manner  which  he  flattered  himself  became 
him  well,  '  that  your  stores  were  all  to  be  taken  out ;  will  you  be 
good  enough  to  have  everything  unloaded  at  once  ! '  There  was  no 
help  for  it,  and  realising  that  the  time  for  subterfuges  was  now 
gone  by,  the  Supply- Officer  prepared  with  an  undaunted  counten- 
ance to  face  the  music. 

'  What's  this  ?  '  demanded  the  Column- Commander,  indicating 
with  his  foot  a  bulky  stack  of  cases  all  of  a  uniform  pattern.  '  Oh, 
that's  jam,  Colonel,'  explained  Becky ;  '  to  tell  you  the  truth  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  you  found  there  was  a  trifling  surplus.'  '  What 
do  you  make  of  it  ?  '  the  Column-Commander  enquired  of  the 
Staff- Officer  who  was  already  hard  at  work  counting  the  cases  and 
making  elaborate  entries  in  his  note  book.  After  a  few  minutes 
of  calculation  the  result  was  announced.  '  I  make  out  that  there's 
between  thirteen  and  fourteen  days  there  for  the  whole  column, 
Sir.' 

Becky,  who  was  not  without  a  sense  of  humour,  managed  to 
smother  a  grin  at  the  cost  of  getting  purple  in  the  face,  and  began 


BECKY.  505 

wildly  hunting  among  some  yellow  forms  on  which  there  appeared 

to  be  nothing  entered.     '  You  told  me  just  this  minute,  Mr.  S , 

that  you  ought  to  have  three  days'  supplies  in  hand.  How  do  you 
account  for  having  from  ten  to  eleven  days'  jam  in  excess  ?  ' 
demanded  the  Column- Commander  in  his  sternest  tones.  '  Well, 
Colonel,  it's  always  as  well,  don't  you  know,  not  to  cut  things  down 
too  fine,'  was  the  Supply- Officer's  apologia,  uttered  in  his  glibbest 
manner  :  '  you  see  the  men  want  just  a  little  extra  every  now  and 
then  ;  the  Trumpeter,  for  instance,  likes  a  pot  all  to  himself  occasion- 
ally,' for  the  Trumpeter  was  a  privileged  person.  '  You  will  please 
to  understand,  Mr.  S ,'  said  the  Column- Commander  maintain- 
ing an  outward  calm,  but  only  by  a  superhuman  effort,  '  that  if  the 
troops  are  to  get  an  extra  ration  of  anything  at  any  time,  it  will 
be  at  my  discretion,  not  at  yours.'  Becky  perceived  that  matters 
were  becoming  critical.  He  contrived  to  haul  down  the  smile  of  a 
favourite  which  he  had  been  flying  at  the  main  and  to  hoist  a  frown 
of  portentous  gravity  in  its  place  ;  he  assumed  an  attitude  which 
he  confidently  believed  to  be  that  of  '  attention,'  and  he  gave  his 
further  replies  to  queries  addressed  to  him  by  his  superior  officer  in 
monosyllables  and  a  sepulchral  tone. 

4  Now  for  this  gigantic  pile  of  biscuits,'  said  the  Column- 
Commander,  stopping  before  an  immense  stack.  '  Just  make  out,' 
to  the  Staff-Officer,  '  what  it  all  amounts  to.'  At  work  of  this 
nature  the  Staff- Officer  was  a  kind  of  walking  slide-rule,  and  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  (during  which  the  Column-Com- 
mander paraded  up  and  down  apart,  nursing  his  wrath,  lest  Becky 
should  engage  him  in  a  friendly  conversation)  the  figures  were 
proclaimed  in  these  terms  :  '  It's  not  quite  so  bad  as  the  jam,  Sir. 
There's  almost  exactly  eleven  days  here,  so  we  are  only  carrying 
eight  days  more  than  we  ought  to  be.' 

Becky  was  pulverised  by  a  withering  glance  from  his  indignant 
chief,  who  asked  the  Staff-Officer  '  How  much  does  that  work  out 
at  per  horse  in  the  column  ?  '  *  Mules,  horses,  Sir  ?  '  '  No,  hang  it 
all,  mules  must  be  mules — for  biscuits.'  There  was  a  further 
totting  up  of  figures  and  then  the  lightning-calculator  announced 
the  answer  to  the  sum  :  '  It  comes  to  just  about  ten  pounds  per 
horse,  Colonel,  as  near  as  I  can  make  it.  But  I  say,  Sir  !  we  can't 
possibly  stuff  all  that  into  them  at  one  go  !  They'll  be  catching— 
what's  that  new-fangled  complaint  which  people  are  accused  of 
having  whenever  they  feel  a  bit  dicky  in  their  insides — something 
beginning  with  a  "  p  "  ?  ' 


506  BECKY. 

*  Appendicitis '  put  in  the  Civilian  Doctor,  who  had  joined  the 
group  and  who  was  simply  bursting  with  inopportune  and  undesired 
information.  '  But  horses  aren't  liable  to  it.  You  see,  although 
the  internal  organs  of  a  horse  correspond  up  to  a  certain  point 
with  those  of  the  man,  there  is ' 

It  was  really  too  bad  !  Here  was  the  Supply- Officer,  caught 
in  flagrante  delicto,  proved  conclusively  to  have  been  guilty  of 
flouting  ordinances  which  it  was  his  duty  to  respect,  and  about  to 
be  '  carpeted '  in  all  form  and  ceremony  for  criminal  malfeasance, 
and  the  Civilian  Doctor,  who  ought  to  have  been  engaged  in  doling 
out  his  abominable  decoctions  to  those  in  want  of  such  refreshment, 
must  needs  come  intervening  with  his  inappropriate  professional 
prattle  !  '  We  can  dispense  with  a  lecture  on  comparative  anatomy,' 
snorted  the  Column-Commander,  and  went  on  in  a  hurry  to  the 
Staff-Officer  for  fear  that  somebody  else  might  get  a  word  in  first  : 
'  Write  out  an  order  telling  units  to  demand  four  pounds  of  biscuit 
per  horse  for  to-day,  three  pounds  per  horse  for  to-morrow,  and 
three  pounds  per  horse  for  the  day  after,  and,'  wheeling  round 

to  confront  Becky,  '  you  will  understand,  Mr.  S ,  that  for  the 

future  my  orders  as  to  only  carrying  the  exact  proportions  of  rations 
for  men  and  animals  are  to  be  carried  out  to  the  letter.' 

The  Supply-Officer  was  looking  slightly  crestfallen,  a  symptom 
which  the  Staff  did  not  fail  to  note  with  grim  satisfaction.  The 
wresting  of  his  hoarded  treasure  out  of  his  keeping  came  upon  him 
as  a  cruel  shock,  but  unhappily  his  depression  was  not  of  long 
duration.  His  was  a  mercurial  temperament,  and  as  the  high 

authorities  turned  with  a  formal '  Good  morning,  Mr.  S ,'  to  go, 

he  broke  out  into  wreathed  smiles  and  ejaculated  heartily  '  I  knew 
those  spare  biscuits  would  turn  up  trumps  sooner  or  later,  Colonel ! 
The  crocks  will  be  jumping  out  of  their  skins  when  they  read  that 
order.  They  do  deserve  a  treat,  and  I'm  so  pleased  I  could  put  you 
in  the  way  of  it ' ;  and  then  he  muttered  in  a  penetrating  sotto  wee 
'  But  why  couldn't  he  order  the  old  things  a  ration  out  of  the 
spare  jam  ?  They'd  have  simply  loved  it !  '  What  was  one  to  do 
with  such  a  fellow — with  that  confounded  Civilian  Doctor  there, 
too,  and  a  lot  of  other  loafers  loitering  near  enough  to  hear  and 
trying  to  conceal  their  idiotic  merriment  ?  '  You  wretch,  Becky  ! 
You're  perfectly  incorrigible  !  '  The  fact  was  that,  with  all  his 
bland  simplicity  and  his  imperturbable  good  temper,  the  Supply- 
Officer  was  by  no  means  easy  to  get  the  better  of,  as  a  shining  light 
of  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  learnt  to  his  cost. 


BECKY.  507 

The  commando  having  become  entangled  with  the  nondescript 
garrison  of  a  stronghold  which  it  had  relieved,  and  with  certain 
detachments  and  military  organisations  which  had  seconded  it  in 
accomplishing  the  undertaking,  the  besieged  and  their  deliverers 
were  all  for  the  time  being  dwelling  together  in  the  one  locality  and 
forming  more  or  less  one  single  force.  There  were  Militia,  there 
were  Town  Guards,  there  were  Police,  there  was  a  special  Corps  of 
Volunteers,  there  was  a  motley  multitude  masquerading  under  the 
title  of  Scouts,  and  all  of  these  armed  bodies  added  to  the  column 
created  an  array  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  was  more  imposing  in  its 
dimensions  than  it  was  martial  in  its  bearing.  The  Column, 
however,  steeped  as  it  was  in  a  dignified  and  not  unbecoming 
esprit  de  corps,  held  itself  as  far  as  possible  aloof  from  troops  most 
of  whom  were  of  the  merest  mushroom  growth.  It  so  happened, 
however,  that  the  heterogeneous  assemblage  included  an  army 
doctor  claiming  to  have  served  a  week  or  so  longer  than  the  Medical 
Officer  of  the  Column  (who  was  no  veteran),  and  this  army  doctor, 
in  virtue  of  being  the  senior  representative  of  that  branch  of  His 
Majesty's  Forces  on  the  spot,  assumed  the  title,  the  demeanour, 
and  the  authority  of  a  P.M.O.,1  that  is  to  say  he  ceased  to  offer 
personal  attentions  to  the  sick  and  he  devoted  his  energies  and  his 
talents  to  what  he  called  '  administration.' 

Administration  as  interpreted  by  the  P.M.O.  was  practically 
confined  to  composing  despatches  containing  impracticable  pro- 
Iposals  for  the  benefit  of  those  over  whom  he  did  not  claim  control, 
| and  to  issuing  minatory  memoranda  on  the  subject  of  their  manner 
of  performing  their  duties  addressed  to  those  whom  he  regarded  as 
lis  subordinates.     Whenever  communications  coming  within  the 
atter  category  reached  the  hospital  lines  of  the  Column  they  were 
greeted  with  contumelious  laughter,  and  the  instructions  which 
hey  contained  were,  on  the  rare  occasions  when  their  contents 
sould    be    deciphered,    invariably    treated    with    disdain.      The 
jonsequence  was  that  relations  in  local  medical  circles  became 
somewhat  strained,  and  that  the  P.M.O.  endeavoured  to  enlist  the 
sympathies  of  the  Column- Commander  in  support  of  good  order 
nd  military  discipline.     But  that  highly  placed  official  unfortu- 
ately  took  cover  behind  a  temporising  and  unworthy  figure  of 
peech.     '  It  is  always  better,'  he  said,  after  some  moments  of 
nxious  consideration,  '  for  outsiders  not  to  interfere  in  questions 
f  departmental  detail.'    Baffied  in  a  quarter  where  he  had  con- 
1  Principal  Medical  Officer. 


508  BECKY. 

fidently  counted  on  assistance,  the  P.M.O.  stooped  to  argument 
with  his  recalcitrant  juniors  ;  but  he  forthwith  found  himself 
confronted  by  a  fresh  antagonist.  For  Becky,  who  shared  the 
festive  board  of  the  Column  medical  staff  and  who,  like  every 
self-respecting  soldier,  was  a  blind  and  uncompromising  partisan, 
could  not  refrain  from  throwing  himself  into  the  fray,  and,  not 
content  with  egging  on  his  messmates  to  further  acts  of  insubordina- 
tion, felt  himself  called  upon  to  intervene  personally  in  polemics 
with  which,  needless  to  say,  he  had  no  concern. 

Now  the  name  of  the  P.M.O.  was  O'Hara  (of  Ballydob — no  less), 
and  like  the  vast  majority  of  the  exiles  of  Erin  he  traced  his  lineage 
back,  unbroken  and  without  one  single  kink  in  it,  to  Brian  Boru. 
Well,  it  so  happened  that  Becky  one  day  in  the  midst  of  a  heated 
discussion  inadvertently  called  the  great  man  O'Toole,  and,  on 
observing  that  this  gave  some  slight  offence,  he  continued  to  call 
the  great  man  O'Toole,  only  varying  the  appellation  occasionally 
by  substituting '  O'Hara — Oh  !  I  beg  pardon  !  I  meant  O'Toole  ! ' 
The  P.M.O.  endured  this  for  a  day  or  two,  buoyed  up  with  the 
delusive  hope  that  the  Supply- Officer  would  weary  of  the  practice. 
But  when  the  annoyance  showed  no  signs  of  relaxation  and  when 
it  became  apparent  that  the  commissariat  expert  was  deliberately 
offering  him  an  affront,  he  felt  that  it  was  incumbent  on  him  in  view 
of  his  responsible  position  to  make  a  dignified  and  a  forcible  protest. 
Seizing  an  opportunity  when  there  were  others  present  to  appreciate 
the  rebuke  which  he  had  carefully  prepared,  he  intimated  to  Becky 
with  a  frigid  stiffness  of  manner  which  should  in  itself  have  sufficed 
to  overawe  that  officer,  that  it  was  his  wish — and  that  it  more- 
over was  his  intention — to  be  called  by  his  proper  name.  '  But,' 
urged  the  Supply-Monger,  round-eyed  and  with  a  childlike  wonder, 
'  you  always  call  me  Becky,  which  you  know  perfectly  well  is  not 
my  proper  name.'  '  Oh  !  Everybody  calls  you  Becky,'  said  the  I 
P.M.O.,  with  haughty  condescension.  'Well,  I'll  take  jolly  good 
care  that  in  future  everybody  calls  you  O'Toole,'  rejoined  Becky. 
And  everybody  did. 

Becky  managed  to  get  himself  lost  one  night.  He  and  his 
cortege  were  missing  for  several  hours  and  did  not  make  their 
appearance  again  till  the  sun  was  high  in  the  heavens  on  tin- 
following  day.  He  came  over,  beaming,  to  Column  Headquarters 
to  report  his  arrival  and  to  account  for  his  temporary  absence  tc 
those  set  in  authority  over  him.  '  The  fact  is,'  he  admitted,  '  1 
didn't  know  where  I  was,  no  more  than  the  man  in  the  moon,  nor 


BECKY.  509 

which  was  the  right  road,  nor  which  direction  I  had  come  from, 
nor  anything.  But  when  I  came  to  think  of  it,  it  suddenly  struck 
me  that  the  caravan  had  been  trekking  south  by  the  map,  so  that 
all  I  had  to  do  was  to  find  the  North  Star  and  then  to  turn  my  back 
upon  it  and  to  go  ahead.' 

'  Becky,'  said  the  Staff- Officer  impressively,  '  it's  simply  pre- 
posterous your  wasting  your  sweetness  on  the  desert  veldt.  Surely 
you  must  realise  that  with  your  grip  of  the  principles  of  science 
your  place  is  the  lecture  hall,  blathering  to  bald-headed  savants 
about  economics,  or  metaphysics,  or  something-ology.' 

Becky's  face  expanded  into  an  engulfing  grin.  '  It's  all  very 
well,'  he  declared,  '  but  I  couldn't  for  the  life  of  me  find  the  silly 
tforth  Star.  I  hunted  for  that  Bear  thing — you  know,  the  one  with 
;he  two  things  in  front  which  point ;  it's  generally  on  hand  some- 
where. Well,  it  was  the  first  time  since  I've  been  out  that  I've 
ihought  of  the  beastly  thing  or  wanted  it,  but  blow  me  tight  if  it 
was  there.  I  wouldn't  have  minded  had  there  been  clouds  to  get 
n  the  way,  but  there  wasn't  one  to  be  seen.  Goodness  knows 
where  the  ridiculous  thing  had  got  to,  but,  anyway,  nobody  can 
ind  the  North  Star  without  it  unless  he's  a  what-do-you-call-it,  so 
[  got  hold  of  my  conductor  and  he  at  once  began  gassing  some  yarn 
about  the  Southern  Hemisphere.  That  sort  of  thing  is  all  rot,  to 
my  mind,  so 'I  took  him  up  jolly  short  and  asked  him  what  way  we 
ought  to  go  ;  but,  like  a  Juggins,  I  told  him  what  I  thought  myself, 
so  of  course  he  was  all  for  going  exactly  the  opposite  way  out  of 
sheer  cussedness.'  '  I  wasn't  going  to  be  bluffed  by  my  own 
conductor,'  continued  Becky,  instinctively  placing  himself  in  a 
posture  of  command,  '  those  sort  of  people  get  above  themselves 
if  you  don't  keep  'em  in  their  place,  so  I  said  we'd  toss  up.' 

'  That  was  the  dignified  course  to  pursue  under  the  circum- 
stances,' observed  the  Column-Commander. 

'  Yes,  Sir  ;  but  the  worst  of  it  was  I  lost !  '  complained  the 
Supply- Officer  in  an  injured  tone. 

'  If  you  had  won,  Becky,'  exclaimed  the  Signalling  Officer  with 
glee,  '  you  would  have  returned  to  the  fold  in  a  day  or  two,  without 
your  wagons  and  without  your  breeches  !  ' 

Becky  exploded  in  a  stentorian  guffaw.  '  Brother  Boer  wouldn't 
be  much  the  better  for  my  breeches  !  '  he  ejaculated,  turning  round 
and  round  so  as  to  allow  the  Staff  more  properly  to  appreciate  the 
condition  of  the  garment  in  question — and  he  never  spoke  a  truer 


510  BECKY. 

word,  for  there  probably  was  not  a  more  disreputable  pair  between 
the  Limpopo  Eiver  and  Simon's  Bay. 

To  claim  that  Becky  was  the  best  Supply- Officer  since  the  time 
of  Moses  would  be  perhaps  to  lay  it  on  too  thick.  He  was  little 
disposed,  it  must  be  confessed,  to  submit  to  the  galling  restrictions 
which  military  regulations  are  apt  to  impose.  It  was  not  in  con- 
sonance with  his  genius  to  allow  himself  to  be  cramped  by  those 
orthodox,  stereotyped  methods  of  conducting  business  to  which 
meaner  intellects  will  bow  the  knee.  It  has  even  been  laid  to  his 
charge  that  he  was  not  in  the  habit  of  conforming  to  that  funda- 
mental law  of  administrative  self-preservation  which  enjoins  you 
never  to  deliver  up  anything  without  extorting  a  receipt  for  it,  and 
never  to  grant  a  receipt  for  anything  that  you  get  if  you  can  possibly 
escape  from  doing  so.  But  his  energy  and  zeal  knew  no  bounds 
and  they  never  relaxed  for  a  moment  during  those  long  months  of 
wandering,  the  serenity  of  his  temper  was  never  disturbed  by  even 
the  most  untoward  circumstance,  he  never  complained  no  matter 
how  overwhelming  the  burden  was  that  was  thrust  upon  him,  and, 
most  important  of  all,  he  never  failed  at  an  ill-chosen  time.  The 
Column  owed  him  much,  and  in  acknowledgment  thereof  it  extended 
to  him  its  heartiest  goodwill. 

CHAS.  E.  CALLWELL. 


511 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR    OLD  AGE 
PENSIONERS. 

1  ME  make  un  'ome  fer  moi  father  ?  Why,  Oi  ain't  got  no  'ome  fer 
messelV 

There  was  not  only  surprise  and  indignation  in  the  man's  tone 
as  he  spoke,  but  an  odd  little  touch  of  sarcasm.  What  is  the  world 
coming  to  ?  was  the  thought  in  his  mind,  evidently.  What  shall  I 
be  asked  to  do  next  ? 

He  was  a  great  hulking  fellow  of  about  forty,  with  '  loafer ' 
written  in  unmistakable  terms  in  every  line  in  his  face,  every  move- 
ment of  his  body.  He  looked  as  strong  as  an  ox,  but  he  trailed  his 
feet  as  he  walked  ;  and  as  he  could  find  nothing  on  which  to  sit, 
he  clung  to  the  wall  for  support. 

A  few  days  previously  a  very  decent  old  man,  in  the  workhouse 
perforce,  his  strength  having  failed  him,  had  assured  me  with  the 
ring  of  true  conviction  in  his  voice  that,  if  he  had  a  pension  of  5s. 
a  week,  his  son,  beyond  whom  he  had  neither  kith  nor  kin,  would 
gladly  make  a  home  for  him,  he  knew.  And  this  loafer  was  his  son  ! 
I  had  found  him  in  a  sort  of  annex  to  a  little  beerhouse,  where,  as 
he  explained  to  me,  he  was  allowed  to  live  and  given  snacks  to  eat 
in  return  for  doing  odd  jobs. 

*  Wot  could  the  old  buffer  be  thinkin'  about  ?  '  he  continued, 
meditatively,  looking  at  me  the  while  with  an  injured  air.  '  'E 
knows  quite  well  Oi'm  just  a  lone  man,  and  yer  see  for  yerseP  'ow 
Oi'm  placed.  Now  wot  could  Oi  do  wiv  'im  'ere,  or  enywhere  else 
fer  the  matter  o'  that  ?  'E'll  niver  git  no  more  nor  foive  shillin'  a 
week,  yer  say  ;  and  wot's  foive  shillin',  I'd  like  ter  know  ?  Just 
yer  tell  'im  from  me  'e's  got  ter  stick  where  'e  is,  and  not  go  botherin'.' 

And  with  a  surly  nod  he  shuffled  off. 

He  was  to  stick  where  he  was,  poor  old  man,  and  he  was  eating 
out  his  very  heart  in  his  eagerness  to  get  away,  even  to  his  ne'er-do- 
well  son  ! 

I  was  on  a  home-hunting  expedition  at  the  time  !  I  had  a  sort 
of  roving  commission  from  certain  old  workhouse  inmates  to  seek 
out  for  them  kinsfolk  able  and  willing  to  provide  them,  when  they 


512   IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

should  cease  to  be  paupers  and  become  old  age  pensioners,  with 
food,  shelter,  and  care  in  return  for  their  5s.  a  week.  This  was  the 
outcome  of  some  inquiries  I  had  been  making,  in  a  great  London 
workhouse,  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  how  many  of  the  old 
people  there  had  homes  to  which  they  could  go,  if  they  each  had 
5s.  to  take  with  them  ;  of  discovering,  too,  incidentally,  what  sort 
of  homes  they  were.  The  matter  is  one  of  importance  now,  it  must 
be  remembered  ;  for,  as  the  law  stands,  workhouse  inmates  who  are 
above  seventy  and  fairly  respectable  will  have  the  right,  on  the 
first  of  next  January,  to  leave  the  workhouse  and  claim  old  age 
pensions.  This  is  a  point  on  which  there  can  be  no  doubt,  for 
Section  III.  (1)  of  the  Old  Age  Pension  Law  enacts  that  until 
the  thirty-first  of  December  1910,  the  fact  of  having  received  poor 
relief  shall  be  a  bar  to  receiving  an  old-age  pension,  but  only  until 
that  date,  unless  indeed  '  Parliament  otherwise  determines.' 

Thus,  when  January  comes  round,  these  poor  old  folk  will  be 
able  to  toddle  forth,  claim  their  pensions,  and  start  life  afresh  for 
weal  or  for  woe,  if  they  choose.  And  choose  they  certainly  will, 
for  the  most  part,  such  of  them  at  any  rate  as  have  the  strength  to 
toddle.  Of  that  I  had  ample  proof  while  making  my  inquiry  in  this 
workhouse.  For  during  the  many  days  I  spent  there  I  learnt  to 
know  528  of  the  inmates,  252  old  men  and  276  old  women,  and  I 
became  on  more  or  less  confidential  terms  with  many  of  them. 
And  the  great  majority  of  them  were,  I  found,  quite  determined  to 
leave  the  House  as  soon  as  ever  they  could — if  ever  they  could— 
have  pensions. 

It  was  only  with  the  fairly  strong  that  I  talked,  of  course  ;  for 
whether  they  have  pensions  or  not,  the  really  infirm  must  always 
remain  in  institutions  of  some  sort,  whatever  their  wishes  may  be. 
Still,  the  whole  528  were  above  sixty-five,  while  many  of  them  were 
far  above  seventy — they  will  practically  all  be  seventy  by  January — 
and  the  strongest  among  them  was  but  a  weakling.  For  even  at 
sixty-five  the  average  working  man  or  woman  is  nearing  the  end  so 
far  as  physical  strength  goes.  None  the  less,  a  good  three-fourths 
of  them  were  quite  prepared  to  throw  themselves  into  the  struggle 
of  life  again.  They  would  there  and  then  have  said  good-bye  to  the 
workhouse  gladly,  had  a  pension  officer  appeared  and  offered  them 
each  a  book  of  pension  tickets.  Yet,  when  I  asked  them  where  they 
would  go,  most  of  them  seemed  by  no  means  sure  ;  it  was  quite 
evident,  indeed,  that  they  had  nowhere  on  earth  to  go  to.  Not  but 
that  some  even  of  the  most  desolate  began  by  giving  me  a  glowing 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.  513 

account  of  the  many  friends  and  relatives  they  had  who  would  be 
delighted  to  share  homes  with  them.  It  was  not  until  much  un- 
founded evidence  had  been  sifted,  and  many  rosy-hued  statements 
had  been  put  to  the  test,  that  I  realised  what  a  terribly  lonely  set 
these  poor  old  people  really  were. 

Out  of  the  528  whose  acquaintance  I  made,  171  had  not  a  single 
relative  among  them,  and  94  more  were  practically  in  the  same 
position,  as,  if  they  had  relatives,  they  had  never  heard  of  them. 
Then  221  had  children,  each  one  at  least  a  son  or  a  daughter  ;  and 
42,  although  childless,  had  brothers,  sisters,  nephews,  nieces,  or 
•cousins.  Thus,  out  of  the  whole  528,  only  263  had  relatives  of  any 
sort ;  and,  in  the  case  of  42  of  them,  the  relatives  were  of  the  sort 
that  do  not  count,  as  they  cannot  be  forced  to  help.  Practically 
only  221  of  these  old  men  and  women  really  had  relatives  ;  and, 
as  all  the  world  knows,  one  may  have  relatives  and  yet  have  no 
home  to  go  to.  More  than  half  of  the  221  told  me  frankly  from  the 
first  that  if  they  went  to  their  own  people  they  would  not  be  taken 
in.  Only  59,  indeed,  seemed  quite  sure,  when  I  asked  them,  that 
they  each  had  someone,  a  son  or  a  daughter,  who  would  take  them 
in  and  do  for  them  in  return  for  their  five  shillings  a  week.  And  22 
out  of  the  59  later  confessed  to  me  mournfully  that  they  had  made 
a  mistake.  Their  sons  or  daughters  when  appealed  to  had  declared 
that  they  could  not — perhaps  would  not — give  them  house  room. 
Only  37  out  of  528  were  sure  they  had  homes  to  go  to ;  and  there  was 
the  chance,  of  course,  that  some  even  of  these  37  were  counting 
without  their  host.  Many  of  the  other  491  assured  me,  it  is  true, 
hat  although  they  had  no  relatives  willing  to  receive  them,  even  if 
they  had  each  five  shillings  a  week,  they  had  many  friends  who 
would  do  so  gladly ;  and  that '  friends  were  a  sight  better  to  live  with 
;han  relatives.'  To  this,  however,  I  paid  no  heed  ;  for  it  is  hardly 
probable  that  anyone  who  is  not  a  near  relative  will  undertake  to 
louse,  feed,  clothe  and  tend  an  old  man  or  woman  for  so  small  a 
sum  as  five  shillings  a  week.  '  Old  folk  give  no  end  of  trouble,'  I 
am  often  told.  '  Keeping  them  clean  takes  up  all  one's  time,  and 
five  shilling  a  week  ain't  much  to  pay  for  what  they  eat  and  drink, 
and  the  damage  they  do.  Besides,  they  must  have  somewhere  to 
sleep.' 

The  37  who  were  sure  they  had  homes  to  go  to  were  very  sure 
indeed  :  16  of  them  were  old  men  and  21  old  women,  and  I  verily 
believe  that  not  one  of  the  lot  had  a  doubt  in  his  or  her  mind  on  the 
subject.  For  the  memories  of  the  aged  are  capricious,  and  with 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  166,  N.S.  38 


514  IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

them  the  mere  wish  is  more  often  than  not  the  father  to  the  thought. 
Not  only  would  their  own  people  take  them  in,  but  they  would  take 
them  in  gladly,  they  each  in  turn  impressed  upon  me  again  and 
again.  And  when  I  ventured  to  suggest  that  they  should  allow  me 
to  go  to  see  their  own  people,  so  as  to  make  quite  sure  that  there  was 
no  mistake  in  the  matter,  they  all  agreed  cheerfully,  evidently 
pleased  that  I  should  learn  for  myself  how  thoroughly  their  own 
people  were  to  be  relied  upon.  After  much  cudgelling  of  brains, 
each  old  man  and  each  old  woman  gave  me  the  address  of  the  son, 
daughter  or  grandchild  with  whom  he  or  she  was  going  to  live  when 
an  old  age  pensioner.  This  done,  I  started  off  on  my  home-hunting 
expedition,  and  came  across  the  beerhouse  hanger-on.  He  speedily 
put  to  flight  any  hopes  I  might  ever  have  had  that  all  these  37  old 
workhouse  inmates  would  prove  really  to  have,  as  they  thought  they 
had,  homes  to  go  to  as  soon  as  they  had  their  pensions. 

From  the  beerhouse  I  went  to  a  little  odds-and-ends  shop  kept  by 
the  married  daughter  of  one  of  the  old  men  in  the  workhouse.  She 
seemed  a  decent,  kindly  woman,  but  she  was  evidently  very  poor : 
everything  about  her,  even  to  the  baby  in  her  arms,  nay  to  the 
very  hair  on  her  head,  looked  poverty-stricken.  When  I  asked  her 
if  she  could  take  her  father  in,  she  straightway  began  to  cry,  and 
said  she  only  wished  she  could ;  for  he  had  been  a  good  father  to  her, 
and  she  hated  his  being  where  he  was.  But  her  husband  would  not 
hear  of  it,  she  knew.  He  had  let  her  take  in  a  sister  who  had 
epileptic  fits,  and  that  was  quite  enough,  he  thought.  For  they  had 
more  children  than  they  knew  what  to  do  with,  and  were  sorely 
pressed  for  room. 

'  We  couldn't  take  him  in,'  she  kept  saying  regretfully  ;  '  we 
couldn't,  indeed.  We  are  just  packed  as  it  is.  Why,  we  haven't 
even  an  attic.' 

My  next  visit  was  to  a  very  different  sort  of  woman  ;  there  was 
nothing  poverty-stricken  about  her  ;  on  the  contrary,  she  seemed 
eminently  prosperous.  When  I  explained  that  I  had  come  to  see 
her  on  behalf  of  her  mother,  who  was  in  the  workhouse,  she  looked 
at  me  in  scornful  amazement,  and  told  me  indignantly  that  the  old 
woman  in  question  was  no  mother  of  hers  ! 

4  You  don't  suppose  that  I  should  allow  my  mother  to  be  in  the 
workhouse,  do  you  ?  '  she  inquired  loftily.  She  admitted  that  her 
name  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  old  woman's  daughter,  and  that 
she  lived  where  the  old  woman  had  told  me  her  daughter  lived. 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.  515 

She  even  acknowledged  that  it  was  curious  when  I  pointed  out  to 
her  that  the  likeness  between  herself  and  the  old  woman  was 
striking.  None  the  less  she  stood  by  her  guns  stoutly.  The  old 
woman  was  not  her  mother,  she  declared,  again  and  again.  She 
was  swearing  by  all  her  gods,  indeed,  when  I  left  her,  that  she  had 
never  before  even  heard  the  old  woman's  name. 

A  few  days  later  I  came  across  another  case  of  much  the  same 
kind  6f  mistaken  identity.  In  this  case,  however,  it  was  the 
daughter-in-law,  not  the  daughter,  who  assured  me  that  I  had  come 
to  the  wrong  house.  She,  too,  seemed  prosperous.  She  lived  in  a 
most  depressingly  respectable  district,  and  was  arrayed  in  white 
muslin  when  I  called  on  her.  It  was  not  so  much  that  she  was 
indignant  as  that  her  feelings  were  hurt,  when  she  heard  why  I  had 
come. 

'  My  husband's  mother  in  the  workhouse  !  '  she  cried,  with  an 
hysterical  ring  in  her  voice.  '  What  do  you  mean  ?  In  the  work- 
house with  all  those  low,  vulgar  creatures  that  drink  ?  No,  indeed, 
she  is  not !  How  could  you  make  such  a  mistake  ?  My  husband 
so  well  connected,  too,  and  so  particular  !  ' 

Never  did  I  hear  such  an  avalanche  of  protestations  and 
asseverations  as  she  showered  down  on  me  to  prove  that  her  mother- 
in-law  could  not,  by  any  chance,  be  where  I  had  ventured  to  say  I 
had  seen  her.  And  her  voice  became  shriller  and  shriller  as  on  she 
went,  and  she  trembled  from  head  to  foot.  At  length,  in  the  hope 
of  soothing  her,  I  told  her  what  a  very  nice  old  lady  she  was  who 
was  in  the  workhouse  ;  how  she  was  one  of  whom  no  one  could  be 
ashamed. 

'  A  nice  old  lady,  indeed  !  '  she  shrieked,  evidently  quite  wild 
I  with  anger.  '  That  shows  how  little  you  know  her.  She's  nothing 
I  but  a  lying  old  good-for-nothing.' 

Then  the  cat  was  out  of  the  bag  :   I  had  come  to  the  right  house 
after  all ;  but  it  was  a  house  where  the  door  was  barred  inexorably 
against  its  owner's  mother.     She  and  her  daughter-in-law  had  tried 
jliving  together,  it  seemed,  and  it  had  proved  a  failure.     '  If  ever 
it  deceitful  old  wretch  enters  this  house  again,  I  leave  it.     That 
ly  husband  knows.'     These  were  the  last  words  I  heard  when  I 
rent  on  my  way. 

On  another  occasion  I  really  thought  that  I  had  come  to  the  wrong 
louse.  An  old  man,  who,  I  was  sure,  had  been  a  butler,  although 
ie  might  have  been  a  peer,  had  given  me  the  address  of  his  wife  and 
tughter  ;  and  when  I  went  there  I  found  that  it  was  quite  a 

33—2 


516  IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

mansion,  in  a  street  where  not  so  very  long  ago  even  financiers  used 
to  live.  I  asked  to  see  the  daughter,  whereupon  a  tall  and  singu- 
larly graceful  woman,  with  one  of  the  saddest  and  sweetest  of  faces, 
appeared.  She  looked  emphatically  a  gentlewoman  in  her  long 
plain  black  dress.  She  was  a  gentlewoman  indeed,  of  that  there 
could  be  no  doubt ;  a  gentlewoman  in  manner  and  speech,  as  well 
as  in  appearance.  Evidently  I  had  made  a  mistake,  and  this  I 
explained  to  her  apologetically.  She,  however,  replied  quite 
composedly  that  there  was  no  mistake  in  the  matter  ;  the  old  man 
in  the  workhouse  was  her  father. 

It  had  nearly  killed  her  mother  to  let  him  go  there,  she  told  me  ; 
but  go  he  must,  not  so  much  because  their  food  supply  was  running 
short,  although  it  was  running  very  short,  as  because  he  needed 
attention ;  and  her  mother  was  helpless,  stricken  with  heart 
disease,  while  she  herself  was  away  all  day  at  work  in  some  shop. 

'  I  could  not  afford  to  stay  at  home  to  look  after  him,'  she  said, 
*  for  what  I  earn  is  all  we  have  to  live  on — my  mother,  my  brother 
and  myself.  As  it  is,  I  must  sometimes  miss  a  day — I  am  missing 
to-day — because  my  mother  is  too  ill  for  me  to  leave  her  ;  and  then 
it  is  a  hard  pinch,  for  I  cannot  earn  very  much.  I  wish  we  could 
have  my  father  here,  for  it  worries  my  mother  his  being  where  he  is  ; 
but  we  cannot,  we  really  cannot.  For  he  must  have  some  one  to 
take  care  of  him  and  be  with  him,  and  out  of  five  shillings  a  week  we 
•could  not  afford  to  pay  anyone.  Besides,  we  have  only  two  little 
rooms,  and  one  of  them  is  no  better  than  a  cupboard.  I  am  very, 
very  sorry  for  him  ;  but  what  can  I  do  ?  ' 

What  could  she  do,  indeed  ?  I  should  have  liked  to  ask  her 
why  she,  delicate  as  she  looked,  did  all  the  earning  ;  why  the 
brother  did  not  do  earning  too  ?  I  should  also  have  liked  to  ask 
her  why,  poverty-stricken  as  they  were,  she  and  her  family  lived  in 
this  great  house  ?  But  that  was  impossible,  of  course  ;  it  would 
have  savoured  of  impertinence.  All  that  I  could  do  was  to  tell  her 
how  very  sorry  I  was  for  her,  how  much  more  sorry  for  her,  even, 
than  for  her  father. 

Home-hunting  is  terribly  depressing  work.  By  this  time  I  was 
beginning  to  fear  that  I  should  never  find  a  single  home,  no  matter 
how  diligently  I  sought.  Fortunately,  however,  in  the  very  next 
house  I  visited,  I  met  a  woman  who  set  my  mind  at  rest  on  that 
point.  For  no  sooner  had  I  told  her  my  errand,  than  she  exclaimed 
heartily, :  '  Take  in  my  own  mother  !  I  should  think  I  would 
indeed  !  I've  never  had  a  minute's  ease  or  comfort  since  she  went. 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.  517 

I  didn't  like  her  going  at  all,  but  my  man  would  have  it.  We 
couldn't  afford  to  keep  her,  he  said,  and  I  daresay  he  was  right ; 
for  it  was  a  real  hard  struggle.  But  when  she  has  five  shillings  a 
week  we  shall  do  nicely.  I'll  go  and  tell  her  so  on  Sunday.'  And 
she  beamed  with  delight  at  the  thought. 

Not  far  from  this  house  I  found  another  which  was  equally 
satisfactory  from  the  home-seeker's  point  of  view.  Although  well 
within  walking  distance  of  Charing  Cross,  it  was  a  real  cottage, 
oddly  enough,  with  its  own  little  garden  ;  and  it  was  not  only 
clean  but  spick  and  span.  Its  mistress  was  the  daughter  of  one  of 
the  old  women  from  whom  I  held  my  commission  ;  and  a  good- 
tempered,  pleasant-looking  body  she  was.  She  declared  at  once, 
when  I  told  her  why  I  was  there,  that  she  would  be  real  glad  to  have 
her  mother  with  her ;  and  that  her  husband  would  be  glad,  too,  or, 
at  any  rate  he  would  not  mind,  as  the  old  lady  would  be  no  expense 
when  she  had  her  five  shillings  a  week.  Not  that  it  was  her  bit  of 
food  he  grudged  her,  she  assured  me  ;  it  was  the  room.  '  We  had 
thirteen  children  then,  you  see,  and  them  sanitary  gentlemen  began 
bothering — they  said  we  were  overcrowded.  It's  different  now, 
we  ain't  so  many  at  home.  Four  of  the  lads  are  out  in  the  world 
now,  and  three  of  the  lasses  are  here  only  on  Sundays.' 

I  found  another  home  a  few  days  later,  but  one  that  did  not 
promise  much,  I  must  admit,  in  the  way  of  comfort.  A  woman  who 
looked  as  if  she  had  never  smiled  in  her  life  told  me,  when  I  asked 
her,  that  she  could,  and  certainly  would,  take  her  mother  in  if  she 
could  have  with  her  five  shillings  a  week.  She  spoke  somewhat 
grudgingly,  as  if  actuated  solely  by  a  stern  sense  of  duty — to  herself 
though,  not  her  mother.  The  old  woman  must  take  care  of  the 
children — it  would  be  good  for  her  to  have  something  to  do.  She 
must  also  give  to  her  the  whole  five  shillings  every  week ;  for  old 
people  did  not  need  money,  it  only  got  them  into  trouble.  The 
daughter  was  evidently  thoroughly  respectable  ;  she  had  quite 
nice  rooms,  and  they  were  beautifully  clean.  None  the  less,  as  I 
listened  to  her,  my  feeling  was  that,  if  I  were  her  mother,  I  should 
think  not  once  or  twice,  but  many  times,  before  leaving  even  the 
workhouse  to  take  up  my  abode  with  her. 

It  was  on  behalf  of  a  very  charming  old  Irishwoman  that  my 
next  visit  was  paid.  She  was  so  pretty,  with  her  halo  of  white 
hair,  that  it  was  a  positive  pleasure  to  look  at  her  ;  and  her  voice 
was  gentle  and  sweet.  She  had  only  one  relative,  Harry,  '  the 
best  boy  in  the  wurrld,  shure,'  as  she  had  often  told  me.  '  Do  I 


518  IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

know  he  will  have  me  ?  '  she  exclaimed  when  I  asked  her.  '  Faith 
I  do  ;  why,  he'll  jump  for  joy  at  the  chance.'  And  I  verily  believe 
that  she  thought  she  was  speaking  the  truth.  ''  'Twill  be  a  fine 
day  for  him  and  for  me  when  we  get  together  agen,'  she  added  ; 
*  I  shall  keep  house  for  him,  ye  see.  Sure,  't  isn't  comfortable, 
nor  safe  nayther,  for  a  boy  such  as  he  to  live  all  alone.  But  'twill 
be  all  right  when  I  am  with  him  agen,  thanks  be  to  God.'  And 
she  smiled  mysteriously  and  beamingly.  Surely  anyone  would  be 
glad  to  have  her  as  a  housemate,  in  spite  of  her  seventy- two  years, 
I  thought,  as  I  went  to  the  place  where  her  grandson  lodged,  at 
the  time  when  she  had  told  me  I  should  find  him  at  home. 

He  was  a  fine-looking  lad  of  about  two  and  twenty,  with  a 
singularly  sensitive  face,  and  a  pleasant  kindly  manner.  He  had 
just  come  home  from  his  work  on  the  railway,  he  told  me,  and  he 
was  glad  that  he  was  in  time  to  see  me.  The  moment  I  mentioned 
his  grandmother's  name,  however,  there  were  signs  of  a  storm. 
His  face  turned  white  with  anger  ;  his  eyes  blazed,  and  he  clenched 
his  fists. 

'  She  told  you  I  would  make  a  home  for  her  !  '  he  cried,  his 
voice  shaking  with  passion.  '  How  dare  she,  the  lying  old  bag- 
gage ?  Why,  I  wouldn't  raise  my  finger  to  save  her  life,  and  she 
knows  it,  the  audacious  old  hypocrite !  She  didn't  tell  you, 
I  guess,  what  she  had  done  ?  ' 

He  looked  at  me  for  a  moment,  and  then  whispered,  in  a  tone 
that  would  have  been  melodramatic  had  it  been  less  evidently 
sincere  :  '  She  insulted  the  dead  corpse  of  my  sister.  She,  that 
heartless  old  monster,  came  drunk  into  the  room  where  my  only 
sister  lay  dead.  She  came,  and  she  made  an  uproar.  I  wonder 
I  did  not  kill  her  on  the  spot.' 

I  went  away  sorrowful,  for  it  was  a  pitiable  tale  that  the  lad 
told  me.  In  this  case,  at  any  rate,  if  the  old  woman  were  left 
homeless,  the  fault  lay  with  herself.  Nor  was  she  the  only  one 
of  the  thirty-seven  old  people  whose  commission  I  held,  of  whom 
the  same  might  be  said  :  there  were  others  among  them,  I  found, 
whom  their  relatives  had  good  reasons  for  refusing  to  receive  as 
housemates.  For  although  in  the  workhouse  they  demeaned 
themselves  as  saints  and  martyrs,  outside  they  had  played  very 
different  roles.  There  was  one  old  man  who,  sitting  in  his  ward, 
might  have  served  as  a  model  for  one  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  so 
venerable  and  benevolent  did  he  look  ;  yet  his  own  daughter, 
a  widow,  told  me,  and  quite  truthfully,  that  he  had  almost  been 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.    519 

the  death  of  her  with  his  evil  drinking  ways.  It  was  no  fault  of 
hers  if  he  was  in  the  house,  she  said,  for  she  had  tried  hard  for 
respectability's  sake  to  keep  him  out ;  and  she  could  have  kept  him 
out  if  only  he  would  have  stayed  at  home  and  taken  care  of  the  chil- 
dren. For  she  had  good  work  to  do,  only  she  must  go  out  to  do  it ; 
and  no  sooner  had  she  left  the  house  than  he,  instead  of  tending 
the  baby,  had  slipped  away  to  some  beerhouse  to  play  dominoes. 

'  I  tried  giving  him  beer  at  home — six  half -pints  every  day,' 
she  told  me,  '  but  it  was  all  of  no  use.  He  said  it  was  dismal  and 
dull  staying  indoors  minding  children,  and  that  it  was  no  good 
being  alive  if  he  couldn't  see  something  of  life.  He  led  me  a  pretty 
dance,  I  can  tell  you.  I  wouldn't  have  him  back  again — no,  not 
if  he  had  ten  times  five  shillings  a  week.' 

A  son  also  refused  to  take  in  his  father  at  any  price,  although 
he  was  paying  for  his  maintenance  in  the  workhouse.  The  reason 
he  gave  was  that  his  mother  had  been  cruelly  ill-treated  by  the  old 
man.  '  I  couldn't  eat  a  bite  if  he  was  about  after  all  he  made  her 
suffer.' 

Another  man  declared  that  his  father  should  never  cross  his 
threshold  because  he  was  nothing  but  a  drunken  old  wastrel. 
Then  a  woman  refused  to  receive  her  mother  because  the  work- 
house was  the  very  best  place  for  her,  she  assured  me,  in  a  very 
significant  tone.  What  precisely  her 'mother  had  done,  I  could 
not  make  out ;  but  I  was  given  to  understand  that  she  was  not  at 
all  the  sort  of  person  whom  a  self-respecting  daughter  could  be 
expected  to  have  to  live  with  her. 

So  far  in  my  search  I  had  found  only  three  homes,  although 
I  had  visited  thirteen  ;  and  one  of  the  three,  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
was  not  worth  having.  And  more  disappointments  were  in  store 
for  me,  close  at  hand,  too  ;  for  the  result  of  the  next  five  visits 
I  paid  was  nil ;  as  those  to  whom  I  paid  them  were  all  in  much  the 
same  position  as  the  beerhouse  hanger-on  :  they  had  no  homes  for 
themselves,  let  alone  for  their  mothers  or  fathers.  One  man,  who, 
as  his  father  had  thought,  was  living  in  a  comfortable  little  house, 
I  found  in  a  sort  of  loft,  where  there  was  neither  bed  nor  table 
nor  yet  fire.  There  he,  with  his  wife  and  three  children,  spent 
their  days  and  nights,  when  not  tramping  about  the  streets.  The 
place  was  terribly  dirty,  and  the  man  was  as  dirty  as  the  place. 
He  was  out  of  work,  he  said,  and  he  seemed  to  have  lost  all  hope 
of  ever  being  in  work  again.  He  looked  the  veriest  personification 
of  misery  ;  still,  something  akin  to  a  smile  lit  up  his  face  for  a 


520    IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

moment  when  I  told  him  of  his  father's  wish  to  come  and  live 
with  him. 

'  Poor  old  chap  ;  he  was  always  a  good  sort,'  he  replied.  '  I'd 
like  to  have  him  with  me,  but —  He  gave  one  glance  round  ; 
it  was  enough.  He  shook  his  head. 

A  woman  who,  I  had  been  assured,  could  quite  well  make  a 
home  for  her  mother,  I  found  in  an  attic,  at  the  top  of  some  rickety 
stairs  which  no  old  body  could  possibly  mount  without  taking  her 
life  in  her  hand.  Here,  too,  there  was  a  dearth  of  furniture,  as  of 
everything  else  that  smacked  of  comfort,  or  even  decency.  '  I'd 
be  glad  enough  to  have  mother  if  I  could,'  the  woman  said,  '  but 
she  couldn't  come  here.  We've  only  this  one  room,  and  we  can 
hardly  turn  in  it  as  it  is.  I've  a  husband  and  children,  you  see.' 

In  another  attic,  every  whit  as  poverty-stricken,  every  whit  as 
overcrowded,  a  woman  stoutly  maintained  that  she  could  take  her 
mother  in  quite  comfortably.  And  that  she  certainly  would  take 
her  in,  as  soon  as  she  had  five  shillings  a  week,  as  the  old  lady 
would  be  very  useful.  As  there  was,  however,  no  bed  for  the  old 
lady  to  sleep  in,  and  no  fire  at  which  food  for  her  could  be  cooked, 
I  could  hardly  in  fairness  reckon  this  as  a  home. 

Then  the  mistress  of  a  little  one-room  tenement  assured  me, 
and  quite  reasonably,  that  it  was  no  good  folk's  trying  to  do  what 
they  couldn't  do  ;  and  she  couldn't  take  her  father  in,  as  their 
room  was  '  nobbut  a  cupboard.' 

When  I  went  to  the  next  address,  I  found  only  a  wooden  shanty, 
which  had  been  built  seemingly  to  house  tools,  not  human  beings. 
The  place  was  better  inside  than  outside,  however  ;  it  was  quite 
decently  furnished,  indeed,  and  very  clean,  although  it  was  swarming 
with  children.  The  eldest  of  these  was  well  under  twelve,  yet  they 
all  looked  like  little  old  men  and  women,  as  they  sat  there,  quite 
sedately,  at  tea.  Their  mother  was  out  at  work  at  the  laundry, 
they  told  me,  and  would  not  be  home  until  after  eight. 

The  woman  was  washing  when  I  went  to  her.  She  seemed 
very  respectable  and  very  tired.  She  was  a  widow,  and  she  was 
trying  to  support  her  children  without  help  from  the  parish,  she 
said,  but  it  was  a  hard  struggle.  She  was  very  loath  to  say  she 
could  not  take  her  mother  in,  yet  it  was  easy  to  see  that  she 
could  not.  '  If  only  I  could  get  two  little  rooms,  I  could  manage  it 
nicely,'  she  declared.  '  But  rooms  are  terribly  dear  here,  and 
terribly  hard  to  find,  when  one  has  children.  I  dare  not  leave 
where  we  are,  and  mother  could  not  live  there  with  her  rheumatics.' 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.    521 

Again  I  was  in  the  Slough  of  Despond  :  the  thirty-seven  old 
workhouse  inmates  had  all  been  so  sure  that  they  each  had  a 
home  to  go  to,  if  only  they  had  pensions  ;  and  by  this  time  I  knew 
that  out  of  the  eighteen  whose  own  people  I  had  visited,  fifteen  were 
mistaken,  their  own  people  would  not — most  of  them  indeed  could 
not — take  them  in.  It  seemed  almost  useless  to  continue  the 
search,  and  perhaps  I  should  not  have  continued  it,  had  I  not  had 
proof,  in  the  course  of  the  next  few  days,  that  things  were  not 
quite  so  bad  as  they  seemed.  For  I  found  two  homes,  and  one 
of  them  a  very  good  home,  although  in  most  unpromising  sur- 
roundings. It  was  over  some  stables,  in  a  mews,  and  the  way 
to  it  was  up  what  was  little  better  than  a  ladder.  Once  there, 
however,  the  place  was  most  comfortable,  and  clean  as  a  new- 
made  pin.  The  kitchen  was  one  that  any  old  woman  might  have 
been  glad  to  live  in,  so  cheery  was  it ;  and  its  mistress  was  as  cheery 
as  itself.  When  I  told  her  why  I  had  come,  her  whole  face  beamed. 
'  Take  mother  in  ?  I  should  think  I  would,  indeed  !  I  would 
never  have  let  her  go,  but  my  man  was  out  of  work,  and — why, 
you  know  what  it  is  when  one's  man  is  out  of  work.  If  she  had 
stayed,  she  would  have  had  to  starve.  I  should  have  liked  to  have 
her  back  as  soon  as  we  were  here,  but  he  was  all  for  waiting  a  bit- 
He's  one  of  the  cautious  sort ;  he's  made  like  that.  He  won't  say 
a  word  against  her  coming,  though,  when  she's  five  shillings  a  week. 
Yes,  you  can  tell  her  I  shall  be  only  too  glad  to  have  her — but  I'll 
go  and  tell  her  myself.' 

My  next  visit  was  to  a  woman  of  the  '  shabby  genteel '  class. 
Her  mother  had,  I  knew,  seen  better  days,  and  '  seen  better  days  ' 
was  written  plainly  both  on  the  daughter's  face  and  her  husband's. 
Although  they  were  living  in  respectable  rooms,  they  looked  as 
if  they  had  not  for  years  had  quite  enough  to  eat,  and  had  never, 
in  the  whole  course  of  their  lives,  seen  a  really  good  fire.  They 
both  seemed  hopelessly  depressed,  depressed  as  they  only  can  be 
whose  whole  life  is  a  long  struggle  to  make  one  penny  do  a  three- 
penny piece's  work.  '  Yes,'  they  said, '  the  old  lady  might  certainly 
come  if  she  chose,  and  they  would  try  to  make  her  comfortable. 
They  would  be  well  pleased  to  have  her,  indeed,  and  her  five 
shillings  would  be  a  great  help.' 

I  thought  of  that  man's  exclamation,  '  Wot's  foive  shillin',  I'd 
loike  to  know  !  '  Evidently  to  the  shabby  genteel  five  shillings 
is  something  well  worth  having,  whatever  it  may  be  to  loafers. 

Thence  I  went  to  a  better  class  artisan's  house,  where  both  the 


522    IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

husband  and  wife  were  at  home.  The  woman — it  was  she  who 
in  this  case  was  the  relative — said  at  once  that  she  would  like  to 
have  her  mother  to  live  with  her,  and  could  find  room  for  her  quite 
easily.  She  glanced  at  the  man  nervously,  however,  as  she  spoke  ; 
with  good  reason,  too,  for  he  promptly  declared  that  he  would 
have  no  old  women  in  his  house.  Who  would  look  after  him,  he 
would  like  to  know,  if  she  took  to  looking  after  her  mother  ?  In 
the  house  of  another  artisan,  though  one  of  a  much  poorer  class, 
the  daughter-in-law  of  the  old  woman  for  whom  I  was  seeking  a 
home  assured  me  that  her  husband  would,  she  knew,  be  very  glad 
to  have  his  mother  to  live  with  them,  when  she  had  five  shillings 
a  week  ;  and  that  she  herself  would  be  very  glad,  too. 

'  It  don't  seem  natural  like,  for  her  to  be  up  there  all  by  herself, 
and  us  so  comfortable  here.  We  weren't  married,  you  see,  when 
he  let  her  go.  He's  always  paid  for  her,  of  course,  but  that  ain't 
the  same  thing.  She  ought  to  be  here,  by  her  own  son's  fireside ; 
that  I've  always  said.  He,  her  only  son,  too  !  It  ain't  as  if  we  had 
a  houseful  of  bairns.  We've  only  one  little  girl,  and  she  ain't  so 
strong  as  we'd  like  her  to  be.' 

Four  other  daughters-in-law  whom  I  visited  seemed  to  take 
a  fundamentally  different  view  of  what  men  owe  to  their  parents  ; 
for  each  one  of  them  in  turn  straightway  began  to  make  excuses 
when  asked  to  take  in  her  husband's  father. 

'  No,  that  wouldn't  do  at  all,'  the  first  of  the  four  declared, 

'  for  my  mother  lives  with  us,  and  the  two  old  people  would  quarrel.' 

'  No,  indeed,  I  should  hate  to  have  an  old  man  pottering  round 

all   day,    upsetting   everything,'   the   second  informed   me   quite 

cheerfully.     '  I  like  to  have  my  house  to  myself,  and  my  husband 

too.5 

'  We  couldn't  afford  it,'  said  the  third.     '  An  old  man  costs  a 

lot  more  than  five  shillings  a  week  ;  and  then  there's  all  the  worry 

and  bother.' 

'  I  couldn't  take  anybody  in,  no,  not  if  he  was  an  angel,  and 

rich,  too  !  '  the  fourth  assured  me.     '  As  it  is,  I  can't  get  across 

the  kitchen  floor  without  tumbling  over  somebody.' 

Meanwhile  I  had  written  to  the  son  of  one  old  woman,  and  the 

daughter  of  another,  as  they  lived  too  far  away  for  me  to  go  to  see 

them.     Neither  the  son   nor  yet  the  daughter  could,   however, 

provide  a  home. 

'  I  have  ten  children  to  support,  and  I  have  been  very  hard 

hit,'  the  son  wrote,  '  or  I  should  not  let  her  stop  there,  but  for  the 


IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS.    523 

time  being  she  is  safer  where  she  is.  She  is  sure  of  being  kept 
warm  and  clean,  and  of  her  food.' 

As  for  the  daughter,  this  is  the  reply  she  sent : 

'  Just  a  line  in  answer  to  your  kind  letter,  which  I  was  very 
glad  to  receive,  but  ver^  sorry  to  say  I  shall  not  be  able  to  find  a 
home  for  Mother,  as  I  am  in  very  poor  circumstances  myself, 
having  a  large  family  myself.  I  should  have  to  go  to  a  lot  of 
expense  myself  to  get  things  for  Mother,  which  I  cannot  afford.' 

In  the  course  of  my  search  there  were  several  days  when  I  did 
not  find  a  single  home  ;  there  was  one  day,  however,  my  red-letter 
day,  when  I  found  no  fewer  than  three  homes.  Two  of  these  were 
in  one  house,  and  were  for  a  very  respectable  old  married  couple. 
Their  son,  who  had  a  little  shop,  told  me  that  he  had  long  been 
hoping  to  be  able  to  take  them  both  out  of  the  workhouse ;  and 
that  he  had  a  few  weeks  before  offered  to  take  his  mother  out,  but 
that  she  would  not  leave  his  father.  As  soon  as  they  had  pensions, 
they  should  certainly  both  of  them  come  to  live  with  him ;  on  that 
he  was  quite  determined.  For  the  workhouse  was  not  at  all  the 
place  for  them,  he  said.  They  ought  never  to  have  gone  there, 
and  they  never  would  have  gone,  had  he  not  been  ill  just  when 
evil  days  had  overtaken  them. 

The  third  home  I  found  that  day  was  in  a  cellar  ;  it  was  half 
a  cellar,  in  fact,  one  into  which  neither  sunshine  nor  fresh  air  ever 
entered.  Its  owner  was  a  thin  white-faced  middle-aged  woman, 
who,  judging  by  her  appearance,  had  never  known  anything  but 
hard  work  and  trouble.  Never  did  I  see  anyone  who  looked  so 
tired,  so  completely  worn-out.  None  the  less,  her  eyes  brightened 
at  once  when  I  told  her  I  knew  her  mother,  and  she  flushed  with 
evident  pleasure  when  I  explained  why  I  had  come  to  see  her. 

'  It  would  be  real  nice  to  have  mother  here,'  she  exclaimed. 
'  I've  so  often  wished  she  could  come,  for  things  wouldn't  be  half 
so  bad  as  they  are  if  we  were  together ;  and  I'm  sure  I  could  make 
her  comfortable.  You  think  she'd  cost  me  more  than  five  shillings 
a  week  ?  Well,  if  she  does,  I  must  work  a  bit  harder,  that's  all.' 
She  tried  to  smile  as  she  spoke,  but  she  failed ;  and  the  old  weary 
look  came  into  her  face  again  ;  for  she  was  a  seamstress  and  knew 
well  what  working  a  bit  harder  meant.  Still,  even  then,  she  was 
as  bent  as  ever  on  having  her  mother  with  her,  and  the  last  words 
she  said  to  me  were  '  You've  made  me  real  glad,  for  I  was  just 
beginning  to  be  afraid  that  I  should  never  be  able  to  have  her.' 

This  was  the  last  visit  I  paid  ;  for  although  I  had  still  the  names 


524    IN  SEARCH  OF  HOMES  FOR  OLD  AGE  PENSIONERS. 

and  addresses  of  five  relatives  on  my  list,  not  one  of  the  five  could 
be  traced ;  either  they  had  never  lived  at  the  address  given,  or 
they  had  lived  there  and  gone  away.  I  was  at  the  end  of  my 
search,  and  I  had  found  only  nine  homes.  And  those  poor  old 
folk  had  been  so  sure  that  I  should  find  thirty-seven  !  Out  of  all 
that  huge  company  in  the  workhouse,  528  old  men  and  women, 
there  were  only  thirty-seven  who  had  believed  that  they  had 
homes  with  their  own  people  to  which  they  could  go,  if  they  had 
old  age  pensions,  and  only  nine  who  really  had  homes.  Out  of 
528  only  nine — one  old  man  and  eight  old  women — had  anywhere 
where  they  could  betake  themselves,  had  any  relative  able  and 
willing  to  give  them  shelter.  None  the  less,  as  the  law  stands,  the 
whole  528,  excepting  such  as  are  very  disreputable,  will  be  able 
to  claim  pensions  next  January,  and  wander  forth  uncared  for 
where  they  will.  And  they  are  all  very  old  and  most  of  them 
feeble,  much  too  feeble  to  live  alone  and  tend  themselves  ;  and 
they  will  have  only  five  shillings  a  week  each  wherewith  to  pay 
for  their  food,  clothes,  fires,  lights  and  lodging — this  means  they 
will  be  half -starved. 

Before  January  comes,  the  law  may  be  altered,  of  course, 
although  there  is  not  much  chance  that  it  will  be ;  as  all  parties 
alike  are  now  practically  pledged  to  allow  paupers  to  become 
old-age  pensioners  when  they  are  seventy.  It  behoves  us,  there- 
fore, surely  to  see  that  refuges  of  some  sort  are  provided  for  old 
age  pensioners  who  are  alone  in  the  world  and  feeble ;  as  other- 
wise many  poor  old  folk  will  bring  not  only  great  misery  on  them- 
selves but  great  expense  and  inconvenience  on  the  community. 
These  refuges  must  be  quite  apart  from  the  workhouse,  or  no 
respectable  old  age  pensioner  will  resort  there.  They  must  be 
much  humbler,  more  homelike  places  than  workhouses,  and  much 
less  costly.  Above  all,  they  must  be  places  where  decent  old  men 
and  women  can  betake  themselves  without  any  feeling  of  shame ; 
places  therefore  where  the  vicious  and  degraded  are  not  allowed  to 
enter. 

EDITH  SELLERS. 


525 
KARAKTER. 

A  SYMPTOM  OF  YOUNG  EGYPT. 

f  KARAKTER  .  .  .  Karakter  .  .  .  Karakter  !  '  The  barbarous  word 
kept  recurring  in  the  speech  of  the  white-bearded  fellah,  as  he  sat 
with  hands  reverently  folded  in  his  hanging  sleeves  and  eyes  down- 
cast, on  the  outmost  edge  of  the  chair  proposed  to  him  by  the 
English  official  to  whom  he  came  as  a  suppliant. 

'  Karakter  !  .  .  .  I  want  the  boy  to  learn  karakter,  that  by  its 
virtue  he  may  become  a  power  in  the  land.  In  the  English  schools 
they  tell  me  that  karakter  is  placed  first  among  the  subjects  which 
the  pupils  study.  I  came  to  hear  of  it  by  chance — 0,  happy 
chance  ! — when  the  champions  of  Tanta  came  to  play  our  boys  at 
football.  They  of  Tanta  called  upon  the  Sayyid  el  Bedawi  to  give 
them  victory,  and  we  invoked  our  lord  Ibrahim  el-Dessiiqi.  But 
the  Sayyid  Ahmed  was  the  stronger,  or  else  our  saint  was  asleep, 
for  they  won.  Efendim,  I  was  watching  the  battle,  all  eyes  for  my 
son's  prowess,  when,  marvelling  at  the  energy  of  the  combatants, 
I  cried  :  "  Wallahi,  excellent !  They  surpass  their  instructors. 
Our  sons  outstrip  the  English,  our  good  lords  !  "  But  one  at  my 
side  said  :  "  No,  for  they  still  lack  karakter  ;  and  without  it  there 
is  no  superiority."  At  once  I  asked  him  what  karakter  was  ;  and 
he  told  me  that  the  English,  alone  of  all  mankind,  possess  the 
secret  of  it ;  but  it  can  be  acquired  in  their  schools  for  money. 
Efendim,  we  have  money  nowadays.  Formerly  one  dared  not 
hint  at  the  possession,  least  of  all  in  the  hearing  of  a  ruler  like 
your  Excellency  ;  but  to-day  all  that  is  changed — the  praise  to 
Allah,  and  our  English  lords  !  And  because  I  love  our  English 
lords,  and  admire  their  qualities,  I  would  have  my  son  instructed 
in  Karakter,  by  the  knowledge  of  which  they  are  above  all  else 
distinguished.  Efendim,  do  but  name  to  me  the  best  school  in 
your  country  for  that  science,  and  my  son  goes  there  to-morrow.' 

The  old  man  bowed  his  head  and  waited  patiently  for  an  answer  ; 
while  his  son,  the  same  who  was  to  learn  karakter,  stood,  silent 
and  apparently  indifferent,  beside  his  chair.  The  boy,  about 
fourteen  years  of  age,  wore  a  European  suit  of  the  cheapest  sort — 
pale  yellow,  patterned  with  a  large  black  check — which 


526  KARAKTER. 

have  fitted  him  two  years  before  ;  but  now  he  had  so  far  outgrown 
its  capacity  that  two  inches  of  white  sock  showed  between  the 
trousers  and  his  yellow  boots,  the  hue  of  duck's  feet,  and  the  sleeve 
of  the  jacket  could  by  no  means  be  pulled  down  to  hide  his  strong 
brown  wrists.  He  wore  his  fez  well  forward,  at  his  father's  bidding, 
in  honour  of  the  English  inspector. 

The  latter  sat  at  his  desk,  with  face  half  turned  towards  the 
visitors.  He  arranged  some  papers  with  one  hand,  while  the 
other  stroked  his  hair  ;  and  seemed  to  be  struggling  with  a  wish  to 
laugh. 

'  You  want  me  to  recommend  a  school  in  England  for  your  son 
here  present  ?  ' 

'  Efendim,  yes  ;  that  he  may  learn  Karakter.  The  English 
schools  are  first  in  all  the  world  for  instruction  in  that  science.' 

'  But,  0  Sheykh,  karakter  is  not  a  science.  It  is  strength  and 
durability  of  purpose  ;  it  is  power  of  judgment.  Some  have  it  in 
them,  some  have  not.  It  is  not  a  thing  which  can  be  taught  like 
mathematics.' 

'  No  matter,  Efendim.  It  is  found  in  England.  Ma  sh'  Allah  ! 
My  son  is  intelligent,  and  has  been  well  taught.  He  speaks  English 
like  an  angel  from  Allah.  Speak  a  little,  O  Ahmed,  0  my  son  ! 
Let  his  Honour  judge  of  thy  accomplishment.  Compliment  his 
Honour  prettily  in  English,  as  they  taught  thee  in  the  school.' 

Thus  adjured,  the  boy,  with  a  sudden  smile  that  seemed  spas- 
modic, enunciated  in  high,  level  tones  : 

'  Great  sir,  let  God  bless  you  and  all  which  near  to  you.  I  luf 
to  stand  before  your  noble  face.  True,  sir,  this  is  the  hab-yest 
day  of  all  my  life.' 

'  You  see  !  '  exclaimed  the  father  proudly.  '  He  speaks  the 
English  like  his  mother  tongue,  after  studying  it  for  only  half  a 
year  ;  he  is  so  quick  to  learn.  If  I  send  him  to  school  in  England 
for  three  or  four  years,  he  will  acquire  a  knowledge  of  karakter  too, 
in  sh'  Allah.' 

'  But  schools  with  us,  0  Sheykh,  are  not  for  nothing.  Here 
in  Egypt  rich  men  grumble  if  asked  to  pay  a  pound  a  month  towards 
their  children's  education.  In  England  twenty  pounds  a  month 
for  learning,  food  and  lodging  is  paid  without  a  murmur.' 

The  old  fellah,  so  humble  in  dress  and  appearance,  made  no 
demur.  He  said  : 

'  We  have  enough,  the  praise  to  Allah  !  Twenty  pounds  a 
month  is  not  too  dear  for  sound  instruction  in  karakter,  which 


KARAKTER.  527 

makes  men  like  your  Excellency.  Of  your  charity,  Efendim,  make 
inquiry  for  me  ;  and  when  you  have  found  the  school,  deign  to 
write  me  a  line — a  single  line  with  the  hand  of  kindness.  Just 
the  name  of  the  master  and  the  address  of  the  institution.  My 
son  reads  English  writing.  Ennoble  my  name  :  it  is  Abdul  Cader 
Shazli.  My  Izbah  is  called  Tut,  belonging  to  the  village  of  Mit 
Karam.  And  the  name  of  my  son  ?  Is  Ahmed,  Efendim — Ahmed 
Abdul  Cader.  May  thy  good  increase  !  ' 

Father  and  son  then  retired  from  the  presence,  the  former 
calling  blessings  on  his  noble  Excellency,  the  latter  staring  vaguely 
straight  before  him.  Outside  the  Government  rest-house  a  mule 
and  an  ass  were  waiting  in  the  charge  of  a  ragged  servant.  The 
pair  mounted,  and  jogged  along  the  Nile  bank  to  their  own  place, 
marked  in  the  distance  by  a  grove  of  trees.  Ahmed  gazed  at  the 
familiar  outline  of  those  trees,  and  was  glad.  The  outlines  of  the 
Government  rest-house,  both  without  and  within,  being  strange, 
had  seemed  hostile,  carrying  a  chill  to  his  heart.  His  mind  was 
easily  foiled  by  externals,  playing  with  them,  puzzled,  like  a  drowsy 
kitten,  supposing  them  good  or  bad,  but  vaguely  and  without 
vehemence.  Set  upon  a  dustheap  in  his  father's  yard,  he  would 
stare  for  minutes  at  a  time  at  the  brown  sheep  or  the  poultry,  and, 
roused  at  last,  was  as  likely  as  not  to  move  peculiarly,  in  uncon- 
scious imitation  of  a  strutting  rooster.  At  school,  too,  whither 
he,  with  other  sons  of  wealthy  farmers,  went  with  alacrity,  regarding 
it  as  a  place  of  games,  where  strange  puzzles  were  propounded  to 
amuse  the  sight  and  hearing — at  school  he  would  sit  staring  at 
the  page  before  him  till  he  knew  the  position  of  every  vowel-point 
and  lurking  hamzeh,  and  could  recall  the  whole  at  will  with  each 
inflection  of  the  master's  voice  when  he  read  aloud  for  an  example. 
It  was  the  same  with  the  English  text-books  of  history  and 
geography.  Having  once  learnt  to  connect  the  shape  and  sound  of 
words,  he  could  remember  their  relative  positions  on  the  printed 
page,  and  reel  off  the  whole  book  by  rote.  This  facility  of  learning 
won  the  praise  of  his  instructors  ;  he  came  to  regard  himself  as  of 
the  cleverest  where  all  were  clever  ;  and  it  was  with  a  shock  that 
when  an  English  inspector  came  to  examine  his  class,  he  found 
that  he  could  not  understand  the  question  put  to  him.  Its  signifi- 
cance was  explained  :  '  By  what  places  would  you  pass  in  going 
from  Cairo  to  London  ?  ' 

Still  regarding  the  question  as  bearing  upon  what  he  had  learnt, 
Ahmed  answered  from  the  book,  observing  : 


528  KARAKTER. 

'  London  is  the  cabital  of  England  ;  it  is  the  largest  city  of 
the  world.  It  contains  more  than  fife  million  inhabitants,  or  about 
half  the  bobulation  of  the  whole  of  EgybV 

The  inspector  stopped  him  in  a  voice  of  anger.  He  repeated 
fche  question. 

'  How  would  you  go  there  ?  ' 

'  How  should  I  know  ?  '  muttered  Ahmed  in  Arabic.  '  I  have 
never  been,  to  find  out.  The  khawagah  is  mad ;  he  is  cheating. 
It  is  not  in  the  book.' 

And  when  the  Englishman  was  gone,  the  Egyptian  masters 
also  said  that  he  had  cheated. 

From  that  incident  Ahmed  had  derived  a  bad  opinion  of  the 
Franks  as  people  ever  ready  to  take  mean  advantage.  To-day,  in 
presence  of  the  high  official  at  the  rest-house,  he  had  felt  the  same 
as  at  that  examination,  and  had  stood  expecting  to  be  asked  some 
unfair  question.  If  he  desired  to  learn  karakter,  it  was  only 
because  his  father  told  him  it  was  the  thing  which  made  the  Franks 
unanswerable.  Knowing  it,  he  would  be  their  equal,  if  not  master. 

At  the  farm,  consorting  with  the  children  who  herded  buffaloes, 
or  playing  a  game  with  pebbles  on  a  dustheap,  eating  well,  sleeping 
soundly,  happy  to  sit  in  the  sun  and  watch  a  dung  beetle,  he 
awaited  the  promised  message.  After  two  weeks  it  came.  A  shawish 
on  horseback  rode  up  to  the  doorstep  of  the  grand  new  house  with 
glass  windows  which  the  Sheykh  Abdul  Cader  had  built  for  show, 
not  habitation,  and  had  filled  with  Frankish  furniture.  The 
eoldier,  as  emissary  of  the  great,  was  allowed  to  enter  its  closed 
rooms,  and  there  regaled  with  coffee  and  a  variety  of  sweetstuff, 
while  young  Ahmed  in  the  foul,  old-fashioned  homestead,  close 
behind  it,  deciphered  and  translated  the  Englishman's  note. 
A  school  and  a  master  were  named  ;  there  followed  a  list  of  clothes 
and  other  requisites. 

Ahmed  was  taken  by  the  train  to  Cairo,  to  grand  foreign  shops, 
where  both  father  and  son  were  dismayed  by  the  fixity  of  price, 
to  the  Governorate  and  to  the  English  Consul's  office.  Then,  with 
his  new  luggage,  he  was  conveyed  to  Alexandria  ;  basking  in  the 
atmosphere  of  importance  without  forethought,  till  he  found  him- 
self alone  on  board  the  steamer,  which  began  strange  movements, 
when  he  crept  into  his  bunk,  and  cried  and  gnashed  his  teeth  for 
eighteen  hours. 

Awaking  in  a  dark  and  stuffy  place,  he  heard  curious  noises, 
and  stole  out  to  seek  the  cause.  Along  a  dim  corridor  and  up  a 


KARAKTER.  529 

staircase,  tie  burst  forth  into  sunlight,  and  felt  sudden  joy.  Sailors 
were  washing  the  decks  ;  they  smiled  to  him  ;  the  sky  and  sea 
were  smiling.  He  sat  down  on  a  coil  of  ropes  and  watched  the 
dance  of  sunflakes  on  the  waves,  for  ever  rushing  past,  yet  always 
there  beside  him.  An  Englishman  on  board  had  promised  to 
take  care  of  him.  The  man  was  kind  ;  he  often  talked  to  Ahmed  ; 
and  he  looked  after  him  in  the  landing  at  Marseilles  and  through- 
out the  long  train  journey  till  they  reached  another  sea,  and, 
taking  ship,  saw  England.  Ahmed  beheld  a  land  cloud- coloured, 
wrapped  in  cloud,  the  sea  that  lapped  its  cliffs  seeming  colourless 
as  foggy  air.  The  crowding  of  strange  sights,  the  cold,  the  lack 
of  brightness  reduced  the  young  Egyptian  to  a  condition  of  sullen 
torpor.  He  arrived  at  the  school,  and  after  a  brief  inspection  by 
the  master,  a  most  awful  figure,  was  left  to  face  the  stare  of  other 
boys. 

These  fell  upon  him,  dragged  him  this  way  and  that,  jabbering 
meaningless  sounds  to  signify  his  native  tongue,  called  him  by 
evil  names  such  as  '  nigger  '  and  '  slave  ' ;  but  the  native  sociable- 
ness  of  the  Egyptian  soon  disarmed  them.  Ahmed  took  every- 
thing in  good  part,  even  their  laughter  at  his  way  of  speaking.  He 
accepted  their  point  of  view,  laughed  with  them  at  his  own  ridiculous- 
ness ;  for  was  not  their  star  manifestly  in  the  ascendant  ?  It  was 
the  season  of  football,  and  he  was  an  excellent  player  ;  the  goal  in 
front,  the  flying  ball  exciting  all  his  faculties  with  the  sense  of  an 
immediate  aim.  Cricket,  when  the  time  came,  proved  too  slow, 
the  object  too  remote,  to  please  him  greatly ;  yet  he  played  it 
slavishly  to  please  his  comrades,  and  won  praise.  The  elder  boys 
took  notice  of  him,  and  the  younger  sought  his  friendship.  The 
whisper  ran  he  was  a  prince,  and  Ahmed  smiled  assentingly.  He 
was  whatever  they  liked,  their  servant  to  command,  provided  only 
that  they  did  not  bully  him. 

The  holidays  he  spent  at  first  in  a  household  recommended  by 
the  man  who  had  escorted  him  to  England  ;  but  afterwards,  when 
his  popularity  was  established,  at  the  homes  of  schoolfellows  ; 
upon  whose  sisters  he  cast  longing  eyes  made  shy  by  fear  of  vengeance 
did  he  dare  assail  them. 

At  his  studies  he  was  very  diligent,  and  quite  as  happy  as  at 
play.  He  was  quick  at  languages,  and  great  at  every  science  that 
depends  on  formulas.  As  his  mental  power  increased  he  could 
deduce  from  what  he  learnt  corollaries,  which,  however,  never 
passed  the  mental  sphere,  or  bore  the  slightest  application  to  the 

VOL.   XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  34 


530  KARAKTER. 

facts  of  life.  Learning  was,  for  him,  a  game  of  the  wits,  worth 
playing  chiefly  since  it  won  applause.  He  became  as  popular  with 
the  masters  as  among  the  boys. 

'  I  am  not  only  equal  with  the  English,'  he  was  able  to  write  to 
his  father  ;  '  but  am  on  my  way  to  become  the  chief  among  them. 
I  am  praised  daily  by  my  instructors  ;  all  my  comrades  love  me.' 

In  the  same  letter  he  asked  his  father's  permission  to  proceed  to 
the  University,  as  that  was  the  chief  place  for  the  formation  of 
Character,  no  Englishman  being  regarded  as  complete  who  had  not 
been  there.  In  conclusion,  he  assured  his  father  that  the  cost  of 
living  at  the  University  would  not  exceed  the  sum  which  was  being 
paid  annually  for  his  schooling.  His  father  consented,  in  a  letter 
full  of  moral  reflections,  urging  him  to  seek  and  secure  for  himself 
karakter  as  the  talisman  of  all  success  in  life. 

Therefore,  in  course  of  time,  he  went  to  Cambridge,  changed  his 
friends  and  learnt  new  formulas,  was  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of 
love  and  fashion,  and  shone  in  coloured  shirts,  in  ties,  in  waistcoats. 
He  bought  a  little  dog  and  tried  to  like  it,  but  every  time  the 
creature  licked  his  hand  he  shuddered,  conscious  of  extreme  unclean- 
ness.  He  was  in  his  second  year,  at  home  and  popular,  with  the 
prospect  of  distinction  in  the  Mathematical  Tripos,  when  a  letter 
from  his  father  shattered  everything. 

*  Seeing  thou  art  now  a  man  full  grown,'  wrote  the  Sheykh  Abdul 
Cader,  \  and  must  by  now  have  learnt  karakter  and  all  the  other 
wiles  of  the  English,  tarry  there  no  longer,  for  my  heart  yearns  after 
thee.  Besides,  a  certain  great  one  with  a  kindness  for  me  promises 
to  exert  his  influence  on  thy  behalf,  to  obtain  for  thee  a  good 
position  in  the  government.  So  return  to  us  at  once  without  delay, 
and  may  Allah  strengthen  and  preserve  thee  ever.' 

When  Ahmed  opened  and  perused  this  letter  he  was  not  alone. 
A  man  named  Barnes,  a  mild  and  weak-eyed  youth,  was  seated  with 
him,  smoking  a  briar  pipe,  in  Ahmed's  cosy  rooms,  whose  walls  were 
hung  with  photographs  of  grinning  women. 

'  What  a  nuisance ! '  said  Ahmed,  frowning  in  the  approved 
English  manner,  though  his  heart  was  glad.  *  Dash-it-all,  my  dear 
ole  man,  I'm  to  go  back  to  Egypt  at  once ;  the  gufnor  says  so. 
Must  gif  up  thought  of  my  degree.  The  dear  ole  gufnor.  He 
doesn't  know  how  much  it  means  to  me.' 

4  Can't  you  write  and  explain  to  him  ?  '  said  Barnes  feelingly. 

4  No,  no,  my  dear  ole  chab  !  Imbossible !  He  would  neffer 
understand.'  Here  Ahmed  sighed  profoundly.  '  We  are  still 


KARAKTER.  531 

awf ly  primitif  at  home  in  Egypt — quite  behind  the  times.  .  .  . 
I  must  leaf  at  the  end  of  term  ;  there's  no  helb  for  it.  I  shall 
be  deflish  sorry  to  leaf  all  you  dear  good  fellows.' 

'  I  shall  be  sorry  too,'  said  Barnes  heartily. 

This  Barnes  was  of  the  order  of  amateur  missionaries  to  be  found 
in  every  generation  of  undergraduates,  for  whom  the  Mohammed- 
anism of  Ahmed  Abdul  Cader  was  an  irresistible  attraction.  The 
gentleness  and  urbanity  of  Barnes  pleased  Ahmed  greatly  ;  they 
had  become  inseparables  and,  without  any  promise  of  conversion, 
it  was  understood  between  them  that  Ahmed  was  to  be  the  apostle 
of  a  new  era  in  his  native  land.  Barnes  made  his  friend  a  parting 
gift :  the  Bible,  which  Ahmed  accepted  with  a  profusion  of  thanks, 
even  with  tears,  hardly  restraining  the  impulse  to  embrace  the 
donor.  But  in  the  confusion  of  packing  he  forgot  the  present, 
which  thus,  being  left  behind,  became  the  perquisite  of  his  bed- 
maker. 

Ahmed  was  extremely  glad  to  go.  He  looked  forward  with  a 
natural  longing  to  his  father's  house,  to  the  sight  of  camels  raising 
dust  upon  the  Nile  bank,  of  buffaloes  wallowing  and  grunting  in  a 
reedy  pool.  To  see  the  crowd  of  fellahin  assembled  at  the  wayside 
station,  to  hear  the  familiar  greetings  as  his  father  kissed  him,  was 
like  waking  from  a  dream  to  blest  reality. 

'  Look  at  him,  how  he  walks  !  Behold  his  modishness  ! '  cried 
the  Sheykh  Abdul  Cader,  quite  beside  himself  with  exultation.  '  It 
is  well  seen  that  he  has  learnt  Karakter  thoroughly.  We,  too,  are 
become  more  modish  since  thy  going,  0  my  son.  By  Allah  Most 
iigh,  we  have  a  treat  in  store  for  thee.' 

The  treat  turned  out  to  be  a  giant  gramophone,  installed  in  the 
>est  room  of  the  grand  new  house,  thrown  open  to  the  world  that 
day  in  honour  of  his  home-coming.  It  was  kept  going  incessantly 
)y  the  efforts  of  two  bare-legged  helpers.  Ahmed  was  annoyed  at 
;he  sight  of  it,  having  learnt  in  England  to  despise  such  noisy 
nstruments  ;  but  when  he  found  the  records  were  of  Arab  music, 
reproducing  the  chant  of  the  best  singers,  male  and  female,  and 
splendid  versions  of  the  Call  to  Prayer,  he  smiled  at  the  brazen 
trumpet-mouth  as  at  a  friend. 

'  Thou  hast  learnt  Karakter,  is  it  not  so,  0  my  son  ? '  inquired 
;he  Sheykh  Abdul  Cader,  speaking  loud  against  the  music. 

'  By  Allah,  have  I,  0  my  father.  It  is  a  matter  hard  to  catch 
as  is  a  lizard  ;  yet  I  have  caught  it,  knowing  thy  desire.' 

His  boast  was,  in  truth,  no  vain  one.  He  had  acquired  the 

34—2 


532  KARAKTER. 

English  Character  superficially  just  as  he  had  learnt  by  heart  whole 
text-books  in  old  days  at  school.  He  could  assume  it  instead  of  his 
own,  at  any  minute.  He  could  even  constrain  himself  to  think  like 
an  Englishman  for  hours  at  a  stretch. 

4  Praise  be  to  Allah  ! '  said  the  old  man  fervently.  '  To-morrow 
I  will  present  thee  to  the  notable  of  whom  I  wrote  thee  word  that  he 
had  promised  to  take  care  of  thy  career — one  set  high  in  wealth  and 
station,  who  sees  the  need  of  more  karakter  here  in  Egypt.  It  is 
not  so  simple  now  as  it  was  formerly  ;  thou  wilt  have  to  undergo 
examination.  But  that,  I  doubt  not,  will  be  passed  with  honour  ; 
no  other  competitor  can  have  had  thy  advantages.  In  sh'  Allah, 
by  force  of  karakter,  thou  wilt  soon  rise  to  greatness.' 

'  In  sh'  Allah  ! '  echoed  Ahmed  cordially  ;  for  the  prospect  of 
an  easy  rise  to  power  seemed  good  to  him.  He  was  not  without 
ambition  of  a  supple  kind. 

The  preliminaries  were  soon  over.  His  father's  friend  approved 
of  his  demeanour ;  he  passed  the  examination  easily ;  and  soon 
afterwards  obtained,  by  influence,  his  first  appointment  as  secretary 
to  an  English  official  in  the  Public  Works  Department.  The  post 
entailed  his  taking  rooms  in  Cairo,  whereas  he  had  hoped  for 
employment  within  a  riding  distance  of  his  father's  izbah.  He  had 
married  in  the  weeks  since  his  return,  and  his  father  would  not  let 
his  bride  go  up  to  Cairo  ;  better  one  than  two  in  the  city,  he  declared, 
where  food  is  costly ;  on  the  farm  an  extra  mouth  made  no  great 
difference. 

Ahmed,  however,  put  regrets  behind  him,  and  repaired  to  the 
office  with  a  will  to  please  his  chief.  That  chief  was  young,  not  five 
years  older  than  Ahmed,  and  his  mind  was  set  on  the  acquirement  of 
Arabic,  of  which  he  knew  already  many  vulgar  and  obscene  expres- 
sions. Finding  his  English  speech  not  well  received,  Ahmed  was 
quick  to  divine  the  other's  foible,  and  flattered  it  by  addressing  him 
in  flowery  Arabic,  and  praising  his  excellence  in  that  tongue. 

4 1  haven't  mastered  it  yet,  though,'  said  the  Englishman, 
relapsing  into  English,  '  I  should  be  obliged  if  you'd  help  me  a  bit.' 

4  Most  willingly,'  responded  Ahmed  with  his  ready  smile.  It 
was  all  he  wished — to  be  of  service,  to  win  the  regard  of  his  chief, 
so  that  their  work  together  might  go  forward  comfortably. 

The  Englishman  showed  him  copy-books  and  brought  him 
exercises  written  in  a  hand  like  print,  and  Ahmed  gave  advice  and 
made  corrections — this  in  the  intervals  of  office  work,  which,  being 
a  routine  requiring  chiefly  memory,  seemed  easy  for  the  Egyptian- 


KARAKTER.  533 

After  a  little  while,  the  pair  grew  intimate  ;  the  Englishman  forgot 
his  first  desire  to  air  his  Arabic  and  conversed  with  his  secretary 
freely  on  all  kinds  of  topics.  His  character  was  of  the  simple 
English  type,  well-known  to  Ahmed,  who  had  therefore  no  difficulty 
in  anticipating  his  views  and  wishes.  The  Egyptian  sometimes 
forgot  their  relative  positions  and  talked  to  his  chief  as  he  had  talked 
to  Barnes  and  other  men  at  Cambridge.  And  his  chief  made  no 
objection  till  a  certain  day — the  blackest  of  all  days,  a  day  to  weep 
on — which  became  the  turning-point  of  Ahmed's  life. 

They  were  sitting  together  in  their  room  as  usual,  when  a  clerk  of 
lower  grade  came  in  with  a  request  about  some  trifle.  Seeing  his 
chief  get  up  and  look  unduly  worried,  Ahmed,  with  no  other  thought 
than  to  save  a  good  friend  trouble,  exclaimed  : 

'  Don't  be  a  fool,  old  man  !    Sit  down.    It's  nothing  really.' 

He  had  been  sitting  back  in  his  chair,  with  legs  crossed  nobly,  in 
the  English  manner  ;  next  minute  he  was  on  his  feet,  his  face  livid, 
his  body  shaken  from  head  to  foot  by  shame  and  grief.  For  his 
friend  flashed  round  on  him,  ejaculating  : 

'  Damn  your  insolence  !    What  the  hell  do  you  mean  by  speaking 
to  me  like  that  ?  ' 

The  clerk  of  lower  grade  was  grinning  from  ear  to  ear. 

'  Why,  whateffer  did  I  say  ?  '  questioned  Ahmed,  his  voice 
trembling  with  rage. 

A  flood  of  oaths  was  the  answer.     Ahmed  drew  himself  up. 

'  I  haf  you  know,  sir,  I  haf  been  to  Cambridge  ! ' 

'  Go  to  Hell ! ' 

And  when  the  clerk  had  retired,  the  still  angry  Englishman 
quoted,  as  he  sat  down  again  at  his  desk,  a  vile  Arabic  proverb,  an 
invention  of  the  Turks,  to  the  effect  that  if  you  encourage  Ali,  he 
will  presently  defile  your  carpet.  It  was  an  offence  unthinkable. 

How  he  got  through  the  rest  of  that  day's  work  Ahmed  never 
knew  !  It  was  performed  in  anger,  dimmed  by  acrid  tears  of 
shame.  He  hardly  heard  his  chief's  repeated  adjurations  to  him 
not  to  be  an  ass  ;  and  answered  all  his  orders  with  a  simple  '  Yes, 
sir.' 

'  There  now,  I'm  sorry  if  I  hurt  your  feelings.  But  you  mustn't 
really  use  that  tone  to  me,  least  of  all  in  the  presence  of  subordinates. 
Come,  don't  sulk  any  longer.  Make  it  up,  old  man.' 

Ahmed  heard  the  words  and  felt  the  hand  on  his  shoulder,  but 
made  no  response.  When  at  last  he  left  the  office,  he  went  not  to  his 
lodging,  but  to  the  Nasriyeh  railway-station. 


534  KARAKTER. 

At  dusk  he  entered  the  yard  of  his  father's  izbah.  The  people 
greeted  him  with  shouts  of  joy.  Their  welcome  loosed  the  fountain 
of  his  grief,  till  then  restrained  by  pride.  He  ran  to  the  threshold, 
and  there  fell  down  and  wept  and  moaned  convulsively.  The 
Sheykh  Abdul  Cader,  leaning  over  him,  attentive  to  the  broken 
words  his  woe  flung  forth,  piecing  them  together  patiently,  at  last 
obtained  some  notion  of  the  matter. 

'  Is  it  of  thy  khawagah  that  thou  speakest  ?  Did  he  beat  thee, 
0  my  son  ?  ' 

At  the  question  Ahmed  roused  himself,  and  spoke  intelligibly. 

'  No,  0  my  father.  Would  to  Allah  he  had  done  so,  that  I  could 
have  prosecuted  him  for  the  assault,  and  made  his  name  a  byword 
for  tyranny.  He  cursed  me,  0  my  father  ;  he  blackened  my  face 
with  foul  and  grievous  insults  ;  and  all  because  I  addressed  him  in 
the  usual  English  manner  as  a  friend.  I  will  no  longer  endure  such 
treatment,  I  will  be  a  Nationalist.  I  was  a  friend  of  greater  men 
than  him  at  Cambridge.  My  best  friend,  Barnes,  is  the  son  of  an 
English  lord,  whereas  this  dog  is  but  the  offspring  of  a  base  mer- 
chant— he  himself  confessed  it !  I  will  write  to  Barnes  and  have 
this  dog  degraded.' 

The  women  and  the  neighbours  wailed  in  concert,  without  any 
clear  conception  of  the  call  for  grief.  But  the  old  man  raised  his 
hands  and  eyes  to  Heaven,  crying  : 

*  Praise  be  to  Allah  !  Behold  me  justly  punished  for  my  proud 
ambition.  I  asked  karakter  for  my  son,  and  see,  he  has  it — more 
than  I  can  bear.  What  Son  of  the  Nile  before  him  ever  resented 
the  curses  of  one  in  authority  ?  Are  not  our  backs  and  the  soles  of 
our  feet  still  sore  from  the  Turkish  whips  ?  Yet  see,  my  son  resents 
this  cursing  which  to  me  is  nothing.  He  must  join  the  malcontents, 
the  wastrels  of  the  land,  because  of  it.  He  is  become  even  worse 
than  an  Englishman  :  he  is  all  Karakter.' 

MARMADUKE  PICKTHALL. 


535 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS:  '  THE  COMPLETE 
SEAMAN: 

I  remember  the  black  wharves  and  the  slips, 
And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free ; 
And  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips, 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships, 
And  the  magic  of  the  sea. 

THERE  is  colour  in  Deptford  Reach  even  now,  when  the  sun  glints 
upon  blue,  rippled  water  and  the  red-brown  sails  of  leisurely,  old- 
fashioned  hoys,  but  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  in  1588  there  was  far 
more  glow  and  sparkle.  The  houses  upon  the  banks  were  less  drab 
and  dingy,  the  river  itself  had  not  then  attained  to  its  present 
refinement  of  pollution,  and  the  ships  that  passed  or  swung  at 
anchor  must  have  been  exceedingly  good  to  look  upon — as  contrasted 
with  our  own  steam- tramps.  With  their  bright  paint  and  gilding, 
with  their  high,  carved  castles  at  bow  and  stern,  with  their  many 
pennants  and  coats  of  arms,  the  warships  and  armed  traders  of  that 
day  must  have  caught  the  sunshine  in  no  half-hearted  fashion. 
Their  masts  would  seem  short  and  thick  to  our  eyes,  their  shrouds 
and  rope  ladders  unnecessarily  broad,  the  free-board  below  their 
ports  dangerously  scanty — in  fact,  the  general  impression  would 
be  that  speed  and  utility  had  been  sacrificed  to  gay  ornamentation 
and  unwieldy  strength.  But  they  did  work,  those  odd  ships  and 
the  florid-spoken  men  who  manned  them,  that  was  not  lacking  in 
grim  effectiveness. 

Upon  a  certain  day  in  that  great  year  which  had  seen  the  rout 
and  destruction  of  the  Invincible  Armada  a  ship  of  war  was  at 
anchor  in  Deptford  Reach.  She  was  of  between  three  and  four 
hundred  tons,  and  upon  her  stern  there  was  the  wooden  figure  of  a 
bound  negress — the  ill-omened  crest  that  the  Hawkins  family  had 
assumed.  And  towards  her  as  she  swung  there  glided  a  great 
carved  barge,  pulled  by  sturdy  watermen  in  the  royal  liveries.  The 
Court  was  at  Greenwich  and  so,  as  the  Thames  was  then  the  most 
popular  of  London's  highways,  the  river  was  always  bright  with 
silken  figures  gay  as  Birds  of  Paradise.  And  in  the  stern  of  the 


536  SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

great  barge  there  sat  a  woman,  splendidly  and  garishly  clad,  with 
a  thin,  capable,  cunning  face  beneath  her  sparse  red  hair — the  most 
masterful,  the  vainest,  and  the  greatest  lady  living  in  the  world. 
She  noticed  that  ship  of  war,  and,  since  she  was  no  mean  judge  of 
ships  and  men,  she  held  up  a  hand  that  glittered  with  the  jewels 
she  worshipped,  and  signified  that  it  was  her  pleasure  to  row  around 
her  as  she  lay.  And  when  she  had  concluded  her  inspection 
Elizabeth  found  nothing  to  condemn  in  the  Repentance — except 
her  name. 

Richard  Hawkins  says  that  his  step-mother  (not  his  own  mother, 
as  Charles  Kingsley  has  it  in  '  Westward  Ho  !  ')  had  been  eager  to 
christen  his  new  ship,  and,  when  he  remonstrated  against  a  name 
so  gloomy,  she  gave  only  the  answer  '  that  repentance  was  the  safest 
ship  we  could  sail  in,  to  purchase  the  haven  of  Heaven.5  But  the 
reasoning  scarcely  appealed  to  the  Queen,  to  whose  pride  the  idea 
of  a  Heaven,  where  all  men  and  women  were  presumably  equal, 
must  have  been  intolerable,  and  by  her  wish  the  ship  was  renamed 
the  Dainty.  Richard  Hawkins  disclaims  any  superstition  as  to  the 
names  of  ships,  but  in  one  of  his  innumerable  digressions  he  is 
unable  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  some  names  are  less  lucky  than 
others.  The  Thunderbolt,  for  example,  which  ship  was  smitten  by 
levin  fire,  and  the  Revenge,  whose  career,  he  says,  was  consistently 
disastrous.  Twice  she  went  ashore,  and  in  her  last  great  fight 
(which  reasoning  seems  somewhat  odd)  she  brought  death  to  all 
about  her.  As  the  Spaniards  themselves  confessed,  three  of  their 
ships  were  sunk  by  her  side,  and  1500  of  their  men  slain  in  her 
capture.  Of  her  own  crew  nearly  every  man  was  killed  or  wounded, 
and  she  herself  was  so  injured  that  she  might  not  be  brought  to 
port.  He  speaks  again,  later  in  his  '  Observations,'  of  Sir  Richard 
Grenville's  famous  ship,  and  his  enthusiastic  words  are  perhaps 
worth  quoting,  as  showing  the  impression  made  upon  contemporary 
sea-captains  and  rivals  by  that  marvellous,  hopeless  struggle. 
'  One  ship,  and  of  the  second  sort  of  her  majestie's,  sustained  the 
force  of  all  the  fleete  of  Spain,  and  gave  them  to  understand  that 
they  be  impregnable,  for  having  bought  deerly  the  boarding  of 
her,  divers  and  sundry  times,  and  with  many  joyntly,  and  with  a 
continual  fight  of  14  or  16  hours,  at  length  leaving  her  without  any 
mast  standing,  and  like  a  logge  in  the  seas,  she  made,  notwith- 
standing, a  most  honourable  composition  of  life  and  liberty ' 
for  her  crew.  '  All  which  may  worthily  be  written  in  our  chronicles 
in  letters  of  gold.'  Well,  Richard  Hawkins'  literary  style  may  be 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.  537 

a  trifle  involved,  but  at  least  it  may  be  conceded  that  he  knew  of 
what  he  wrote.  For  he,  too,  fought  a  sea  battle  that  is  worthy  to 
be  told  in  golden  letters.  And,  though  these  be  lacking  to  his 
present  chronicler,  yet  he  confesses  without  shame  to  an  enthusiasm 
for  that  gallant  fight. 

There  is  only  one  rather  doubtful  portrait  of  Kichard  Hawkins 
to  be  found — the  picture  of  a  man  in  armour,  with  a  small  head, 
dark  brown  hair,  and  a  yellowish  beard,  bearing  a  strong  resemblance 
to  the  bust  of  old  Sir  John.  The  face  of  the  latter  is  worth  looking 
at,  with  its  large  almond-shaped  eyes,  set  wide  apart,  its  deep-lined 
low  forehead,  its  masterful  nose,  and  its  full-lipped  mouth  above 
the  short  pointed  beard.  The  expression  is  worn  and  kindly  and 
very  shrewd,  and  suggests  pleasantly  enough  a  man  who  won  to 
high  fame  and  wealth  by  his  own  unaided  valour  and  ability.  The 
son  of  such  a  man  must  needs  have  taken  to  the  sea.  All  of  Richard 
Hawkins'  early  recollections  must  have  been  of  ships  and  tarry 
seamen,  for,  upon  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  John  Hawkins  made  a 
companion  of  his  small  son  and  would  ever  have  him  beside  him 
among  the  quays  at  Plymouth.  And  in  1582  his  uncle,  William 
Hawkins,  took  the  young  man  of  twenty  upon  his  first  voyage  to  the 
West  Indies. 

He  contrived  to  distinguish  himself  upon  that  voyage.  One 
of  the  captains  of  the  little  fleet  reported  his  own  craft  to  be  unsea- 
worthy,  and  had  persuaded  the  other  adventurers  that  she  must 
be  burnt.  Young  Richard  Hawkins  had  been  a  silent  listener  at 
the  discussion,  being  anxious,  as  he  writes,  to  learn  rather  than  to 
teach,  but  he  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  the  captain  was  only 
desirous  of  an  exchange  to  a  swifter  vessel.  So  when  the  matter 
was  almost  settled  he  created  a  surprise  by  volunteering  himself 
to  take  command  of  the  condemned  craft.  Her  own  captain  at 
once  avowed  that  he  himself  would  do  what  any  other  man  dared 
attempt,  and  his  vessel  was  not  burnt.  What  is  more,  she  accom- 
plished nine  other  successful  voyages  after  her  return  to  England. 
Young  Dick  Hawkins  was  beginning  to  earn  the  proud  title  of  '  The 
Complete  Seaman,'  which  afterwards  distinguished  him. 

In  1585,  as  captain  of  the  Duck  galliot,  he  took  part  in  Drake's 
raiding  expedition  to  the  West  Indies,  the  Spanish  Main,  and  the 
coast  of  Florida,  and  the  lessons  he  would  learn  under  such  a  sea- 
captain  were  beyond  all  doubt  of  priceless  value  when  he  himself 
must  lead  a  little  fleet  among  uncharted  and  hostile  seas.  Drake 
himself,  it  is  a  truism  to  say,  was  one  of  the  world's  great  natural 


538  SIR   RICHARD  HAWKINS  :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

leaders  of  men,  and  no  one  who  studies  the  voyages  of  these  captains 
can  doubt  of  the  difficulties  they  had  to  face,  not  only  from  their 
natural  enemies,  but  from  the  unruliness  of  their  own  followers. 
Well,  Drake  knew  by  instinct  when  a  man  must  be  hanged,  and 
when  he  and  his  fellows  might  be  coaxed,  and  one  may  discern  from 
Richard  Hawkins'  '  Observations  '  that  he  himself  had  not  sailed 
in  vain  beneath  '  El  Draco.' 

Then  in  1588  came  the  Armada,  and  in  that  battle  Dick  Hawkins 
played  his  part  with  honour  as  captain  of  the  Queen's  ship  Swallow. 
He  says  himself,  '  The  greatest  damage  that,  as  I  remember,  they 
caused  to  any  of  our  fleet  was  to  the  Swallow  of  her  majesty  which  I 
had  in  that  action  under  my  charge,  with  an  arrow  of  fire  shot  into 
her  beak  head,  which  we  saw  not,  because  of  the  sail,  till  it  had 
burned  a  hole  in  the  nose  as  big  as  a  man's  head  ;  the  arrow  falling 
out,  and  driving  alongst  by  the  ship's  side,  made  us  doubt  of  it, 
which  after  we  discovered.'  The  Swallow  was  one  of  the  squadron 
led  by  old  John  Hawkins,  knighted,  by  the  way,  during  a  pause  in 
the  battle,  in  the  Victory.  When  in  the  dark  of  that  wonderful 
night  the  fireships,  two  of  which  belonged  to  Richard  Hawkins, 
had  burst  into  a  very  hell  of  flame,  when  they  had  done  their  work, 
when  the  Spanish  fleet  had  broken  before  them  like  bewildered, 
stampeding  cattle,  then  old  Sir  John,  forgetting  for  once  his  sound 
commercial  instincts  and  his  marvellous  nose  for  plunder,  drove 
with  his  squadron  headlong  into  the  very  midst  of  the  enemy,  lest 
they  should  form  again.  He  led  himself  in  the  Victory  like  an  old 
grey  wolf  with  his  fierce  pack  yelling  behind  him,  and  with  him 
were  Richard  and  Fenton  and  other  gay  gallants  eager  for  desperate 
work.  The  world  knows  well  that  the  Spaniards  did  not  form 
again,  that  the  wild  rocks  of  the  Scotch  and  Irish  coasts  received 
their  bones,  and  Dick  Hawkins,  in  the  Swallow,  was  one  of  the  four 
captains  who  especially  distinguished  themselves  under  the  Vice- 
Admiral. 

Then,  when  England  could  breathe  once  more,  he  says  that  he 
began  to  meditate  a  voyage  around  the  world  that  should  include 
'  the  islands  of  Japan,  of  the  Philippines  and  Moluccas,  the  kingdoms 
of  China  and  East  Indies,  by  the  way  of  the  Straits  of  Magellan 
and  the  South  Sea,'  and,  thirty  years  afterwards,  he  had  quite 
persuaded  himself  that  loot  and  Spanish  gold  were  not  to  be  the 
principal  object  of  that  adventure.  Rather  '  he  designed  to  make 
a  perfect  discovery  of  all  those  parts  where  he  should  arrive,  as  well 
known  as  unknown,  with  their  longitudes  and  latitudes,  the  lying 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.   539 

of  their  coasts,  their  headlands  and  ports  and  bays,  their  cities, 
towns  and  peoplings,  their  manner  of  government,  with  the  com- 
modities which  the  countries  yielded,  and  of  which  they  have  want 
and  are  in  necessity.'  All  of  which  objects  are  certainly  most 
laudable,  and  even  surprising.  But,  of  course,  such  a  voyage  had 
to  be  paid  for,  and  the  Spaniards  were  one's  natural  enemies,  and 
were  a  plaguily  rich  and  prosperous  people.  .  .  .  There  would 
probably  be,  in  addition  to  the  exploration,  some  little  incidental 
fighting,  and  such  trifles  as  the  taking  of  a  galleon  or  so  and  the 
sacking  of  a  city.  .  .  .  And  he  caused  the  Repentance  to  be  built 
for  him  upon  the  Thames. 

But  for  various  reasons  the  great  voyage  might  not  be  yet,  and 
the  renamed  Dainty  was  sold  for  the  time  to  his  father.  She  was 
one  of  the  six  ships  under  Sir  Martin  Frobisher  which  were  specially 
sent  out  to  waylay  the  great  caracke  Madre  de  Dios,  a  seven-decked 
ship  of  1600  tons,  manned  by  600  men.  They  duly  took  her, 
despite  her  32  brass  guns,  and  her  cargo,  besides  jewels,  '  which 
never  came  to  light,'  was  as  follows  :  '  Spices,  drugs,  silks  and  calicoes, 
besides  other  wares,  as  elephants'  teeth,  china,  cocoa-nuts,  hides, 
ebony,  and  cloth  made  from  rinds  of  trees.  All  which,  being 
appraised,  was  reckoned  to  amount  to  at  least  150,OOOZ.'  Indeed, 
that  man  would  needs  be  something  more  than  human  who  could 
turn  his  mind  only  to  exploration  when  such  pretty  geese,  with 
plumage  and  eggs  of  ruddy  gold,  swam  the  seas,  practically  asking 
to  be  taken  ! 

Richard  himself  in  1590  commanded  the  Crane  in  his  father's 

expedition  to  the  coast  of  Portugal,  and  it  was  not  until  1593  that 

he  could  begin  his  preparations  for  the  great  adventure  upon  which 

ic  had  set  his  heart.     In  that  year  he  bought  back  the  Dainty  from 

ds  father  and  fitted  her  out  with  all  care  and  at  great  expense  at 

ilackwall  upon  the  Thames.     It  is  interesting  to  note  that  '  beefe, 

orke,  bisket  and  sider '  were  better  bought  at  '  Plimouth  '  than 

Condon. 

Sir  Robert  Cecil,  Lord  High  Admiral,  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh 
ame  down  to  Blackwall  to  honour  his  ship  and  him  with  their 
arewell,  and  doubtless  Raleigh  wished  heartily,  as  was  his  way, 
hat  he  could  escape  from  the  hates  and  jealous  rivalries  of  Court 
md  from  the  fickle  favours  of  his  exacting  mistress  to  take  part  in 
uch  a  '  joyous  venture.'  But  the  brilliant  sea-bird  was  tethered 
oo  closely  ever  to  take  wing  above  the  waves.  .  .  .  From  the  very 
start  the  voyage  was  not  without  mishap.  The  ports  had  been  left 


540  SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

open  in  the  river,  and,  as  the  Dainty  was  deep-laden,  water  came  in 
and  she  was  in  much  danger  for  a  while/  The  lower  ports  of  the 
Great  Harry,  for  example,  were  only  sixteen  inches  above  the  water, 
and  men  still  remembered  how  the  Mary  Rose  had  actually  been 
lost  in  this  way  at  Spithead,  with  her  captain  and  most  of  her  crew, 
upon  the  very  day  King  Henry  VIII.  had  dined  aboard  her.  This 
danger  was  averted,  but  the  incident  led  to  Kichard  Hawkins'  first 
trouble  with  his  crew.  They  were  much  daunted,  and  insisted  that 
the  Dainty's  cargo  should  be  lightened.  He  remarks  sadly  that 
'  marines  are  like  to  a  stiff-necked  horse,  which  taking  the  bridle 
betwixt  his  teeth,  forceth  his  rider  to  what  him  list,  mauger  his 
will.'  Six  or  eight  tons  of  cargo  were  taken  out  by  a  hoy,  '  to  give 
content  to  the  company,'  and,  when  he  had  taken  '  his  unhappy  last 
leave  of  his  father  '  (he  was  never  to  see  the  old  man  again),  he  set 
forth  on  his  long  voyage. 

He  had  many  difficulties  in  the  Channel,  owing  to  fog  and  head 
wind  and  tides,  and  when  Plymouth  Sound  at  last  was  made  further 
disheartenments  awaited  him.  Whilst  at  anchor  the  Dainty  lost 
her  mainmast  in  a  gale,  and  was  very  near  to  total  destruction.  A 
lesser  man  might  have  been  near  to  despair  at  such  set-backs,  but 
Richard  Hawkins,  although  perhaps  inclined  to  foppishness,  self- 
satisfaction  and  pedantry,  can  never  be  accused  of  lack  of  pluck 
and  resolution.  He  repaired  the  damage  in  a  marvellously  short 
time,  and  then  began  to  get  his  men  aboard — a  task  which  appears 
to  have  been  no  child's  play  in  those  robust  days.  He  says  that  it 
occupied  himself,  his  good  friends  and  the  justices  of  the  town  two 
days,  and  forced  them  to  search  all  lodgings,  taverns  and  ale-houses. 
Most  of  the  crew  were  brought  aboard  mad  drunk,  and  Hawkins 
writes  with  some  bitterness  of  how  men  would  take  '  imprests ' 
(wages  in  advance),  and  then  hide  themselves  or  feign  sickness  that 
they  might  evade  the  voyage.  But  the  crew,  in  however  question- 
able shape,  were  got  aboard  at  last,  and,  in  company  with  a  pinnace 
and  a  victualler,  the  Dainty  set  sail,  amid  the  firing  of  great  guns 
and  the  music  of  trumpets  and  '  waites.'  He  says  that  the  farewell 
melodies  from  the  port  could  be  heard  by  them  for  long,  as  they 
sailed  forward  through  the  silence  of  the  night. 

The  first  incident  of  the  voyage  was  their  meeting  with  a  great 
hulke,  showing  no  colours,  at  whom  his  men  naturally  wished  to 
open  fire  without  more  ado.  To  the  English  common  sailor  of  that 
liberal  day  almost  anything  that  sailed  appeared  as  a  natural  prize. 
Richard  Hawkins  restrained  their  ardour  with  some  difficulty,  and 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.  541 

takes  advantage  of  the  incident,  in  his  narrative,  to  wander  into  one 
of  his  numerous  side-issues.  He  holds  that  it  is  a  bad  practice 
'  to  gun  '  at  all  they  meet,  without  parley,  and  considers  that  it  is 
apt  to  breed  ill-feeling.  This  theory  appears  not  unreasonable. 
He  has  known  cases  of  two  English  ships  of  war  exchanging  shots 
with  each  other  in  the  night  time,  and  even  laying  each  other 
aboard,  thanks  to  this  enterprising  habit.  On  the  other  hand,  due 
respect  must  always  be  exacted  from  foreign  craft  sailing  in  English 
waters.  There  was  the  case  of  that  Spanish  fleet  of  fifty  ships  who, 
in  English  waters  and  in  a  time  of  peace,  neglected  to  '  vayle  '  their 
topsails  and  take  in  their  flags.  But  they  had  reckoned  without 
old  John  Hawkins,  the  narrator's  father  !  Out  he  darted  like  an 
insulted  bulldog,  and  sent  a  shot  between  the  Spanish  Admiral's 
masts.  Then,  as  this  subtle  hint  was  ignored,  he  followed  it  up  by 
a  round  shot  that  lacked  the  Spanish  flagship  through  and  through, 
and — down  came  the  offending  flags  !  Oh,  yes,  certainly,  the 
niceties  of  international  etiquette  must  be  observed  at  any  cost ! 

The  hulke  turned  out  to  be  inoffensively,  and  unprofitably, 
laden  with  salt.  She  was  ordered  duly  to  strike  her  topsails,  and 
graciously  permitted  to  go  her  way. 

Once  south  of  the  Canaries  he  began  to  set  his  victuals  in  order, 
and  to  devise  means  to  keep  his  people  employed,  since  too  much 
idleness  and  ease  in  hot  climates  is  neither  profitable  nor  healthful. 
He  divided  his  crew  into  two  watches,  who  each  employed  three 
days  of  the  week  as  follows  :  the  first  day  was  devoted  to  the  use 
and  cleansing  of  arms,  the  second  to  '  roomeging '  (putting  stores 
in  order),  making  of  sails,  netting,  decking  and  defences  for  the 
ship,  the  third  to  washing  their  own  bodies,  mending  and  making 
apparel  and  necessaries.  '  The  Sabbath  is  ever '  (with  certain 
reservations) '  to  be  preserved  for  God  alone.' 

They  shortened  sail  north  of  Cape  Blanco,  and  caught  a  great 
store  of  fish  (breames).  These,  with  dolphins,  bonitos  and  sea-birds, 
were  a  most  welcome  addition  to  the  larder,  for  already  his  crew 
were  f ailing  sick  of  scurvy.  In  a  little  while  men  were  dying  every 
day,  and  he  says  that,  in  twenty  years,  he  has  seen  10,000  men 
consumed  with  this  disease.  He  recommends  cleanliness,  exercise, 
an  early  morning  draught  of  wine  with  a  piece  of  bread,  not  too 
much  salt  meat,  and,  above  all,  if  they  can  be  got,  '  sower  oranges 
and  lemmons.'  '  Dr.  Stevens  his  water  '  did  much  good,  but  they 
had  brought  too  little  of  it.  Oil  of  vitriol  taken  with  water  and  a 
little  sugar  is  also  beneficial.  His  men  grew  discontented  and 


542  SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

wished  to  return  home,  but  he  contrived  to  dissuade  them,  and,  in 
his  memoirs,  once  again  compares  the  mariner  to  '  a  stiffe-necked 
horse.' 

Off  the  Guinea  coast  the  ship  was  set  on  fire  by  the  careless 
melting  of  pitch  in  a  cauldron  below,  and  was  for  a  while  in  hideous 
danger,  but  Richard  ordered  the  men  to  wet  their  '  rug  gowns  '  in 
the  sea,  and  with  them  choke  out  the  flames.  When  this  had  been 
effected,  they  thanked  God  for  the  deliverance,  and,  as  a  mark  of 
gratitude,  took  occasion  to  banish  swearing  from  the  little  fleet.  By 
general  consent  it  was  ordained  that  a  palmer  or  ferula  should  be 
carried  by  anyone  who  was  '  taken  with  an  oath,'  and  that  he  should 
give  the  next  who  swore  a  stroke  with  it.  At  the  end  of  the  day  he 
who  had  the  ferula  received  three  strokes  from  the  captain  or  the 
master.  Within  three  days  there  was  no  more  swearing  aboard 
the  ships.  There  is  very  much  of  the  pleasant  simplicity  of  sea- 
faring folk  about  the  quaint  remedy,  and  also  the  gravity  with  which 
Sir  Richard  writes  of  it  and  the  evil  habit  of  blasphemy. 

When  at  last  he  came  to  Victoria  in  Brazil  he  had  not  twenty- 
four  sound  men  in  his  three  ships,  and  he  endeavoured  to  trade  for 
fresh  meat  and  fruit  with  the  Spanish  governor.  But  he  was  only 
able  to  obtain  about  two  hundred  oranges  and  lemons,  as  the 
governor  naturally  had  orders  to  have  no  dealings  with  English- 
men in  time  of  war.  The  Dainty  was  given  three  days  in  which  to 
leave,  as  a  mark  of  courtesy  in  return  for  that  which  Captain 
Hawkins  had  shown.  The  fruit  was  divided  among  the  sick,  who 
could  only  receive  three  or  four  apiece.  But  he  says  that  many 
of  them  seemed  to  recover  heart  at  the  very  sight  of  the  oranges  and 
lemons. 

He  was  distilling  his  drinking  water,  but  naturally  wood  was 
required  for  fuel,  and  he  made  a  camp  upon  the  island  of  St.  Anna 
that  he  might  send  his  sick  ashore.  He  deemed  it  well  to  make  a 
false  attack  upon  the  encampment,  to  test  what  watch  his  men 
were  keeping,  and  when  he  himself  came  up  from  the  ships,  as 
though  summoned  by  the  sound  of  firing,  he  still  kept  up  the 
joke.  He  appears  to  have  listened  with  secret  amusement  and 
much  humour  to  his  men's  account  of  the  army  of  Spaniards  and 
negroes  whom  they  had  repulsed. 

When  the  voyage  was  resumed  a  small  Portuguese  ship  of 
100  tons  was  taken.  She  was  engaged  in  the  negro  trade  to  the 
Plate  river,  a  traffic  which  appears  to  have  been  vastly  profitable, 
as,  of  course,  Sir  John  Hawkins  had  discovered.  It  was  a  very 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.    543 

sickly  negro,  one  learns,  who  did  not  fetch  over  100L  When  they 
captured  her  she  was  laden  with  cassava  meal,  of  which  the  Dainty's 
men  made  pancakes  to  their  huge  enjoyment,  and  this  and  her 
sugar  and  arms  they  took.  The  crew  were  released  after  a  few  days, 
together  with  their  ship  and  the  rest  of  their  goods,  and  a  Portuguese 
knight  and  his  family  who  were  on  board. 

Sir  Richard  was  much  interested  in  natural  history,  and  gives 
many  quaint  facts  about  the  lands  he  passed.  For  example,  he 
says  that  the  rattlesnake  has  been  created  by  divine  Providence 
with  a  bell  upon  his  head,  that  people  may  be  warned. 

In  a  gale  his  pinnace,  the  Fancy,  deserted  him,  and  made  her 
way  back  to  England.  To  this  defection,  with  its  accompanying 
loss  of  stores  and  men,  he  attributes  the  ultimate  undoing  of  his 
voyage.  He  says  justly  that  such  desertions,  which  were  sadly 
common,  should  be  severely  punished,  instead  of  being  ignored, 
and  he  records  that  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  have  far  stricter 
discipline  in  such  matters,  even  as  they  are  superior  to  us  in  steerage 
and  navigation.  To  these  facts  he  attributes  their  successes. 

The  Falkland  Islands  he  named  Hawkins'  Maiden-Land  in 
compliment  to  the  Virgin  Queen,  being  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 
they  had  already  been  discovered  by  John  Davis. 

Within  the  Magellan  Straits  he  encountered  contrary  winds  and 
swift  tides,  and  the  Dainty  was  often  in  great  peril.  The  natives 
of  these  lands,  he  says,  have  great  insight  in  the  changes  of  the 
weather,  '  and  besides  have  secret  dealings  with  the  Prince  of 
Darknesse,  who  many  times  declareth  unto  them  things  to  come. 
By  this  means  and  other  witch-craftes  which  he  teacheth  them,  he 
possesseth  them  and  causeth  them  to  do  what  pleaseth  him.'  In 
the  Straits  the  Dainty  struck  upon  a  rock,  and  only  got  off,  with 
strained  timbers,  upon  the  flood  tide.  The  age  was  pious,  at  any 
rate  in  speech,  and  once  again  Sir  Richard  records  his  gratitude  to 
Providence  for  their  deliverance.  Time  and  again  they  were 
driven  back  by  head  winds,  and  once  more  his  men  began  to  grumble 
and  to  beg  for  the  return.  He  dealt  with  them  with  a  shrewd 
mixture  of  resolution  and  diplomacy.  It  is  his  advice  to  all  captains 
never  to  be  persuaded  by  their  men  to  turn  one  foot  back,  even 
temporarily,  upon  a  voyage,  for  such  weakness  will  inevitably  be 
:atal.  '  To  require  reason  of  the  common  sorte,'  he  adds  with 
grim  sorrow,  '  is,  as  the  philosopher  sayth,  to  seeke  counselle  of  a 
madd  man.' 

Upon  the  Isle  of  Mocha  the  savages  proved  treacherous.    Sir 


544   SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

Richard  perceived  them  trying  to  pour  water  into  the  musket 
barrels,  and  with  a  truncheon  that  he  had  in  his  hand  he  gave  them 
'  three  or  four  good  lamskinnes '  to  such  purpose  that  they  fled.  He 
was  always  a  man  of  decision  and  swift  purpose,  was  young 
Hawkins. 

Then  they  came  to  Valparaiso,  and  against  his  better  judgment 
he  yielded  to  his  men's  desire  for  plunder.  Four  ships  of  no  great 
value  they  took  in  the  harbour,  three  of  which  they  permitted  the 
owners  to  ransom  for  a  small  sum,  taking  with  them  the  fourth 
when  they  resumed  their  voyage.  From  the  town  itself  they  got 
little  for  their  treasure  chest,  but  they  treated  the  Spanish  officers 
with  all  courtesy  and  departed  with  their  ships  well  stored  with 
food.  Hawkins,  who  appears  to  have  had  a  horror  of  drunkenness, 
attributing  to  intemperance  most  of  the  diseases  of  the  day,  says 
that  the  wine  of  the  town  was  of  more  danger  to  them  than  the 
garrison.  It  would  have  been  well  for  them  if  they  had  never  put 
into  the  port.  As  he  had  feared,  swift  runners  were  sent  along  the 
coast  with  news  of  the  '  English  pirates,'  and  in  a  little  while  every 
port  was  warned,  and  the  chase  was  out  and  hot  upon  them. 

Meanwhile  they  had  captured  another  prize  with  their  boats, 
and  from  her  they  took  some  good  quantity  of  gold.  And  now  there 
followed  further  trouble  between  Hawkins  and  his  crew.  They 
demanded  the  instant  division  of  the  gold,  that  they  might  receive 
their  third  share.  It  should  be  said  that  Richard  Hawkins  had 
sailed  with  the  following  commission  from  the  Queen  :  '  to  attempt 
some  enterprise  against  the  King  of  Spain,  his  subjects  and  adherents 
upon  the  coast  of  the  West  Indies,  Brazil,  Africa,  America,  or  the 
South  Seas,  granting  him  and  his  patrons  whatever  he  should  take, 
reserving  to  the  crown  one-fifth  part  of  all  treasure,  jewels  and 
pearls.'  He  represented  to  his  men  the  inconvenience  of  a  division 
of  the  plunder,  and  after  an  unseemly  wrangle  his  will  conquered 
them.  But  one  may  imagine  in  some  measure  the  patience, 
diplomacy  and  calm  strength  of  purpose  that  were  required  of  a 
leader  of  such  a  restive  crew.  Sir  Richard,  as  has  been  said,  had 
learned  self-mastery  and  the  mastery  of  men  in  Drake's  fine  school, 
and  it  would  appear  that  his  cool  firmness  was  equal  to  all  trials. 
And  it  may  be  remembered  that  this  leader  of  men  was  onJy  thirty- 
one. 

They  tried  Coquimbo,  without  accomplishing  anything,  and 
then  off  Quilca  they  burnt  their  prize,  having  failed  to  '  rummage  ' 
any  gold  from  her,  and  captured  a  small  craft  to  serve  as  pinnace. 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS  :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.    545 

And  now  they  were  to  reap  the  reward  of  their  rashness  in  holding 
Valparaiso  to  ransom. 

The  Viceroy  of  Peru  had  been  advised  at  Lima  of  the  Dainty's 
insolence,  and  without  delay  he  fitted  out  six  ships  of  war,  manned 
with  2000  men,  under  the  command  of  Don  Beltran  de  Castro,  to 
hunt  down  the  English  ship.  They  came  in  sight  of  her  off  Canete, 
almost  in  a  dead  calm.  But  about  nine  o'clock  at  night  the  breeze 
sprang  up,  and  the  Dainty,  her  crew  and  officers  '  having  com- 
mended themselves  wholly  to  the  God  of  Battles,'  closed  with  the 
enemy's  fleet.  Hawkins  found  that  the  Spanish  ships  sailed  better 
to  windward  than  did  the  Dainty,  being  made  sharp  under  water, 
and  long,  for  that  purpose,  and  he  must  have  considered  the  outlook 
somewhat  dark.  But  the  breeze  freshened  to  a  hurricane,  the  most 
violent  ever  known,  according  to  the  Spanish  account ;  four  of  the 
enemy's  ships  lost  spars  or  split  their  canvas,  and  in  the  darkness 
the  Dainty  broke  clear  through  them  and  escaped  rejoicing  from  the 
toils. 

But  only  for  the  time.  The  Spanish  ships  returned  to  Callao, 
the  port  of  Lima,  for  their  crews  to  find  that  they  were  distinctly 
not  regarded  in  the  light  of  heroes.  The  women  spat  upon  them, 
offered  to  man  the  ships  in  their  stead,  so  mocked  and  jeered  at  them 
that  they  dared  not  show  their  faces  in  the  streets  by  day.  And 
the  Viceroy  took  more  practical  action.  With  a  delay  amazingly 
brief  for  Spaniards  he  manned  two  galleons  with  the  very  flower 
of  those  2000  men,  and  sent  them  out  again  against '  the  Lutheran 
dogs  and  pirates.3 

It  was  near  Cape  San  Francisco,  off  which  Drake  had  captured 
his  wonderful  prize  the  Cacaluego,  that  they  came  upon  their  prey. 
The  Dainty  had  taken  and  burnt  one  craft,  and  had  chased  two 
others  without  success,  and  now  was  waiting  for  her  pinnace,  which, 
against  Richard  Hawkins'  wishes,  had  gone  in  chase  of  a  tall  ship. 
That  delay  was  her  destruction.  As  the  pinnace  returned  the  two 
Spanish  galleons  hove  in  sight.  The  Dainty's  men  would  have  it 
}hat  they  were  treasure  ships,  and  of  course  were  greedy  for  the 
chase.  Richard  Hawkins  insisted  on  sending  the  pinnace  to 
reconnoitre,  and  the  tidings  with  which  she  came  flying  back,  '  like 
a  fluttered  bird,'  left  no  room  for  doubt.  They  must  quit  them- 
selves like  men  if  they  would  hope  to  see  England  and  their  wives 
again. 

It  would  appear  that  they  did  so  quit  themselves.  Grumbling 
and  mutiny  were  forgotten  as  the  little  Dainty  stood  out  to  fight 

VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  35 


546   SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS:  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

with  a  gallant,  defiant  blare  of  trumpets,  as  Richard  Hawkins,  very 
smiling  and  debonnaire  I  am  most  certain,  went  the  rounds  with  his 
officers  to  see  that  all  was  ready  for  battle.  I  picture  him  stepping 
briskly  in  his  brilliant,  fashionable  armour,  with  words  of  hope 
and  cheer  for  all.  Soon  enough  that  gay  armour  was  to  be  dinted 
and  stained  and  dimmed,  but  at  least  it  would  seem  that  the  spirit 
of  the  man  within  it  never  faltered. 

He  tells  us,  in  his  pedantical  fashion,  that  he  occupied  himself 
in  clearing  the  decks,  lacing  the  nettings,  making  of  bulwarks, 
arming  the  tops,  fitting  the  waist  cloathes,  tallowing  pikes,  sling- 
ing the  yards,  placing  and  ordering  his  people,  &c. — leaving  the 
artillery  and  muskets  to  the  care  of  the  gunner  and  his  mates.  It 
would  have  been  far  better  if  he  had  not  trusted  that  vain  boaster. 
Richard  Hawkins  was  to  find,  when  the  battle  joined,  that  no 
cartridges,  despite  his  orders,  were  in  readiness,  that  the  big  guns 
must  be  loaded  with  the  powder  ladle  (a  dangerous  expedient  in 
so  hot  a  fight),  and  that  some  of  them  had  actually  been  charged 
with  the  shot  before  the  powder.  '  The  instruments  of  fire  '  were 
missing,  and  the  brass  balls  of  artificial  fire  had  been  so  stored  by 
this  crass  fool  of  a  gunner  that  the  sea  water  had  spoiled  them. 
But  for  the  incapacity  of  this  man  it  is  well  probable  that  the 
Dainty  would  have  taken  the  two  Spaniards,  or  at  least  have  made 
good  her  escape.  There  is  more  than  sufficient  warrant  for  the 
theory.  The  gunner  had  served  some  years  upon  the  Spanish 
ship,  the  Tercera  (for  it  was  always  the  Spanish  habit  to  employ 
foreign  gunners),  and  it  may  even  have  been,  as  Sir  Richard  hints, 
that  he  was  a  traitor.  At  the  least  he  was  mischievously  incapable. 
Beforehand  he  had  boasted  how  he  would  sink  the  enemy's  ships, 
now  with  them  close  aboard  Sir  Richard  says  that  '  he  seemed 
a  man  without  life  or  soule.  So  the  Spanish  admiral's  ship  nearing 
us,  I  and  the  master  were  forced  to  play  the  gunners.' 

And  to  some  effect.  The  Dainty's  stern  pieces  were  unprimed, 
as  were  most  of  those  to  leeward,  but  one  of  the  latter  was  loaded  and 
its  discharge  so  hulled  the  Capitana  that  she  had  five  or  six  feet  of 
water  in  her  hold  before  her  people  suspected. 

But  that  leak  was  checked,  and  now  there  began  '  a  murder 
great  and  grim.'  The  Spaniards  had  double  the  weight  of  ordnance, 
and  at  least  ten  times  the  number  of  men,  but  the  English  fought 
with  the  contemptuous  confidence  of  men  used  to  such  long  odds. 
To  Hawkins'  surprise  the  Spaniards  came  to  close  grips  at  once, 
grinding  down  upon  the  lee  quarter  of  the  Dainty,  and  attempting 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS  :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.    547 

to  overwhelm  her  with  a  flood  of  boarders.  But  they  were  met 
with  such  joyous  savagery,  with  such  a  flame  of  musketry  and  rush 
of  pikes,  that  this  method  of  attack  appeared  unprofitable,  and  they 
drew  off  within  musket  shot  to  begin  a  smashing  action  of  artillery. 
On  the  Capitana  was  an  English  gunner,  who  had  curried  favour 
with  his  employers  by  boasting  that  he  would  sink  the  Dainty  with 
his  first  shot.  But  as  he  trained  his  piece,  the  head  of  the  renegade 
was  carried  away  by  a  ball  from  the  Dainty.  Richard  Hawkins 
produces  a  sententious  Latin  tag  that  bears  upon  this  fitting  reward 
of  treachery. 

Now  the  pinnace  drew  up  to  add  her  crew  to  the  Dainty 's,  and, 
as  they  clambered  aboard,  the  Galizabra  closed  in  once  more  with 
another  attempt  at  boarding.  But  the  experiment  was  again 
disastrous. 

It  is  Richard  Hawkins'  boast  that,  thanks  to  her  bulkheads  and 
the  cross  fire  from  her  palisades  and  other  deck  defences,  the 
Dainty,  like  the  Revenge,  was  impregnable  against  boarders,  so  long 
as  twenty  of  her  men  were  upon  their  feet.  And  he  made  good  the 
boast.  The  Dainty's  gallery  had  been  shattered,  in  a  little  while 
with  crippled  spars  she  had  lost  the  weather  gage,  and  her  combined 
crew  was  only  seventy-five,  men  and  boys,  but  almost  every  one  of 
those  seventy-five  was  a  fighter,  full  of  sinful  pride  and  gay  lust  for 
battle.  Upon  the  enemy's  ships,  thanks  to  the  crippling  Spanish 
methods,  the  actual  sailors  were  unarmed  drudges,  ill-treated  by  the 
soldiery. 

As  the  sun  dropped  down  the  Spaniards  for  the  third  time  tried 
to  lay  the  Dainty  aboard.  They  had  planned  to  board  simultan- 
eously, one  beyond  the  other,  but  the  captain  of  the  Galizabra, 
eager  for  distinction,  outpaced  his  consort,  He  paid  dearly  for  his 
daring.  His  vessel  was  a  '  race-ship,'  deep  waisted  and  without 
deck  defences.  The  English  waited  her  coming  in  grim  silence, 
and  then,  as  she  swung  broadside  on  to  the  Dainty  and  grappled, 
they  loosed  their  held  fire  with  a  yell.  The  Spaniards,  crowding  to 
board,  went  down  in  shrieking  heaps  and  swathes  before  bullets, 
fireworks  and  good  English  arrows,  and  in  a  moment  their  decks  were 
swept  clean  save  for  the  dead  and  maimed.  The  rest  had  cowered 
below  before  that  blasting  fire.  Had  Richard  Hawkins  been  able 
to  spare  men  to  board  her  in  return,  she  must  have  yielded.  But 
now  the  Spanish  admiral  surged  down  to  aid  his  consort,  and  poured 
aboard  her  men  who  made  haste  to  cut  loose  the  grapples.  The 
Galizabra  and  Capitana  '  drew  off  with  their  dead  and  their  shame/ 

35—2 


548    SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS:  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

having  had  more  than  their  fill  of  boarding  these  mad  devils,  and 
taking  up  position  upon  the  weather  quarter  of  the  Dainty  they 
began  to  batter  her  without  intermission  with  their  heavy  guns. 
And  at  intervals  they  hailed  the  English  captain,  inviting  him  to 
surrender  a  buena  guerra  (upon  honourable  terms).  They  little 
knew  their  man. 

The  Dainty  had  won  much  honour,  but  she  was  paying  a  heavy 
price.  The  Spaniards,  crowded  with  men,  could  afford  severe 
losses,  but  she  had  none  to  replace  those  who  fell.  Many  of  her 
few  were  already  down,  and  Richard  Hawkins  himself  had  received 
no  less  than  six  wounds,  two  of  them  severe.  These  latter  he  had 
taken  whilst  casting  with  his  own  hands  a  bowline  over  the  royal 
standard  of  the  Galizabra,  and  endeavouring  to  secure  the  trophy. 
He  was  faint  with  loss  of  blood,  and  indeed  believed  himself  to  be 
mortally  wounded,  but  whilst  his  injuries  were  being  dressed  he 
was  stung  to  a  rage  that  served  to  renew  his  strength.  For  his 
captain  and  other  officers  came  to  him  with  the  proposal  that, 
considering  their  losses  and  the  crippled  condition  of  the  Dainty,  they 
should  accept  the  Spaniards'  offer  of  buena  guerra. 

Sir  Richard,  writing  thirty  years  after,  records  that  he  answered 
this  miserable  suggestion  with  a  fiery,  well-reasoned  speech,  some 
two  long  pages  in  length. 

'  Great  is  the  cross  which  Almighty  God  hath  suffered  to  come 
upon  me ;  that,  assaulted  by  our  professed  enemies,  and  by  them 
wounded,  as  you  see,  in  body,  lying  gasping  for  breath,  those  whom 
I  reputeth  for  my  friends  to  fight  with  me  .  .  .  are  they  who 
first  draw  their  swords  against  me,  are  they  which  wound  my  heart, 
in  giving  me  up  into  mine  enemies'  hands  !  Whence  proceedeth 
this  madness  ?  Had  they  forgotten  the  fate  of  John  Oxenham 
and  others  who  had  yielded  upon  composition,  trusting  to  the 
word  of  a  Spaniard  ?  Nulla  fides  est  servanda  cum  hereticis  I  Came 
we  into  the  South  Seas  to  put  out  flags  of  truce  ?  .  .  .'  And  so 
forth,  with  much  unction. 

Perhaps  he  really  answered  with  such  rhetoric,  or  perhaps,  as 
seems  more  probable,  he  merely  cursed  at  them  in  good  coarse 
English.  At  the  least,  he  so  wrought  upon  them  that  they  per- 
ceived their  error  and  made  for  the  deck  once  more.  And  with 
them  went  Richard  Hawkins,  with  one  arm  entirely  useless,  with 
a  dangerous  wound  in  the  neck,  very  sick  at  heart  for  the  loss  of 
the  two  officers  upon  whom  he  had  relied,  but  entirely  resolute 
to  see  this  matter  through.  The  fop  and  the  pedant  were  gone, 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.    549 

and  in  that  hour,  faint  and  dishevelled  but  indomitable,  one  sees 
Dick  Hawkins  at  his  best. 

And  the  fight  went  on.  Through  that  night,  and  the  next  day 
and  night,  and  the  third  day  after,  it  was  continued  without  inter- 
mission, save  that  each  morning,  an  hour  before  dawn,  the  enemy 
edged  a  little  distance  from  the  Dainty  to  repair  damages  and  take 
counsel  for  the  next  move.  Without  those  short  intervals,  which 
were  well  employed,  the  Dainty  must  have  sunk.  She  had  many 
balls  beneath  the  waterline,  and  each  day  her  pumps  were  shot  to 
pieces,  but  always  the  damages  were  repaired  as  far  as  possible  by 
the  weary  men,  and  the  Spaniards  would  renew  the  struggle  to  find 
the  stubborn  English  pirates  utterly  unconquered  still.  Through 
all  that  time  no  man  slept  or  rested,  nor  had  leisure  for  food  except 
to  snatch  a  little  biscuit.  And  always  the  hellish  battering  of  heavy 
guns  went  on. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  the  state  of  the  Dainty's  decks  through 
that  long  struggle.  Men  would  fall  and  he  groaning  where  they 
fell,  until  they  were  thrust  aside  by  those  who  pressed  to  work  the 
fouled  and  kicking  guns.  And  towards  the  end,  although  courage, 
God  knows,  was  never  wanting,  discipline  relaxed  as  Richard 
Hawkins  weakened  under  his  wounds.  He  says  that  after  he  was 
hurt,  '  the  pott  (of  wine  mingled  with  gunpowder)  was  continually 
walking,'  and  the  men,  maddened  with  drink  and  desperation, 
called  foolish  challenges  to  the  Spaniards  and  exposed  themselves 
with  recklessness.  Also  they  had  refused,  as  was  their  way,  to 
cumber  themselves  with  armour,  although  he  had  provided  plenty 
of  light  corselets,  and  so  they  were  at  a  disadvantage  with  the 
Spaniards  who  always  fought  in  proof.  And  the  ripping  splinters 
did  their  work  unchecked,  and  shot  from  fowlers,  swivels  and 
murderers  searched  out  their  bravest,  and  ever  there  were  fewer 
men  upon  their  feet.  But  somehow,  drunken  or  sober,  prudent  or 
foolish,  that  handful  of  sinful  heroes  held  up  the  unequal  fight. 

Upon  the  second  day,  as  the  Galizabra  bore  down  close  upon  the 
Dainty's  quarter,  William  Blanch,  a  master's  mate,  loosed  one  of 
the  stern  pieces  at  her  '  with  a  luckie  hand,'  and  carried  away  her 
mainmast  close  to  the  deck.  Her  consort  bore  up  to  help  her, 
and  the  English,  crowding  what  sail  they  could,  tried  to  draw  off 
close-hauled,  hoping  that  they  had  had  enough.  Richard  Hawkins 
says  that  they  ought  to  have  put  the  Dainty  before  the  wind  and 
made  a  running  fight  of  it,  but  he  himself  was  '  in  a  manner  senseless 
from  his  wounds,'  and  in  a  little  while  the  two  Spaniards  had 


550   SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS :  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN. 

contrived  to  take  the  weather  gage  once  more,  and  their  heavy 
guns  were  thundering  at  close  range. 

It  was  the  third  day  of  the  fight,  and  the  end  was  near  at  last. 
Richard  Hawkins  had  been  carried  below  half -fain  ting,  still  mutter- 
ing hoarsely  that  there  must  be  no  surrender,  and  the  Dainty  lay 
like  a  helpless,  sullenly  heaving  log  upon  the  oily  sea.  Her  masts 
were  gone  by  the  board,  her  pumps  shot  to  pieces,  there  were  seven 
or  eight  feet  of  water  in  her  hold.  And  the  glowing  tropic  sun 
gleamed  callously  upon  the  dark-red  rivulets  that  dribbled 
sluggishly  from  her  scuppers.  The  end  was  very  near,  for  in  a 
little  while  she  must  surely  sink,  but  still  the  Spaniards  did  not 
attempt  to  lay  her  aboard  again.  They  did  not  judge  it  to  be 
prudent.  They  knew  well  that  behind  those  splintered  bulwarks 
there  still  crouched  some  few  men,  unpleasant  men  maddened 
with  wounds  and  liquor  and  weariness,  who  clutched  their  pikes 
and  dared  them  huskily  to  come  to  grips.  They  themselves  had 
lost  hideously,  although  the  Spanish  account  lies  light-heartedly 
about  their  losses,  and  the  Capitana's  foremast  was  wounded  in 
two  places.  So  they  renewed  their  offer  of  buena  guerra,  and  this 
time  it  might  scarcely  be  refused. 

Richard  Hawkins  was  roused  from  his  stupor,  and,  although  he 
conceived  himself  to  be  dying,  he  could  still  play  the  man,  could 
still  think  for  his  men.  He  sent  a  message,  demanding  some  pledge 
that  should  guarantee  the  lives  and  freedom  of  his  crew.  In  return 
the  Spanish  admiral  sent  his  glove,  taking  his  solemn  oath  that  all 
the  English  should  be  sent  back  to  their  own  country  at  the 
earliest  opportunity,  and  then  the  long  stubborn  resistance  ended. 
The  boats  of  all  three  ships  were  shattered,  but  the  Spaniards 
brought  their  craft  alongside  and  boarded  the  sinking  Dainty, 
crying  out  like  good  sportsmen,  '  Buena  guerra  f  Buena  guerra ! 
To-day  to  me,  to-morrow  to  thee  !  '  An  officer,  specially  sent  for 
the  purpose,  had  the  English  captain  carried  to  the  Spanish  admiral, 
who  received  him  with  tears  in  his  eyes  and  words  of  chivalrous 
praise  and  consolation.  It  was  certainly  no  fault  of  Don  Beltran  de 
Castro,  a  splendid  type  of  gallant  Spanish  gentleman,  that  the 
pledges  he  had  given  to  his  prisoner  were  broken  in  a  fashion  so 
shameful. 

For  the  Inquisition  claimed  Richard  Hawkins,  and,  although  he 
escaped  by  a  little  the  honour  of  martyrdom,  yet  he  languished  for 
ten  years  in  Spanish  prisons.  He  was  ransomed  at  last  for  12,000?., 
and  came  home  to  be  knighted  for  his  valour  and  made  Vice- 


SIR  RICHARD  HAWKINS:  THE  COMPLETE  SEAMAN.    551 

Admiral  of  Devon  and  a  Privy  Councillor.  (And  in  those  un 
sophisticated  days  knighthood  was  not  purchaseable,  was  rather 
held  to  be  the  highest  honour  that  a  man  could  win.)  There  in 
Devon  he  lived  for  twenty  years,  happy  and  fairly  prosperous,  one 
may  believe,  with  his  wife  and  children.  And  if  his  last  years  were 
darkened  by  the  disastrous  ill  success  of  the  expedition  against  the 
Algerine  pirates  in  which  he  served  as  Vice- Admiral,  if  through  all 
his  life  he  may  be  said  to  have  achieved  no  striking  triumph,  yet 
his  fame  should  shine  bright  across  the  gulf  of  years.  For  there 
are  failures  and  defeats  that  are  more  precious  than  brilliant 
victories.  It  may  even  seem  to  you,  as  you  stand  by  Deptford 
Keach  to-day  and  watch  the  ships  that  pass  and  fade  into  the 
crimson  sunset  glare,  that  all  the  gold  and  jewels  brought  home  in 
triumph  from  the  Spanish  main  by  Drake  and  old  John  Hawkins 
are  of  little  worth  beside  the  splendid,  defiant  '  failure '  of  Sir 
Richard  Grenville's  last  immortal  fight ;  and  you  may  think  that 
surely,  in  that  dim  Valhalla  far  below  the  waves  where  valiant 
fighting  ships  drowse  through  the  peaceful  years,  the  shattered, 
dismasted,  blood-wet  Dainty  could  claim  by  her  three  days'  fight  a 
place  not  far  in  honour  below  that  of  the  Revenge  herself. 

JOHN  BARNETT. 


552 


THE  IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

NEVER  is  earth  more  empty  of  life  than  during  the  early  days  of 
March  before  the  first  of  the  migrants  have  returned  to  us.  The 
brighter  sun  serves  only  to  show  the  nakedness  of  nature  and 
make  us  conscious  of  its  silence.  For  since  the  autumn,  through 
all  the  cold,  hungry  winter  months,  the  destroyer  has  been  busy 
among  the  creatures  that  stayed  behind  when  half  the  bird  popula- 
tion forsook  the  land ;  the  survivors  now  seem  but  a  remnant. 
To-day,  with  a  bleak  wind  blowing  from  the  north-east,  the  sun 
shining  from  a  hard  pale  grey  sky,  the  wide  grass  and  ploughed 
fields  seem  emptier  and  more  desolate  than  ever,  and  tired  of  my 
vain  search  for  living  things  I  am  glad  to  get  to  the  shelter  of  a 
small  isolated  copse,  by  a  tiny  stream,  at  the  lower  end  of  a  long 
sloping  field.  It  can  hardly  be  called  a  copse  since  it  is  composed 
of  no  more  than  about  a  dozen  or  twenty  old  wide-branching  oak 
trees  growing  in  a  thicket  of  thorn,  hazel,  holly,  and  bramble 
bushes.  It  is  the  best  place  on  such  a  day,  and  finding  a  nice  spot 
to  stand  in,  well  sheltered  from  the  wind,  I  set  myself  to  watch  the 
open  space  before  me.  It  is  shut  in  by  huge  disordered  brambles, 
and  might  very  well  tempt  any  living  creature  with  spring  in  its 
blood,  moving  uneasily  among  the  roots,  to  come  forth  to  sun 
itself.  The  ground  is  scantily  clothed  with  pale  dead  grass  mixed 
with  old  fallen  leaves  and  here  and  there  a  few  tufts  of  dead  rag- 
wort and  thistle.  But  in  a  long  hour's  watching  I  see  nothing  ;— 
not  a  rabbit,  nor  even  a  woodmouse,  or  a  field  or  bank  vole,  where 
at  other  seasons  I  have  seen  them  come  out,  two  or  three  at  a  time, 
and  scamper  over  the  rustling  leaves  in  pursuit  of  each  other. 
Nor  do  I  hear  anything ;  not  a  bird  nor  an  insect,  and  no  sound 
but  the  whish  and  murmur  of  the  wind  in  the  stiff  holly  leaves  and 
the  naked  grey  and  brown  and  purple  branches.  I  remember  that 
on  my  very  last  visit  this  same  small  thicket  teemed  with  life, 
visible  and  audible  ;  it  was  in  its  spring  foliage,  exquisitely  fresh 
and  green,  sparkling  with  dewdrops  and  bright  with  flowers  about 
the  roots — ground  ivy,  anemone,  primrose,  and  violet.  I  listened 
to  the  birds  until  the  nightingale  burst  into  song  and  I  could  there- 
after attend  to  no  other.  For  he  was  newly  arrived,  and  although 


THE   IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  553 

we  have  him  with  us  every  year,  invariably,  on  the  first  occasion 
of  hearing  him  in  spring,  the  strain  affects  us  as  something  wholly 
new  in  our  experience,  a  fresh  revelation  of  nature's  infinite  rich- 
ness and  beauty. 

I  know  that  in  a  few  weeks'  time  he  will  be  back  at  the  same 
spot ;  in  this  case  we  do  not  say  '  barring  accidents  '  ;  they  are  not 
impossible,  but  are  too  rare  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  Yet 
it  is  a  strange  thing !  He  ceased  singing  about  June  20,  nearly 
nine  months  ago  ;  he  vanished  about  the  end  of  September  ;  yet 
we  may  confidently  look  and  listen  for  him  in  about  six  weeks 
from  to-day  !  When  he  left  us,  so  far  as  we  know,  he  travelled, 
by  day  or  night,  but  in  any  case  unseen  by  even  the  sharpest  human 
eyes,  south  to  the  Channel  and  France  ;  then  on  through  the  whole 
length  of  that  dangerous  country  of  little  bird- eating  people  ;  then 
across  Spain  to  another  sea  ;  then  across  Algeria  and  Tripoli  to  the 
Zahara  and  Egypt,  and,  whether  by  the  Nile  or  along  the  shores 
of  the  Ked  Sea,  on  to  more  southern  countries  still.  He  travels 
his  four  thousand  miles  or  more  not  by  a  direct  route,  but  now 
west  and  now  south,  with  many  changes  of  direction  until  he  finds 
his  winter  home.  We  cannot  say  just  where  our  bird  is ;  for  it  is 
probable  that  in  that  distant  region  where  his  six  months'  absence 
are  spent  the  area  occupied  by  the  nightingales  of  British  race  may 
be  larger,  perhaps  two  or  three  times  as  large,  as  this  island.  The 
nightingale  that  was  singing  in  this  thicket  eleven  months  ago  may 
now  be  in  Abyssinia,  or  in  British  East  Africa,  or  in  the  Congo 
State. 

And  even  now  at  that  distance  from  his  true  home — this  very 
clump  where  the  sap  is  beginning  to  move  in  the  grey  naked  oaks 
ind  brambles  and  thorns,  something  stirs  in  him  too  :  not  memory 
tor  passion  perhaps,  yet  there  may  be  something  of  both  in  it — an 
nherited  memory  and  the  unrest  and  passion  of  migration,  the 
mperishable  and  overmastering  ache  and  desire  which  will  in  due 
ime  bring  him  safely  back  through  innumerable  dangers  over  that 
mmense  distance  of  barren  deserts  and  of  forests,  of  mountain 
and  seas,  and  savage  and  civilised  lands. 

It  is  not  strange  to  find  that  down  to  the  age  of  science,  when 
;he  human  mind  had  grown  accustomed  to  look  for  the  explanation 
•f  all  phenomena  in  matter  itself,  an  exception  was  made  of  the 
annual  migration  of  birds,  and  the  belief  remained  (even  in  Sir 
Isaac  Newton's  mind)  that  the  impelling  and  guiding  force  was  a 
supernatural  one.  The  ancients  did  not  know  what  became  of 


554  THE   IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

their  nightingale  when  he  left  them,  for  in  Greece,  too,  he  is 
a  strict  migrant,  but  his  re-appearance  year  after  year,  at  the 
identical  spot,  was  itself  a  marvel  and  mystery,  as  it  still  is, 
and  they  came  inevitably  to  think  it  was  the  same  bird  which  they 
listened  to.  We  have  it  in  the  epitaph  of  Callimachus,  in  Cory's 
translation  : 

They  told  me,  Heraclitus,  they  told  me  you  were  dead  ; 

They  brought  me  bitter  news  to  hear  and  bitter  tears  to  shed  ; 

I  wept  when  I  remembered  how  often  you  and  I 

Had  tired  the  sun  with  talking  and  sent  him  down  the  sky. 

And  now  that  you  are  lying,  my  dear  old  Carian  guest, 

A  handful  of  grey  ashes,  long,  long  ago  at  rest, 

Still  are  thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightingales,  awake, 

For  death  he  taketh  all  away,  but  these  he  cannot  take. 

It  is  possible  to  read  the  thought  in  the  original  differently,  that 
immortality  is  given  to  the  song,  not  the  bird.  As  one  of  my 
friends  who  have  made  literal  translations  for  me  has  it :  '  Yet  thy 
nightingale's  notes  live,  whereon  Hades,  ravisher  of  all  things, 
shall  not  lay  a  hand,'  or  '  But  thy  nightingales  (or  nightingales' 
songs)  live  ;  over  these  Hades,  the  all-destroyer,  throws  not  a 
hand.' 

Keats,  too,  plays  with  the  thought  in  his  famous  ode  : 

Thou  wast  not  born  for  death,  immortal  Bird  ! 

No  hungry  generations  tread  thee  down  ; 
The  voice  I  hear  this  passing  night  was  heard 

In  ancient  days  by  emperor  and  clown  : 
Perhaps  the  self -same  song  that  found  a  path 
Through  the  sad  heart  of  Ruth,  when  sick  for  home 
She  stood  in  tears  amid  the  alien  corn  ; 

The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charin'd  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. 

His  imagination  carries  him  too  far,  since  the  '  self-same  song '  or 
the  song  by  the  same  bird,  could  never  be  heard  in  more  than  one 
spot — at  Hampstead,  let  us  say ;  for  though  he  may  travel  far  and 
spend  six  months  of  every  year  in  Abyssinia  or  some  other  remote 
region,  he  sings  at  home  only.  Of  all  the  British  poets  who  have 
attempted  it,  George  Meredith  is  greatest  in  describing  the  song  , 
which  has  so  strong  an  effect  on  us  ;  but  how  much  greater  is  Keats  j 
who  makes  no  such  attempt,  but  in  impassioned  stanza  after  stanza 
of  the  supremest  beauty,  renders  its  effect  on  the  soul.  And  so 
with  prose  descriptions ;  we  turn  wearily  from  all  such  vain  efforts 
to  find  an  ever-fresh  pleasure  in  the  familiar  passage  in  Izaak 


THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  555 

Walton,  his  simple  expressions  of  delight  in  the  singer  '  breathing 
such  sweet  loud  music  out  of  her  little  instrumental  throat,  that  it 
might  make  mankind  to  think  that  miracles  are  not  ceased.' 

The  subject  of  the  nightingale's  superiority  as  a  singer  does  not, 
however,  now  concern  us  so  much  as  its  distribution  in  England, 
and  its  return  each  year  to  the  same  spot.  To  this  small  isolated 
thicket,  let  us  say,  the  very  bird  known  here  in  past  years,  now 
away  perhaps  in  Abyssinia,  will  be  here  again  about  April  8 — 
alone,  for  he  will  not  brook  the  presence  of  another  one  of  his 
species  in  his  small  dominion,  and  the  female  with  which  he  will 
mate  will  not  appear  until  about  a  week  or  ten  days  later. 

How  natural,  then,  for  the  listener  to  its  song  to  imagine  it  the 
same  bird  he  has  heard  at  the  same  place  in  previous  years  !  Even 
the  oldest  rustic,  whose  life  has  been  passed  in  the  neighbourhood, 
who  as  a  small  boy  robbed  the  five  olive-coloured  eggs  every  season 
to  make  a  '  necklace  '  of  them  with  other  coloured  eggs  as  an 
ornament  for  the  cottage  parlour  ;  whose  sons  took  them  in  their 
childhood  for  the  same  purpose,  and  whose  grandchildren  perhaps 
rob  them  now — even  he  will  think  the  bird  he  will  listen  to  by-and- 
bye  the  same  nightingale  of  all  these  years.  But  this  notion  is, 
no  doubt,  strongest  in  those  parts  of  the  country  where  the  bird  is 
more  thinly  distributed.  Here,  on  the  borders  of  Surrey  and 
Hampshire,  we  are  in  the  very  heart  of  the  nightingale  country, 
and  in  these  localities  where  two  birds  are  frequently  heard  singing 
against  each  other  and  are  sometimes  seen  fighting,  it  might  be 
supposed  that  when  the  bird  inhabiting  a  particular  copse  or 
thicket  comes  to  an  end,  another  will  quickly  take  the  vacant 
place.  The  three  counties  of  Hampshire,  Surrey,  and  Kent  abound 
most  in  nightingales  ;  they  are  a  little  less  numerous  in  Sussex  and 
Berkshire ;  but  these  five  counties  (or  six  if  we  add  Buckinghamshire) 
undoubtedly  contain  more  nightingales  than  all  the  rest  of  England 
together.  The  bird,  coming  to  us  by  way  of  France,  travels  north, 
each  to  his  ancestral  place,  the  majority  finding  their  homes  in  the 
south  of  England,  on  its  south-eastern  side  ;  the  others  going  north 
and  west  are  distributed  more  thinly.  On  a  map  coloured  red  to 
show  the  distribution,  the  counties  named  above  would  show  the 
deepest  colour  over  a  greater  part  of  the  entire  area  ;  while  north 
and  west  there  would  be  a  progressive  decrease  in  the  depth  over 
the  south-western  counties,  the  home  counties  north  of  the  Thames, 
the  Midlands,  East  Anglia,  and  north  to  Shropshire  and  South 
Yorkshire,  where  it  would  disappear.  And  on  the  west  side  of 


556  THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

England  it  would  finish  on  the  Welsh  border  and  in  East  Devon. 
In  all  of  Devonshire  west  of  the  valley  of  the  Exe,  with  Cornwall ; 
in  practically  all  Wales,  and  Scotland  and  Ireland,  there  are  no 
nightingales. 

It  is  a  singular  distribution,  a  puzzling  one  ;  for  why  is  it  that 
the  blackcap,  garden  warbler,  wood-wren,  and  other  delicate 
migrants  who  come  to  us  by  the  same  route  extend  their  range  so 
much  further  north  and  west  ?  We  can  only  say  that  the  nightin- 
gale's range  is  more  restricted,  but  not  by  climatic  conditions,  and 
that  he  is  more  local ;  in  other  words,  that  we  don't  know.  Some 
have  imagined  that  he  is  a  delicate  feeder  and  goes  only  where  he 
can  find  the  food  that  pleases  him  ;  others,  that  he  inhabits  where 
cowslips  grow  kindly  ;  still  others,  that  he  seeks  a  spot  where  there 
is  an  echo.  These  are  but  a  few  of  many  fancies  and  fables  about 
the  nightingale. 

Not  only  is  it  a  singular  distribution,  but  in  a  way  unfortunate, 
since  every  one  would  like  to  hear  the  nightingale — the  summer 
voice  which  has,  over  and  above  the  pleasing  associations  of  the 
swallow  and  cuckoo  and  turtle-dove,  an  intrinsic  beauty  surpassing 
that  of  all  other  bird  voices.  As  it  is,  a  large  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation of  these  islands  never  hear  it.  In  districts  where  it  is 
thinly  distributed,  as  in  Somerset  and  East  Devon,  there  will  be 
perhaps  only  one  nightingale  in  an  entire  parish,  and  the  villagers 
will  be  proud  of  it  and  perhaps  boast  that  they  are  better  off  than 
their  neighbours  for  miles  around. 

I  was  staying  one  late  April  at  a  village  near  the  Severn  when 
one  Sunday  morning  the  working  man  I  was  lodging  with  informed 
me  that  he  had  heard  of  the  arrival  of  their  nightingale  (there  was 
but  one),  and  together  we  set  out  to  find  it.  He  led  me  through 
a  wood  and  over  a  hill,  then  down  to  a  small  thicket  by  a  running 
stream,  about  two  miles  from  home.  This  was,  he  said,  the  exact 
spot  where  he  had  heard  it  in  previous  years  ;  and  before  we  had 
stood  there  five  minutes,  silently  listening,  we  were  rewarded  by 
the  sound  we  had  come  for,  issuing  from  a  thorny  tangle  not  more 
than  a  dozen  yards  away — a  prelusive  sound  almost  startling  in 
its  suddenness  and  power,  as  of  vigorous,  rapidly  repeated  strokes 
on  a  great  golden  wire. 

And  as  in  this  one,  so  it  is  in  hundreds  of  parishes  all  over  the 
country  where  the  nightingale  is  thinly  scattered.  Each  home  of 
the  bird  is  known  to  every  man  in  the  parish  ;  he  can  find  it  easily 
as,  when  thirsty,  he  can  find  the  spring  of  clear  water  hidden  away 


THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  557 

somewhere  among  the  rocks  and  trees  of  his  native  place  ;  and  the 
song,  too,  is  a  fountain  of  beautiful  sound,  crystal,  pure  and  spark- 
ling, as  it  gushes  from  the  mysterious  inexhaustible  reservoir,  re- 
freshing to  the  soul  and  a  joy  for  ever. 

The  loss  of  one  of  these  nightingales  where  there  is  but  one, 
is  a  sorrow  to  the  villagers,  especially  to  the  young  lovers,  who  are 
great  admirers  of  the  bird  and  take  a  peculiar  delight  in  listening 
to  its  evening  performance.  For  it  does  sometimes  happen  that 
the  nightingale  whose  '  solitary  song '  is  the  delight  of  a  village, 
disappears  from  his  place  and  returns  no  more.  The  only  explana- 
tion is  that  the  faithful  bird  has  at  length  met  with  his  end,  after 
a  dozen  or  twenty  years,  or  as  many  years  as  any  old  man  can 
remember.  The  most  singular  case  of  the  loss  of  a  bird  I  have 
come  across  was  in  East  Anglia,  in  a  place  where  there  were  very 
few  nightingales.  In  my  rambles  I  came  to  a  little  rustic  village, 
remote  from  railroads  and  towns,  which  has  a  small,  ancient,  curious- 
looking  church  standing  by  itself  in  a  green  meadow  half  a  mile 
away.  I  was  told  that  the  rector  kept  the  key  himself,  and  that 
he  was  something  of  a  recluse,  a  studious  learned  man,  Doctor  of 
Divinity,  and  so  on. 

Accordingly  I  went  to  the  rectory,  a  charming  house  standing 
in  its  own  extensive  grounds  with  lawns,  shrubbery,  large  garden 
and  shade  trees,  and  a  wood  or  grove  of  ancient  oaks  separating 
it  from  the  village.  I  found  the  rector  digging  in  his  garden  and 
could  not  help  seeing  that  he  was  not  too  well  pleased  at  my  request ; 
but  when  I  begged  him  not  to  leave  his  task  and  promised  to  bring 
back  the  key,  if  he  would  let  me  have  it,  he  threw  down  his  spade 
and  said  '  No,  he  must  accompany  me  to  the  church  himself  as 
there  were  points  about  it  which  would  require  to  be  explained.' 

There  were  no  monuments,  and  when  we  had  looked  at  the 
interior  and  he  had  pointed  out  the  most  interesting  features,  he 
came  out  and  sat  down  in  the  porch. 

'  Are  you  an  archaeologist  or  what  ?  '  he  said. 

I  replied  that  I  was  nothing  so  important,  that  I  merely  took 
an  ordinary  interest  in  old  churches.  I  was  mainly  interested  in 
living  things — a  sort  of  naturalist. 

Then  he  got  up  and  walked  back.  '  In  birds  ?  '  he  asked 
presently. 

'  Yes,  especially  in  birds.' 

'  And  what  do  you  think  about  omens — do  you  believe  in 
them  ?  ' 


558  THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

The  question  made  me  curious,  and  I  replied  with  caution  that 
I  would  tell  him  if  he  would  first  tell  me  the  particular  case  he  had 
in  his  mind  just  then. 

He  was  silent ;  then  when  we  had  got  back  to  the  rectory  he 
took  me  round  the  house  to  where  a  large  French  window  opened 
on  the  lawn  and  a  shrubbery  beyond.  '  This,'  he  said,  '  is  the 
drawing-room,  and  my  wife,  who  was  very  delicate,  used  always 
to  sit  there  behind  the  window  on  account  of  the  aspect.  We  had 
a  nightingale  then ;  we  had  always  had  him  since  I  came  to  this 
parish  many  years  ago.  He  was  a  most  beautiful  singer,  and  every 
morning,  as  long  as  the  singing  time  lasted,  he  would  perch  on  that 
small  tree  on  the  edge  of  the  lawn,  directly  before  the  window,  and 
sing  for  an  hour  or  two  at  a  stretch.  We  were  very  proud  of  our 
bird  and  thought  him  better  than  any  nightingale  we  had  ever 
heard.  And  he  was  the  only  one  in  the  neighbourhood ;  you  would 
have  had  to  go  a  mile  to  find  another. 

'  One  morning  about  eleven  o'clock  I  was  writing  in  my  study 
at  the  other  side  of  the  house,  when  my  wife  came  in  to  me  looking 
pale  and  distressed,  and  said  a  strange  thing  had  happened.  She 
was  sitting  at  her  work  behind  the  closed  window  when  a  little  bird 
had  dashed  violently  against  the  glass  ;  then  it  had  flown  a  little 
distance  away  and,  turning,  dashed  back  against  the  glass  as  at 
first ;  and  again  it  flew  off,  only  to  turn  and  strike  the  glass  even 
more  violently  than  before ;  then  she  saw  it  fall  fluttering  down 
and  feared  it  had  injured  itself  badly.  I  went  quickly  out  to  look, 
and  found  the  bird,  our  nightingale,  lying  gasping  and  shivering  on 
the  stone  step  beneath  the  window.  1  picked  it  up  and  held  it  to 
the  air  in  my  open  hand  ;  but  in  two  or  three  seconds  it  was  dead. 

'  I  lost  my  wife  shortly  afterwards.  That  was  five  years  ago, 
and  from  that  time  we  have  had  no  nightingale  here.' 

It  was  not  strange  that  the  tragedy  of  the  little  bird  had  made 
a  very  deep  impression  on  him  ;  that  the  death  of  his  wife  coming 
shortly  afterwards  had  actually  caused  him  to  think  there  was 
something  out  of  the  natural  in  it.  But  I  could  not  say  that  I  was 
of  his  opinion,  though  I  could  believe  that  the  acute  distress  she 
had  suffered  at  witnessing  such  a  thing,  and  possibly  the  effect  of 
thinking  too  much  about  it,  had  aggravated  her  malady  and  perhaps 
even  hastened  her  end. 

For  the  rest,  the  accident  to  the  nightingale,  which  deprived  the 
rectory  and  the  village  of  its  singer,  is  not  an  uncommon  one  among 
birds ;  our  windows  as  well  as  our  overhead  wires  are  a  danger  to 


THE   IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  559 

them.  I  have  seen  a  small  bird  on  a  good  many  occasions  dash 
itself  against  a  window-pane ;  and,  in  one  instance,  at  a  country 
house  in  Ireland,  the  bird,  a  chiffchaff,  came  violently  against  my 
bedroom  window  twice  when  I  stood  in  the  room  watching  it.  The 
attraction  was  a  fly  crawling  up  the  pane  inside.  But  this  explana- 
tion does  not  fit  the  case  of  the  nightingale  with  other  cases  I  have 
observed ;  he  is  not  like  the  warblers  and  the  pied  wagtail  (a 
frequent  striker  against  window-glass)  a  pursuer  of  flies.  No  doubt 
birds  are  sometimes  dazzled  and  confused,  or  hypnotised  by  the 
glitter  of  the  glass  with  the  sun  on  it,  and  in  this  case  the  singing- 
bush  of  the  bird  was  directly  before  the  window,  at  a  distance  of 
twenty-five  to  thirty  feet.  The  singer,  motionless  on  his  perch, 
had  looked  too  long  on  it,  and  the  effect  was  such  that  even  after 
two  hurting -blows  on  the  glass  his  little  brain  had  not  recovered 
from  its  twist.  Then  came  its  third  and  fatal  blow. 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  the  nightingale's  curious  distribution 
in  England.  The  facts  appear  to  show  that  practically  the  species 
is  stationary  with  us  ;  that  it  remains  strictly  within  the  old  limits 
and  in  about  the  same  numbers.  Bird-catchers,  birds'-nesting 
boys,  and  cats  extirpate  them  round  the  towns  ;  but,  taking  the 
whole  country,  we  do  not  observe  any  great  changes,  such  as  we 
note  in  some  other  migrants — the  swallow  and  martin,  for  example, 
and,  among  warblers,  to  name  only  one,  the  lesser  whitethroat. 
The  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  each  season's  increase  is  just 
sufficient  to  make  good  the  annual  losses  from  all  natural  causes 
and  from  man's  persecution  ;  that  every  bird  returns  to  the  exact 
spot  where  it  was  hatched,  and  that  no  new  colonies  are  formed  or 
the  range  extended. 

The  practical  question  arises  :  Would  it  not  make  a  difference 
if  the  annual  destruction  through  human  agency  could  be  done  away 
with  ?  I  believe  it  would.  Each  cock  nightingale,  we  find,  takes 
possession  of  his  own  little  domain  on  arrival,  and,  like  his  relation, 
the  robin,  will  not  allow  another  to  share  it  with  him ;  so  that  if 
two  or  more  males  of  a  brood,  or  family,  survive  to  return  to  the 
same  spot,  one  presently  makes  himself  master,  and  the  other  or 
others,  driven  away,  settle  where  they  can,  as  near  by  as  possible. 
It  is  probably  harder  for  the  nightingale  to  go  a  mile  away  from  his 
true  home,  the  very  spot  where  he  was  hatched  and  reared,  than  to 
fly  away  thousands  of  miles  to  his  wintering  place  in  the  autumn. 
The  bird  is  exceedingly  reluctant  to  leave  his  home,  but  if  the  annual 
increase  was  greater,  a  third  greater  let  us  say,  more  and  more  birds 


560  THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

would  be  compelled  to  go  further  afield.  They  would  go  slowly, 
clinging  to  unsuitable  places  near  their  cradle-home  rather  than  go 
far,  but  the  continual  pressure  would  tell  in  the  end  ;  the  best 
places  within  the  nightingale  country,  the  ten  thousand  oak  and 
hazel  copses  and  thickets  which  are  now  untenanted,  would  be 
gradually  occupied,  and  eventually  the  limits  would  be  enlarged. 
That  they  cannot  be  extended  artificially  we  know  from  the  experi- 
ments in  Scotland  of  Sir  John  Sinclair  and  of  others  in  the  north  of 
England,  who  procured  nightingales'  eggs  and  had  them  placed  in 
robins'  nests.  The  young  were  hatched  and  safely  reared,  and,  as 
was  expected,  disappeared  in  the  autumn,  but  they  never  returned. 
We  can  only  assume  that  the  '  inherited  memory  '  of  its  true  home, 
which  was  not  Scotland  nor  Yorkshire,  but  where  the  egg  was  laid, 
was  in  every  bird's  brain  from  the  shell,  that  if  it  ever  survived  to 
return  from  its  far  journey  it  came  faithfully  back  to  the  very  spot 
where  the  egg  had  been  taken. 

That  man's  persecution  tells  seriously  on  the  species  may  be  seen 
from  what  has  happened  on  the  Continent,  even  in  countries  where 
the  hateful  custom  of  eating  nightingales  with  all  small  birds  is 
unknown,  but  where  it  is  greatly  sought  after  as  a  cage  bird. 
Thus,  in  Southern  Germany  the  nightingales  have  been  decreasing 
for  very  many  years,  and  are  now  generally  rare  and  have  been 
wholly  extirpated  in  many  parts.  With  us,  too,  the  drain  on  the 
species  has  been  too  heavy  ;  it  is,  or  has  been,  a  double  drain — that 
of  bird's-nesting  boys  and  of  the  bird-catchers. 

With  regard  to  the  first,  there  is  unfortunately  no  sentiment 
or  superstition  concerning  the  nightingale  as  in  the  case  of  his 
cousin,  the  redbreast — '  yellow  autumn's  nightingale,'  as  it  was 
beautifully  called  by  one  of  the  Elizabethan  poets.  How  effective 
such  a  sentiment  can  be  I  have  witnessed  scores  of  times  when  I 
have  found  that  even  the  most  thoroughgoing  nest  robbers  among 
the  village  children  are  accustomed  to  spare  the  robin's,  because,  as 
they  say,  something  bad  will  happen  to  them,  or  their  hand  will 
wither  up,  if  they  harry  its  nest.  The  nightingale's  eggs,  like  those 
of  the  throstle  and  shufflewing  and  Peggie  whitethroat,  are  taken 
without  a  qualm  ;  they  are,  indeed,  more  sought  after  than  others 
on  account  of  their  beauty  and  unusual  colouring  and  because  they 
are  less  common. 

I  believe  that  the  increase  of  the  birds  each  summer  would  be 
about  a  third  more  than  it  is  but  for  the  loss  from  this  cause  alone. 

The  destruction  caused  by  the  bird-catcher  is  not  nearly  so 


THE   IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  561 

serious  now  as  it  has  been,  even  down  to  the  sixties  of  the  last 
century,  when  a  single  London  bird-catcher  would  trap  his  hundred 
or  two  hundred  cock  nightingales  on  the  birds'  arrival.  And  this 
drain  had  gone  on  for  centuries  ;  at  all  events,  we  find  that  as  far 
back  as  Elizabethan  times  the  nightingale  was  eagerly  sought  after 
as  a  cage  bird.  Willughby,  the  '  Father  of  British  Ornithology,'  in 
his  account  of  the  bird,  gives  eight  times  as  much  space  to  the  subject 
of  its  treatment  in  a  cage  as  to  its  habits  in  a  state  of  nature. 

The  cost  to  a  species  of  caging  is  probably  greater  in  the  case  of 
the  nightingale  than  of  any  other  songster.  It  is  well  known  that  if 
the  bird  is  taken  after  it  has  paired — that  is,  immediately  after  the 
appearance  of  the  females,  a  week  or  ten  days  later  than  the  males — 
it  will  quickly  die  of  grief  in  captivity.  Those  taken  before  the 
females  appear  on  the  scene  may  live  on  to  the  moulting  time,  which 
almost  always  proves  fatal.  Scarcely  one  in  ten  survives  the  first 
year  of  captivity. 

We  may  congratulate  ourselves  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for 
nightingales  to  be  taken  in  numbers  in  this  country,  thanks  to  the 
legislation  of  the  last  fifteen  years,  chiefly  to  Sir  Herbert  Maxwell's 
wise  Act  empowering  the  local  authorities  to  give  additional  pro- 
tection to  wild  birds  and  their  eggs  in  counties  and  boroughs.  It 
has  been  a  long  fight  to  save  our  wild  birds,  and  is  far  from  finished 
yet,  seeing  that  the  law  is  broken  every  day  ;  that  bird-dealers  and 
their  supporters  the  bird-fanciers,  and  their  servants  the  bird- 
catchers,  who  take  the  chief  risk,  are  in  league  to  defeat  the  law. 
Also  that  very  many  country  magistrates  deal  tenderly  with  offenders 
so  long  as  they  respect '  game.'  A  partridge,  and  probably  a  rabbit, 
is  of  more  consequence  to  the  sportsman  on  the  bench  than  a  small, 
plain  brown  bird,  or  than  many  linnets  and  goldfinches.  The  law, 
we  know,  is  effectual  when  it  has  a  strong  public  feeling  on  its  side  ; 
the  feeling  is  not  yet  universal  and  nowhere  strong  enough,  or  as 
strong  as  bird-lovers  would  wish  it  to  be,  but  it  exists  and  has  been 
growing  during  the  last  half  a  century,  and  that  feeling,  supported 
by  the  improved  laws  which  it  has  called  into  being,  is  having  its 
ect.  This  we  know  from  the  increase  during  recent  years  in 
veral  of  the  greatly  persecuted  species.  The  goldfinch  is  a  striking 
pie.  The  excessive  drain  on  this  species,  one  of  the  favourites 
f  the  lover  of  birds  in  cages,  had  made  it  exceedingly  rare  through- 
ut  the  country  twenty  years  ago,  and  in  many  counties  it  was, 
f  not  extinct,  on  the  verge  of  extinction.  Then  a  turn  came  and  a 
y  increase  until  it  has  ceased  to  be  an  uncommon  bird,  and  if 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  36 


562  THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE. 

the  increase  continues  at  the  same  rate  for  another  decade  it  will 
again  be  as  common  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  This  change  has  come 
about  as  a  direct  result  of  the  Orders  giving  it  all  the  year  round 
protection,  obtained  by  the  county  and  borough  councils  throughout 
the  country. 

The  nightingale  has  not  so  increased,  nor  has  it  increased  at  all ; 
it  is  not  so  hardy  a  species,  and  albeit  an  '  immortal  bird,'  and  a 
'  creature  of  ebullient  heart,'  it  probably  does  not  live  nearly  as 
long  as  our  brilliant  little  finch.  Nor  is  it  so  prolific  ;  moreover  it 
nests  upon  or  near  the  ground  at  the  same  spot  year  after  year,  so 
that  its  breeding-place  is  known  to  every  human  being  in  the 
neighbourhood,  and  on  this  account  it  is  more  exposed  to  the  depre- 
dations of  the  nest-robber  than  most  small  birds.  The  increase  of 
such  a  species,  which  must  in  any  case  be  exceedingly  slow,  can  only 
come  about  by  the  fullest  protection  during  the  breeding  time. 
That  is  to  say,  protection  from  human  destroyers  ;  from  wild 
animals  and  other  destructive  agencies  we  cannot  protect  it. 

This  infers  a  considerable  change  in  the  nature  or  habits  of  the 
country  boy,  or  the  growth  of  a  new  sentiment  with  regard  to  this 
species  which  would  be  as  great  a  protection  to  it  as  the  sentiment 
about  our  tame,  familiar,  universal  robin  has  been  to  that  bird. 
But  it  is  not  a  dream.  I  believe  this  change  is  being  wrought  now 
in  our  '  young  barbarians  '  of  the  countryside ;  that  it  is  being 
brought  about  in  many  ways  by  means  of  various  agencies — by  an 
increased  and  increasing  number  of  lovers  of  animals  and  of  nature, 
who  in  towns  and  villages  form  centres  of  personal  influence ;  by 
associations  of  men  and  women,  such  as  the  Bird  Protection,  the 
Selborne,  and  kindred  societies  ;  by  nature  study  in  the  schools 
throughout  the  rural  districts,  and  by  an  abundant  supply  of  cheap 
nature  literature  for  children.  So  cheaply  are  these  books  now 
produced  that  the  very  poorest  children  may  have  them,  and  though 
so  cheap  they  are  exceedingly  good  of  their  kind — well  written,  well  j 
printed,  well  and  often  very  beautifully  illustrated.  I  turn  over  a 
heap  of  these  publications  every  year  and  sigh  to  recall  the  time 
when  I  was  a  '  young  barbarian  '  myself  and  had  no  such  books  to 
instruct  and  delight  me. 

But  I  have  another  and  better  reason  than  the  fact  of  the 
existence  of  all  these  activities  for  my  belief  that  a  change  is  taking 
place  in  the  country  boy's  mind,  that  his  interest  and  pleasure  in  the 
wild  bird  is  growing,  and  that  as  it  grows  he  becomes  less  destructive. 
A  good  deal  of  my  time  is  passed  in  the  villages  in  different  parts  of  the 


THE    IMMORTAL   NIGHTINGALE.  563 

country  ;  I  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  children  and  get  into  the 
confidence  of  many  small  boys  and  find  out  what  they  do  and  think 
and  feel  about  the  birds,  and  it  is  my  experience  that  in  recent 
years  something  new  has  come  into  their  minds — a  sweeter,  humaner 
feeling  about  their  feathered  fellow-creatures.  1  also  take  into 
account  the  spirit  which  is  revealed  in  the  village  school  children's 
essays,  written  for  the  Bird  and  Tree  competitions  established  by 
the  Royal  Society  for  the  Protection  of  Birds.  During  the  last  four 
or  five  years  I  have  had  to  read  many  hundreds  of  these  essays,  each 
dealing  with  one  species  from  the  child's  own  personal  observation, 
and  it  has  proved  a  very  pleasing  task  to  me  because  the  little 
essayists  had  put  their  hearts  in  theirs.  Their  enthusiasm  shines 
even  in  the  weakest  of  these  compositions,  considered  merely  as 
essays,  and  we  may  imagine  that  the  country  boy  or  girl  of  ten  or 
twelve  or  thirteen  finds  the  task  assigned  him  not  a  very  simple 
one,  to  be  placed  at  a  table  with  sheets  of  foolscap  paper  before  him 
and  given  an  hour  in  which  to  compose  an  essay  on  the  bird  selected 
— the  gist  of  his  observations  ;  to  be  reminded  at  the  same  time  that 
he  is  one  of  the  team  of  nine  chosen  for  the  work,  that  the  eyes  of 
the  village  are  on  him,  that  he  must  do  his  best  to  win  the  county 
shield  for  the  school.  The  conditions  are  not  too  favourable; 
nevertheless,  the  children  are  doing  remarkably  well,  because,  as  I 
have  said,  their  heart  is  in  it,  and  one  is  delighted  to  find  that  this 
study  of  a  bird  has  not  only  quickened  the  child's  interest  in  nature 
but  has  taught  him  to  think  of  the  bird  in  a  new  way,  with  the 
eeling  which  seeks  to  protect.  We  may  safely  say  that  these 
hildren  will  not  forget  this  new  lesson  they  are  being  taught, 
whatever  else  may  drop  out  of  their  memories  when  they  leave 
chool;  that  in  coming  time,  when  they  are  fathers  and  mothers 
hemselves,  they  will  instil  the  same  feeling  into  their  own  children. 
This  then  of  all  the  various  efforts  we  have  made  and  are  making 
o  save  the  wild  bird  life  of  our  country  is  to  my  mind  the  most 
)romising  for  the  future,  and  makes  it  possible  to  believe  that  the 
)ird  of  greatest  lustre  we  possess,  our  nightingale,  will  not  only 
maintain  its  own  ground  in  undiminished  numbers,  but  in  due  time 
will  increase  and  extend  its  range. 

W.  H.  HUDSON. 


36—2 


564 


GOOD   FRIDAY,   1865. 


THE  anniversary  of  President  Lincoln's  death  on  Sunday,  April  16,  recalls  a 
story  which  Charles  Dickens  originally  brought  back  from  America,  and  which  is 
well  authenticated.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet  that  morning  the  President  told 
his  colleagues  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  hours  they  would  hear  strange  intelligence. 
What  was  it  ?  they  asked.  Well,  he  had  had  a  dream  on  two  previous  occasions, 
both  preceding  some  great  event  in  the  war.  He  had  dreamed  it  again  that  very 
night ;  '  and  I'm  alone,'  he  said,  '  alone  in  a  boat,  and  I'm  out  on  the  bosom  of 
a  great  rushing  river,  and  I  drift,  drift,  drift.'  .  .  .  Before  he  could  complete  the 
sentence  Secretary  Stanton  entered  the  room.  '  But  to  business,'  said  the  Presi- 
dent, and  the  rest  remained  untold.  At  nine  o'clock  that  evening  he  was  assassi- 
nated. 

SOMETIMES  while  yet  the  hand  is  raised  to  strike 
'Tis  said  the  shadow  falls  on  sleeping  man, 
And  in  his  dreams  foretells  in  unknown  tongue 
The  future's  hidden  plan. 

And  sable  wings  blackening  the  joyous  sky, 
Hover  an  instant,  sinister  as  fate, 
An  indecipherable  hieroglyph — 
Until  it  is  too  late. 

Last  night  I  dreamt  again  a  fateful  dream, 
That  always  shadows  some  eventful  change, 
'Neath  starless  skies,  within  a  narrow  boat, 
I  look  where  all  is  strange. 

A  dirge  of  waves,  a  rush  of  furious  wind, 
Driving  me  to  a  shore,  unguessed,  unknown, 
While  through  the  roar  of  worlds  my  voice  I  heard 
Cry  out  '  Alone  !  Alone  !  ' 

And  dashed  upon  the  crests  of  mighty  waves, 
— That  baleful  echo  sounding  in  my  ear, 
I  journey  onward  through  the  sombre  night, 
For  sole  companion — Fear. 


GOOD   FRIDAY,    1865.  565 

The  keepers  of  the  House  may  quake  in  dreams, 
Forsake  their  post  and  leave  man  to  his  fate, 
But  with  the  dawn  the  heart  is  armed  again, 
Prepared  to  dominate. 

Night's  terrors  fade  before  the  call  to  arms, 
God  pilots  once  again  my  fearful  soul, 
In  the  appointed  place  I  wait  in  calm, 
And  sight  the  approaching  goal. 

Through  the  rent  veil  that  hides  the  unknown  land, 
May  gleam  the  lifted  hand  with  threatening  sword, 
But  still  between  the  dagger  and  the  heart 
Stands  the  unsleeping  Lord. 

BEATRICE  ALLHUSEN. 


566 


THE    TRADITION  OF  LONDON. 

THE  greatness  of  London  has  been  recognised  in  various  ways. 
It  is  accepted  as  one  of  the  great  cities  of  the  world — one  with 
Athens,  Home,  and  Paris.  Its  history  is  gradually  being  better 
understood  ;  its  position  in  history  is  gradually  becoming  unfolded. 
Its  position  in  tradition,  however,  has  not  been  investigated.  I  think 
this  is  worth  examination,  because  tradition  will  always  help  us  to 
understand  history  better  in  cases  where  they  both  exist  side  by 
side,  while  in  cases  where  history  fails  tradition,  properly  treated, 
will  supply  some  of  the  lost  facts.  It  is  in  this  wise  that  I  venture 
to  approach  the  tradition  of  London. 

London  has  always  earned  the  love  of  its  citizens — at  all  events 
ever  since  that  woful  year  A.D.  61,  when,  as  recorded  by  Tacitus, 
the  Roman  general  Suetonius  left  it  to  its  fate  in  face  of  Boadicea's 
attack,  and  those  who  stayed  behind '  from  attachment  to  the  place ' 
were  massacred.  Its  climate,  its  wealth,  its  commercial  greatness, 
its  citizenship  have  always  been  the  subject  of  encomium  and 
satisfaction,  and  when  we  turn  to  tradition  we  find  this  same  spirit 
in  those  who  were  not  within  the  fold  of  its  citizenship.  Thus  an 
old  German  legend  begins  with  the  verse — 

London,  London  is  a  fine  town.1 

Now,  the  first  point  to  note  about  the  tradition  of  London  is  that 
it  begins  from  Welsh  sources.  We  shall  see  the  full  significance  of 
this  presently,  but  it  is  obvious  that  we  can  at  once  make  the  sug- 
gestion that  the  tradition,  if  it  is  derived  from  ancient  sources,  from 
time  immemorial,  is  capable  of  carrying  us  back  to  the  Roman  city 
of  Lundinium  Augusta,  which  there  can  be  no  doubt  was  of  real 
significance  and  wonder  to  the  Britons  of  the  surrounding  country. 
Nothing  in  its  Anglo-Saxon  history,  nor  in  its  mediaeval  history, 
would  specially  appeal  to  the  Celtic  Britons.  They  were  a  scattered 
and  a  defeated  people  during  this  period.  Everything  in  its  Roman 
history  would  make  this  appeal ;  for  they  were  then  tribesmen  with 
their  native  life  not  suppressed,  an  unconquered  people  in  the  sense 
that  they  fought  for  their  own  when  Rome  left  them  to  themselves. 

1  Frazer,  Golden  Bough,  iii.  235. 


THE   TRADITION   OF   LONDON.  567 

To  the  extent  then  that  the  tradition  of  London  commences  from 
Welsh  sources  we  have  a  fixed  period  of  history  to  make  appeal  to. 
The  question  is,  Does  the  tradition  itself  confirm  this  appeal  ? 

I  think  it  does,  and  we  will  see  how  the  proposition  works  out. 
The  oldest  recorded  Welsh  traditions  come  to  us  through  the  agency 
of  the  mediaeval  romances.  The  historian  and  the  antiquary  of  the 
eleventh  century  and  later  got  hold  of  these  traditions  in  their 
current  version  ;  but,  not  content  with  this  form,  worked  them  up  to 
suit  their  conception  of  what  Welsh  history  should  be.  This  was 
not  the  work  of  the  Celtic  Britons,  but  of  the  Welsh  scholars.  They 
transformed  things.  All  that  was  great  in  Britain  was  transferred 
to  the  Celtic  Britons,  represented  by  the  Welsh.  It  was  not  the 
Romans  who  first  built  strong-walled  cities,  constructed  bridges 
and  roadways,  and  erected  military  strongholds.  It  was  the  Celts, 
before  the  arrival  of  the  Romans,  who  were  c  the  stronger  race.' 
The  '  Mabinogion '  story  of  Lludd  illustrates  this  in  the  most  pointed 
manner.  Lludd,  the  eldest  son  of  Beli  the  Great,  succeeded  his 
father  in  the  kingdom  of  Britain.  He  '  rebuilt  the  walls  of  London 
and  encompassed  it  about  with  numberless  towers  ;  and  after  that 
he  bade  the  citizens  build  houses  therein,  such  as  no  houses  in  the 
kingdom  could  equal.  And,  though  he  had  many  castles  and  cities, 
this  one  loved  he  more  than  any.  And  he  dwelt  therein  most  part 
of  the  year,  and  therefore  was  it  called  Caer  Lludd,  and  at  last  Caer 
London.  And  after  the  stronger  race  came  there  it  was  called 
Lowdon  or  Lwndrys.'  l  This  is  categorical  enough,  so  categorical 
as  to  compare  not  only  with  the  exact  words  of  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth's  '  Historia,'  but  with  what  Fitzstephen  in  the 
eleventh  century  said  historically  of  early  Norman  London,  when 
enumerating  its  towers,  its  houses,  its  beauty,  the  love  of  its  citizens 
for  it,  even  its  name,  Londres. 

We  gather  from  this  two  facts — namely,  that  the  greatness  of 
London  in  the  eleventh  century  was  so  far  in  excess  of  any  other 
English  city  as  to  cause  then  existing  Welsh  tradition  of  a  far  older 
date  to  be  attached  to  it,  and  that  its  Welsh  name  (Caer  Lud  or 
Lud's  Fort)  connects  it  with  the  Celtic  god-name  of  Lludd.  The 
exact  significance  of  the  first  point  we  shall  see  later  on.  The 
second  point  must  be  investigated  further  at  this  stage. 

Sir  John  Rhys  has  given  us  the  clue.  He  points  out  that  the 
Saxon  name  of  Ludgate  Hill  makes  it  pretty  certain  that  the  in- 
coming Saxons  took  over  the  name  from  a  previously  existing  name, 
and  he  then  connects  this  name  with  a  Celtic  god  of  the  waters  ; 

1  Mabinogion. 


568  THE   TRADITION    OF   LONDON. 

Lludd,  worshipped  at  Lydney,  on  the  Severn,  and  elsewhere,1  a 
worship  which  the  Komans  adopted  into  their  own  religion  when  they 
occupied  London.  But  Sir  John  Rhys  could  have  gone  further  if  he 
had  followed  up  his  linguistic  researches  by  researches  into  London 
tradition.  At  the  top  of  Ludgate  Hill  stands  the  great  cathedral 
church  of  St.  Paul,  always  by  tradition  said  to  have  been  built 
upon  the  site  of  an  ancient  pagan  temple.  This  tradition  is  borne 
out  first  by  the  archaeologist,  secondly  by  the  folklorist.  The  dis- 
covery of  a  vast  mass  of  stag-horns  on  the  site  of  the  cathedral  itself 
by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  and  in  1830  the  discovery  of  an  altar 
inscribed  to  Diana  in  the  immediate  vicinity  are  the  contributions 
by  the  archaeologist.  The  ritual  at  old  St.  Paul's  in  Christian  times 
and  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century,  together  with  a  modern 
rite  now  actually  obtaining,  tells  the  story  from  the  traditional 
side.  Camden,  the  historian,  describes  as  an  eye-witness  the 
ceremony  of  presenting  a  stag's  head  '  at  the  steps  of  the  church  by 
the  priests  in  their  sacerdotal  robes  and  with  garlands  of  flowers  on 
their  heads,'  and  Sir  George  Bird  wood  in  the  '  Athenaeum  '  of  April 
11,  1908,  records  the  custom  of  '  women  rubbing  their  backs  against 
a  pilaster  in  the  nave,'  so  that  they  should  not  die  childless.  Both 
these  ceremonies  are  connected  with  the  worship  of  Artemis  or 
Diana,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  conclude  that  in  these  relics  preserved 
by  tradition  we  have  evidence  that  the  Romans,  in  taking  over  the 
cult  of  the  Celtic  god  Lludd,  attached  it  more  closely  to  the  worship 
of  one  of  their  own  gods.  Readers  of  Mr.  Frazer's  '  Golden  Bough  ' 
know  how  he  has  unravelled  the  cult  which  obtained  on  the  shores 
of  the  woodland  lake  of  Nemi,  where  Diana  Nemorensis — Diana  of 
the  Wood — was  worshipped.  If  this  Diana  cult,  or  any  portion  of  it, 
obtained  in  London,  we  have  the  necessary  conditions.  We  have 
the  parallel  to  the  Nemi  lake  in  the  shallow  lagoon  which  the  waters 
of  the  Thames  then  produced,  and  we  have  the  tree  cult  in  a  London 
tradition  which  Mr.  A.  B.  Cook  has  rescued  from  the  nursery 
rhyme — 

Upon  Paul's  steeple  stands  a  tree, 

and  which  he  rightly  compares  with  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's 
Merlin  prophecy,  which  sets  forth  that  '  there  shall  be  produced  a 
tree  upon  the  Tower  of  London,  which,  having  no  more  than  three 
branches,  shall  overshadow  the  surface  of  the  whole  island  with  the 
breadth  of  its  leaves.5  2  If  these  scraps  of  tradition  are  indeed  the 

1  Rhys,  Celtic  Heathendom,  p.  129.  2  Folklore,  xvii.  56. 


THE   TRADITION   OF   LONDON.  569 

last  relics  of  a  cult  once  obtaining  in  London  we  can  only  conclude 
that  it  belonged  to  the  Romans  of  London,  who,  in  the  manner  of 
the  Romans  everywhere,  had  worked  it  up  by  the  amalgamation  of 
a  primitive  native  rite  and  worship  with  their  own  more  developed 
system  of  mythology.  All  the  fragments — stag  sacrifice,  child- 
bearing  rite,  water  rite,  tree  rite — connect  with  each  other  and  go 
back  to  the  same  central  worship.  The  actual  details  of  London 
tradition  therefore  confirm  what  was  expected  from  the  fact  that  it 
arises  from  Welsh  sources — namely,  that  it  deals  with  the  Lundinium 
Augusta  of  the  Romans  and  not  with  later  London. 

Another  Mabinogion  tradition  is  equally  instructive.  It  is  that 
of  Bendigeid  Vran,  the  son  of  Llyr,  who  in  a  miraculous  fashion 
saved  his  people  by  commanding  them  to  cut  off  his  head  '  and  bear 
it  even  unto  the  White  Mount  in  London,  and  bury  it  there,  with  the 
face  towards  France.'  The  journey  was  to  take  a  long  time,  and 
wonderful  things  were  to  happen,  from  which  mythologists  have 
drawn  wonderful  conclusions.  To  me,  however,  we  have  here  an 
instance  of  the  savage  head-hunting  custom  which  the  Celts  of 
Britain  are  known  to  have  practised,  and  which,  therefore,  indicates 
the  period  of  the  tradition  to  be  when  Celtic  tribalism  was  still  in 
force — namely,  the  period  stretching  down  to  the  departure  of  the 
Romans  from  Britain.  But  there  are  two  details  in  the  tradition 
as  it  comes  down  to  us  which  are  of  more  importance  to  the  study  of 
London  tradition,  and  equally  with  the  head-hunting  episode  they 
appear  to  me  to  point  to  fact  and  not  to  myth.  The  first  of  these 
details  is  that  Bendigeid  Vran  is  said  to  have  been  '  the  crowned  king 
of  this  island '  and  that  '  he  was  exalted  from  the  crown  of  London.' 
The  second  is  that  '  Caswallawn,  the  son  of  Beli,'  is  stated  to  have 
been  '  crowned  king  in  London.' 

Let  us  note  further  that  this  Mabinogion  tradition  equates 
exactly  with  statements  in  the  laws  of  Howel  D'ha,  who  says  of  the 
laws  of  Dyvnwal  Moel  Mud  that  they  obtained  '  before  this,  and 
before  the  crown  of  London,  and  the  supremacy  of  this  island,  were 
seized  by  the  Saxons,' l  and  again  that  the  saraad  of  the  king  of 
Aberfraw  was  three  score  and  three  pounds,  '  his  own  royal  tribute 
to  the  king  of  London.' 2  No  doubt  these  statements  must  be 
taken  as  tradition  instead  of  recorded  history,  but  they  are  genuine 
tradition,  not  the  tradition  of  an  historical  romancist.  They  preserve 
what  must  have  been  handed  down  by  tradition  from  earlier  times, 
and  they  were  certified  to  by  c  six  men  from  each  cymwd  in  the 

1  Ancient  Laws  of  Wales  (Venedotian  code),  i.  183.  2  Ibid.  i.  235. 


570  THE   TRADITION   OF   LONDON. 

principality,  the  wisest  in  his  dominion  .  .  .  four  of  them  laics  and 
two  clerks.'  That  the  tradition  is  founded  on  fact  is  confirmed  in  a 
curiously  definite  form,  for  there  was  a  king  of  London,  sub  regulo 
Londonice,  in  604,  as  the  charters  show,  while  the  '  Heimskringla  ' 
saga  preserves  the  same  idea  at  a  later  date — '  London's  king,'  as 
Morris  has  translated  it — an  echo  of  which  again  was  perhaps  pre- 
served in  the  cry  of  the  Londoners  when  Prince  John  was  being 
pressed  to  grant  the  commune  that, '  come  what  may,  the  Londoners 
would  have  no  king  but  their  mayor.' l 

Now  what  can  be  made  of  this  traditional  connection  of  London 
with  the  kingship  ?  It  clearly  belongs  to  the  pre-Saxon  period,  and 
relates,  I  think,  to  the  period  when  the  Koman  cities  of  Britain  were 
standing  side  by  side  with  the  Celtic  chieftains,  or  kings,  in  defence 
of  the  country  against  the  incoming  Saxons.  Roman  cities  could 
not  amalgamate  with  the  tribal  institutions  of  the  Celts.  They 
became  allies.  If  a  Roman  soldier,  Ambrosius  or  Artorius,  became 
a  successful  general  he  also  became  a  king  of  the  Celtic  Britons. 
If  a  Celtic  chieftain,  a  Vortimer,  became  a  successful  general  he  also 
became  an  imperator  of  the  cities.  The  chief  magistrate  of  a  great 
city  was  king  of  the  city  to  the  Welsh  chiefs,  and  when  we  find  it 
recorded  of  Arthur  that  he  was  crowned  in  three  cities — Silchester, 
Caerleon,  and  London — we  can  recognise  the  independence  of  the 
different  cities,  who  only  recognised  the  king  that  they  admitted. 
But  London  above  them  all  stands  out.  The  Merlin  prophecy 
already  quoted  may  be  simply  the  estimate  of  its  then  position, 
indicating  that  London  amongst  British  cities  of  Roman  origin  had 
secured  to  itself  the  best  place  in  Welsh  tradition. 

If  this  is  the  right  historical  setting  for  this  little  group  of 
London  traditions  we  have  secured  the  first  stage  in  the  proof  that 
Welsh  traditions  of  London  refer  us  back  to  Roman  London.  We 
will  now  deal  with  another  group  of  traditions. 

This  second  group  has  not  been  played  with  by  the  mediaeval 
romancists,  but  has  been  left  untouched,  except  by  the  inevitable 
wear  and  tear  of  tradition,  for  the  modern  f olklorist  to  discover.  Sir 
John  Rhys  quotes  two  Welsh  cave  legends  collected  in  the  middle  of 
the  last  century,  in  which  a  Welshman,  walking  over  London  Bridge 
with  a  hazel  staff  in  his  hand,  was  accosted  by  an  Englishman,  who 
informed  him  that  the  hazel  stick  grew  on  a  spot  beneath  which 
vast  treasures  were  stored.  They  journey  in  the  one  case  to  the  cave 
of  Craig-y-Dinas,  in  Glamorganshire,  and  in  the  second  case  to  a 
1  Stubbs,  Const.  Hist.  i.  630. 


THE   TRADITION   OF   LONDON.  571 

cave  in  Cardiganshire,  and  find  King  Arthur  and  his  knights  sleeping 
with  the  treasure  heaped  up  ;  the  Welshman  by  obeying  his  guide 
obtains  a  great  hoard  of  gold  and  becomes  rich  accordingly.1 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  tradition — treasure-finding  as  the 
result  of  crossing  London  Bridge  into  the  city.  Now  these  tradi- 
tions from  Welsh  sources  again  take  us  to  the  King  Arthur  period, 
the  period  of  the  defence  of  the  Roman  cities  of  Britain  against  the 
Saxon  invaders.  A  whole  group  of  similar  traditions  exist  in  various 
parts  of  the  country  which  do  not  connect  up  with  King  Arthur. 
I  need  not  give  these  in  detail,  because  I  have  recently  collected 
them  together  in  my  book  on  '  Folklore  as  an  Historical  Science.' 
They  come  from  Swaffham,  in  Norfolk,  Upsall,  in  Yorkshire,  from 
Lancashire,  Cornwall,  and  Ayrshire.  My  conclusion  is  that  these 
treasure  legends  point  by  two  separate  indications  to  the  bridge  of 
Roman  Lundinium.  The  first  is  that  treasure-burying  was  a  distinct 
feature  of  the  late  Roman  period  in  Britain,  as  shown  by  history  and 
archaeology,  Ethelweard's  chronicle  under  date  A.D.  418  distinctly 
stating  that '  those  of  the  Roman  race  who  were  left  in  Britain  bury 
their  treasures  in  pits,'  and  archaeology  confirming  this  in  many 
directions.  Of  no  other  period  in  British  history  is  this  so  true  as 
of  the  immediately  post-Roman  period.  The  second  is  that  London 
Bridge,  when  first  erected — that  is,  by  the  Romans — was  far  more 
likely  to  have  created  wonderment  in  the  minds  of  the  Celtic 
Britons  than  in  later  or  modern  times,  when,  however  wonderful  to 
country  visitors,  it  was  not  legend-producing.  Moreover,  London 
Bridge  appears  in  the  traditions  of  the  Bretons  of  Brittany.  Why 
should  this  be  so  ?  The  most  likely  answer,  to  my  mind,  is  that  the 
Bretons  took  the  tradition  over  with  them  to  Gaul  when,  in  the  sixth 
century,  they  fled  there  from  the  conquering  Saxons.  How  other- 
wise could  they  obtain  and  keep  current  a  tradition  about  London 
Bridge,  a  tradition  too  which  has  for  its  centre  point  the  beauty  of 
the  bridge  ?  It  is  impossible  to  conceive,  knowing  what  we  now 
know  of  the  history  and  laws  of  tradition,  that  this  is  due  to  a  modern 
idea,  or  even  to  a  mediaeval  idea.  The  theory  of  the  travelled 
tradition,  if  it  would  account  for  the  passage  of  the  London  Bridge 
tradition  to  Brittany,  which  appears  to  me  extremely  doubtful, 
would  not  account  for  its  staying  in  Brittany  and  not  appearing 
anywhere  else  beyond  its  bounds.  The  very  limitation  of  the  area 
of  the  tradition  to  Britain  and  to  Brittany  is  expressive  of  its  origin 
from  a  time  when  Britons  and  Bretons  were  one  folk,  when  therefore 
1  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore,  ii.  458-60. 


572  THE  TRADITION   OF   LONDON. 

Roman  Lundinium  was  the  London  which  created  the  mythic  fancy 
of  the  Bretons.  We  may  compare  this  with  the  contemporary  con- 
ception current  among  the  early  Saxon  tribesmen,  who  looked 
upon  Roman  buildings  as  the  creations  of  magic  arts,  the  antique 
work  of  a  giant  race  of  old  far  wiser  and  mightier  than  themselves.1 
It  is,  indeed,  only  when  the  contrast  between  political  organisation 
and  tribal  organisation  is  brought  direct  home  to  tribesmen  that  the 
mythic  wonder  begins  to  work.  Later  periods  may  produce  ro- 
mance and  poetry,  but  it  is  only  the  earliest  period  which  can 
produce  myth.  We  are  thus  brought  back  once  more  to  the  same 
period  for  the  origin  of  this  current  group  of  traditions  as  for 
the  earlier  group,  derived  from  the  medieval  romancists,  and 
I  think  the  double  line  by  which  we  have  travelled  helps  to  prove 
the  general  correctness  of  the  argument. 

Those  who  cannot  bring  themselves  to  believe  in  the  antiquity 
of  tradition  will  no  doubt  find  it  difficult  to  accept  my  conclusions. 
Let  me  point  out,  however,  that  in  going  back  to  a  definite  historic 
period,  when  the  conditions  are  all  in  favour  of  the  growth  of  such 
a  set  of  traditions,  I  am  far  short  of  those  students  who  see  in 
tradition  nothing  but  the  remnants  of  an  ancient  system  of  mytho- 
logy. And,  further,  I  would  ask,  To  what  other  period  could  we 
attach  these  traditions  ?  There  is  no  other  period  at  all  comparable 
to  that  in  which  Roman  Lundinium  reared  its  proud  head  and 
stately  conditions  above  the  tribalism  which  met  to  defend  the 
country  from  the  inroads  of  Saxon  barbarism.  The  Norman  period 
comes  nearest,  and  I  confess  the  Fitzstephen  account  tempts  one  to 
say  that  the  suggestion  of  the  Norman  origin  of  these  traditions  lies 
here.  But  the  answer  is  that  this  Norman  description  of  London  does 
not  account  for  all  the  facts  preserved  by  tradition,  does  not  indeed 
account  satisfactorily  for  any  one  set  of  facts.  It  may  account  for 
the  form  of  the  tradition  in  the  Mabinogion  and  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth.  It  does  not  account  for  the  substance.  A  scholar's 
appreciation  of  London  is  not  the  same  as  a  tribesman's  amazement 
and  wonderment,  and  it  is  more  in  accord  with  the  laws  of  tradition 
to  conclude  that  the  scholar's  words  were  founded  on  the  tradition 
than  that  the  tradition  was  founded  on  romantic  history.  We  have 
the  wonderment  of  the  Saxon  tribesmen  expressed  in  their  own 
language.  The  parallel  wonderment  of  the  Celtic  tribesmen  was  ex- 
pressed in  the  richer  fashion  of  traditional  custom  and  traditional 
story.  LAURENCE  GOMME. 

1  Dale,  National  Life  in  Early  English  Literature,  p.  36. 


573 


THE    THOUGHTS   OF  A    TERRITORIAL. 
BY  A  MAJOE. 

'  WITH  perfectly  legitimate  curiosity  I  asked  that  corporal  what 
he  was  doing.  He  didn't  know  !  '  The  speaker  was  a  tall  colonel  of 
the  Guards  commanding  a  London  Volunteer  infantry  brigade ; 
and  he  rode  on  across  the  sunny  wind-swept  Southern  Downs  with 
a  thoughtful  wonder. 

His  Volunteer  A.D.C.  smiled  a  little  ruefully ;  for  the  corporal, 
encountered  wandering  distressfully  between  piquets  in  an  outpost 
line,  belonged  to  his  own  battalion,  and  this  was  practically  the 
first  remark  that  the  brigadier  had  made  that  morning.  The 
ignorance  was  not  unusual.  The  Volunteer  of  the  days  that  are 
passed  had  many  limitations  ;  yet,  since  all  retrospect  possesses  a 
certain  value,  it  is  instructive  to  trace  the  expansion  of  those 
limitations  which  has  accompanied  the  change  from  the  Volunteer 
of  years  ago  to  the  Territorial  of  to-day.  The  transition  has  wrought 
a  development  in  which  all  who  assisted  may  be  justly  proud. 

From  private  in  a  Volunteer  infantry  '  class  '  corps  to  major  in 
a  Territorial  artisan  battalion  the  years,  which  have  included 
service  in  the  South  African  war,  have  granted  to  the  writer  a  varied 
experience,  some  impressions  of  which  it  may  be  of  interest  to 
record.  One  of  the  foremost  is  the  alteration  in  the  attitude  of  the 
higher  middle  class  mercantile  and  professional  community  in 
England  towards  soldiers. 

Descended  from  generations  of  sturdy  nonconformist  manu- 
facturers there  was  a  strong  parental  opposition  when  the  boy,  just 
sent  to  an  office  from  a  London  public  school,  desired  to  be  a 
Volunteer.  The  hereditary  prejudice  against  matters  military  was 
profound.  As  a  compromise,  while  under  age,  he  succeeded  in 
obtaining  leave  to  join  an  ambulance  corps.  Whereupon  for  a 
year  the  London  Hospital  company  of  the  Volunteer  Medical  Staff 
Corps  possessed  an  unmedical  recruit  of  the  smallest  possible  value 
to  his  dentist  officer.  But  the  recruit  educated  his  shrinking  family 
to  the  sight  of  a  strange  uniform,  and  wisely  suppressed  the  details  of 
the  wild  racket  in  the  old  Portsmouth  barracks  at  Easter  when  the 
medical  students  fraternised  with  the  Dorset  regiment  and  created 


574  THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A  TERRITORIAL. 

appalling  commotions  in  the  barrack  rooms.  Such  hubbubs  in  any 
barracks  would  be  impossible  in  these  days  with  the  present  stricter 
discipline. 

Now,  the  sons  of  the  middle  classes  are  to  be  found  in  ever  in- 
creasing numbers  in  the  ranks  of  the  Territorials.  The  change  of 
sentiment  has  been  complete.  The  parent  who  protested  so 
strongly  in  1890  against  the  mere  notion  of  a  son  in  uniform  was 
keenest  of  the  whole  family  in  1900  in  following  the  movements  of 
the  Mounted  Infantry  detachment  in  South  Africa  in  which  the 
same  son  was  a  subaltern.  The  brother,  an  Oxford  Fellow,  who, 
when  an  undergraduate,  declared  that  only  the  rotters  in  the  colleges 
ever  joined  the  '  Varsity '  Corps,  ultimately  became  the  most 
enthusiastic  signaller,  and  only  relinquished  his  post  when,  as 
sub-Proctor,  he  experienced  the  awkwardness  of  undergraduate 
N.C.O.s  over  him  when  in  uniform  in  the  afternoon  who,  in  plain 
clothes  next  morning,  would  be  bidden  to  appear  before  him 
officially  to  answer  for  the  delinquencies  of  university  lif e.  Nothing 
struck  the  writer  so  much  in  this  connection  as  a  recent  after  dinner 
hour  in  an  Oxford  Common  Room.  Military  topics,  formally 
unknown,  evoked  the  keenest  criticism.  The  interest  was  not  alone 
genuine  ;  in  many  cases  it  was  personal  as  well.  Times  had  altered 
there  indeed  ! 

It  presently  happened  that  the  young  Volunteer  Medical  Staff 
Corps  recruit  was  presented  at  a  prize-giving  in  the  Guildhall  with 
a  silver  match-box  as  a  reward  for  assiduity  in  drill.  When  sum- 
moned from  obscurity  in  the  background  in  his  turn  before  the 
Royal  Lady  he  bowed  nervously  instead  of  saluting.  Wherefore  the 
gallant  dentist  captain  was  harshly  unkind  to  the  prize-winner,  and 
the  subsequent  attendance  at  drill  declined.  The  pursuit  of 
medical  knowledge  languished. 

In  the  resultant  atmosphere  of  coldness  the  private  decided 
that  a  year  was  enough  of  the  ambulance.  Then  soldiering  began  in 
earnest  in  a  really  crack  infantry  corps,  where  the  adjutant — who 
later  commanded  a  battalion  of  the  Line  in  Ladysmith — insisted  on 
a  real  smartness  in  all  ranks. 

Looking  back  on  all  the  years  of  soldiering  the  happiest  were 
those  irresponsible  days  as  private  in  that  dear  old  grey  uniform. 
The  recruit  training  was  strict  and  thorough,  excellent  in  every 
way.  Afterwards,  so  long  as  the  private  did  his  drills  and  shot  his 
class — the  latter  performance  easy,  indeed,  compared  with  the 
present  musketry  course — he  had  no  cares.  Prudence  dictated  a 


THE   THOUGHTS   OF  A   TERRITORIAL.  575 

certain  alacrity  in  the  immediate  presence  of  the  genial  little  com- 
pany captain.  Subaltern  officers  counted  not  at  all  with  the 
average  private  who  rarely  troubled  to  learn  their  names,  and  the 
colonel  was  a  distant  power  on  a  big  horse.  But  the  colour- 
sergeants  were  the  power  in  the  companies  whose  rule  was  supreme. 
The  crack  company  was  the  one  with  the  best  colour-sergeant. 
For  one — a  City  merchant  with  a  profound  vocabulary  of  exhorta- 
tion— the  men  would  do  anything.  The  writer  will  never  forget 
certain  long  hot  June  evenings  when  he  was  drilled  in  the  tightest  of 
uniforms  at  the  bayonet  and  physical  exercises  till  he  could  scarcely 
stand,  in  preparation  for  the  Military  Tournament  at  the  Agri- 
cultural Hall  where  renown  was  the  portion  of  the  regimental  team 
year  after  year.  This  work  was  entirely  voluntary  and  was  very 
hard. 

Moreover,  all  such  additional  work  was  organised  by  the  N.C.O.s, 
and  here  comparison  calls  for  record.  In  an  artisan  battalion  the 
great  difficulty  is  to  get  N.C.O.s  who  will  exert  their  authority, 
who  are  honestly  capable  of  commanding  their  sections  and  com- 
panies. Some  of  them  are  excellent,  but  they  are  in  a  minority, 
and  it  is  on  the  character  and  ability  of  the  officer  alone  that  the 
efficiency  of  the  company  too  much  depends.  Voluntary  additional 
training  of  men  by  a  N.C.O.  on  his  own  account  is  practically 
unknown. 

Easter  was  the  great  event  of  the  Volunteer  year.    Memory 
dwells  fondly  on  some  of  those  days  of  stress  ;  though  the  marching 
was  far  longer  and  the  hardships  borne  far  greater  than  the  Terri- 
torial of  to-day  is  taken  from  his  comfortable  summer  camps  to 
endure.    It  is  a  moot  point  whether  in  many  respects  such  conditions 
were  not  nearer  those  which  the  Home  Defence  battalions  would  be 
called  upon  to  meet  if  mobilised  to  resist  an  invasion  of  this  country. 
The  actual  training  performed  now  is  thoroughness  itself  corn- 
ered with  that  of  those  days  ;  but  the  long  road  marching  in  full 
dt  is  a  thing  of  the  past  for  the  men  encamped  on  Salisbury  Plain 
n  the  centre  of  the  training  ground  :  and  the  luxurious  camps  to 
which  the  battalions  return  regularly  to  dinner  and  to  tea  have 
replaced  the  impromptu  billets  on  the  straw  of  schoolrooms  and 
)arns.    The  '  grey '  regiment  to  which  the  writer  belonged  regu- 
arly  sent  out  a  marching  column  each  Easter.    Starting  from  a 
short  distance  outside  London  the  journey  to  the  South  Coast  would 
3e  covered  in  three  days.    In  full  marching  order,  sometimes 
through  snow,  sometimes  enveloped  in  the  whitest  of  chalk  dust, 


576  THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL. 

the  men  of  those  little  columns  learnt  to  march  twenty-five  miles 
a  day,  learnt  to  take  care  of  their  feet,  learnt  to  keep  clean  and 
smart  under  difficulties,  learnt  to  make  themselves  comfortable  at 
night  in  odd  corners  in  the  clothes  they  marched  in,  learnt  to 
attend  to  their  arms  and  accoutrements  in  wet  or  dry  weather  with 
the  scantiest  means — all  in  a  manner  to  which  the  modern  Terri- 
torial in  his  snug  tent  is  practically  a  stranger.  There  will  be  no 
standing  camps  with  permanent  cook  houses,  swimming  baths  and 
water  laid  on,  and  recreation  marquees,  in  Essex  or  Lincolnshire 
fields  when  the  brigades  are  mobilised  to  repel  invasion.  Then 
those  who  have  a  barn  to  sleep  in  will  be  lucky,  and  kitbags  and 
comforts  will  be  unknown.  The  Volunteer  was  the  hardier  soldier. 

*  To  find  fault  is  the  function  of  all  generals.  The  only  way 
we  get  on  in  the  Army  is  by  finding  fault,'  said  a  high  officer  recently 
to  the  occupants  of  an  assembled  mess-tent.  And  now,  when 
the  sadness  resultant  from  the  comments  of  superiors  on  such 
faults  has  faded,  how  delicious  were  some  of  the  occasions  to  which 
the  mind  reverts. 

Take  the  eager  citizen  soldier  who  has  learnt  to  rise  superior 
to  that  severe  test  which  the  thickness  of  furze  bushes  presents. 
Pit  him  against  an  enemy  he  can  see,  and — on  manoeuvres — per- 
formances of  valour  result.  It  was  nothing  to  our  fiery  old  colonel 
when,  having  marched  us  many  long  miles  through  an  Easter 
snowstorm,  we  arrived  in  quarter  column  in  the  middle  of  a  field- 
day  to  be  promptly  and  most-  unwarrantably  enfiladed  by  big 
guns  far  away  behind  a  hill.  A  hard-hearted  umpire — stony  absence 
of  all  sympathetic  feeling  is  a  necessary  qualification  in  all  umpires- 
put  the  theoretically  annihilated  battalion  out  of  action  for  ten 
minutes,  till  a  relenting  general,  anxious  to  give  us  a  '  show,' 
restored  us  to  undecimated  life  and  we  started  off  again  to  hustle 
the  batteries  with  resentful  vigour. 

Another  incident  lingers  in  memory's  store,  not  to  be  forgotten. 
Of  a  great  field-day  and  the  desperate  defence  of  a  farmyard  by  a 
heroic  handful  of  grey-coats.  Of  a  fashionable  tenor  and  com- 
poser, the  adored  of  West  End  concert  halls,  who  commanded  the 
defence,  and  of  his  dandy  actor  subaltern.  And  of  the  peculiarly 
pungent  and  adhesive  character  of  the  farm  manure  which,  together 
with  the  glory,  was  the  lot  of  the  defenders  in  that  forefront  of  the 
fight  for  a  long,  long  time. 

Such  days  as  those  pure  enjoyment  was  the  lot  of  the  private ; 
they  rarely  come  now  to  the  captain  saddled  with  the  worries  and 


THE   THOUGHTS  OF  A  TERRITORIAL  577 

responsibilities  of  a  company  command.  He  remembers  how, 
hidden  in  the  soft  straw  in  the  far  corner  of  a  large  dark  barn,  he 
joined  in  ragging  an  unpopular  sergeant  who  was  trying  to  call  the 
roll,  till  the  packed  straw  quivered  with  laughter  and  the  sergeant 
fled  with  his  duty  undone.  Nemesis  overtook  the  insubordinate 
private  on  that  particular  occasion  as  the  whole  of  his  worldly 
wealth  of  two  sovereigns  rolled  from  his  pocket  to  be  eternally  lost. 
A  long  and  pitiful  letter  from  the  soldier  undergoing  unparalleled 
hardships  in  barracks  two  days  later  was  despatched  to  an  affection- 
ately anxious  aunt,  and  that  kindest  of  ladies  refunded  the  two 
pounds  to  the  sufferer.  Then  it  was  simple  glee  when  a  field-day 
took  the  battalion  over  ground  intersected  with  freshly  tarred 
fences  so  that  immaculate  company  officers  became  adorned  with 
bars  of  black.  It  was  blissful  to  amaze  the  country  villages  with 
songs,  and  to  sing  on  every  conceivable  occasion  was  a  point  of 
honour  with  every  company.  How  often  in  later  days  has  the 
captain  longed  for  some  of  the  singers  of  his  old  section  to  enh'ven  his 
artisan  company  on  the  march  ;  he  has  even  had  wild  thoughts  of 
buying  a  gramophone  and  starting  a  singing  class  for  the  purpose. 
In  four  years  promotion  brought  a  corporal's  stripes  ;  in  the 
fifth  year  increasing  cocksureness  on  the  part  of  the  corporal  in- 
volved a  serious  difference  of  opinion  with  his  colour-sergeant. 
Naturally  the  views  of  the  latter — now  a  distinguished  surgeon — 
prevailed  ;  and  in  the  clear  light  of  reflective  history  it  must  be 
owned  that  he  was  mainly  in  the  right.  Wherefore  the  corporal 
resigned  in  dudgeon,  and  for  the  space  of  three  months  soldiered 
not  at  all. 

The  Jameson  Kaid  and  the  Kruger  telegram  rekindled  the 
enthusiasm  of  war,  and  a  commission  as  second  lieutenant  in  a 
first-class  artisan  battalion  followed.  The  change  in  the  character 
of  service  was  considerable. 

One  of  the  most  striking  things  at  that  time  was  the  age  of 
the  company  captains — some  of  them  were  men  of  fifty  and  entirely 
too  old  for  their  job.      Many  of  the  N.C.O.s  and  men,  too,  were 
fathers  of  families.     It  so  happened  that  the  writer  was  the  first 
a  crop  of  new  subalterns  who  introduced  a  younger  element  into 
e  battalion,  and,  as  they  in  turn  went  through  '  school '  at  Chelsea 
r  Wellington  Barracks,  and  took  to  signalling,  machine-gun  work 
r  Hythe  courses,  they  insensibly  modernised  the  methods  of,  at 
ny  rate,  some  of  the  companies.     The  then  colonel  is  now  one  of 
is  Majesty's  judges  ;  the  second-in-command  was  a  veteran  of 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  37 


r,78  THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL. 

Garibaldi  and  the  American  war,  and  later  won  the  G.B.  for  service 
in  South  Africa  ;  one  of  the  doctors  had  Turkish  decorations  gained 
in  the  hospitals  of  Ears.  The  adjutant  was  killed  in  the  Belief  of 
Ladysmith. 

Never  will  the  recollections  be  forgotten  of  the  trials  of  the 
night  school  for  subalterns.  It  was  midwinter — a  January  of  cold 
and  snow.  Every  night  from  six  to  ten  for  a  fortnight  our  lot  was 
drill  in  Westminster  Hall ;  then,  on  the  reassembling  of  Parliament, 
we  were  transferred  for  a  second  fortnight  to  the  riding  school  at 
Knightsbridge  Barracks  to  parade  in  greatcoats  and  semi-darkness 
on  the  tan,  while  icy  draughts  from  the  roof  numbed  both  brains 
and  bodies.  It  speaks  volumes  for  the  cleverness,  courtesy,  firm- 
ness and  tact  of  the  Guards'  Commandant — now  a  member  of  the 
Royal  Household — that  any  of  us  succeeded  in  passing  the  stiff 
examination  which  terminated  the  course  of  instruction.  A  cap- 
tain's '  special '  certificate  was  the  result  for  the  writer,  and  he 
returned  to  his  battalion  jaded  but  exultant. 

One  vivid  incident  of  that  school  is  the  lecture — in  a  snow- 
storm— by  the  adjutant  on  the '  Lessons  of  Majuba.'  He  had  got  to 
pass  the  time  somehow  and  he  chose  that  topic.  None  of  us  then 
foresaw  that  some  of  his  hearers  on  that  Saturday  afternoon  were 
destined  in  later  years  to  serve  in  the  great  Army  sent  to  teach 
other  lessons  in  our  turn  to  those  who  had  taught  us  before. 

One  of  the  characteristics  of  the  writer's  battalion  was,  and 
still  is  in  a  lesser  degree,  the  entire  absence  of  responsibility  in 
company  management  of  the  subaltern  officers.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  power  of  the  captain  has  grown  more  and  more.  Now, 
indeed,  as  a  direct  consequence  of  wise  orders  from  the  present 
brigadier,  the  company  captains  are  really  the  most  powerful 
officers  in  the  regiment,  and  individual  company  training  has 
largely  superseded  the  old  Saturday  battalion  parades.  But  before 
the  South  African  war — it  is  significant  what  an  epoch  the  war 
has  marked  in  the  chronology  of  the  Auxiliary  Forces — there  was 
little  chance  for  a  keen  subaltern.  Luck,  in  the  shape  of  friendly 
insistence  on  the  part  of  the  regimental  adjutant,  made  the  writer 
take  up  signalling.  This  led  to  some  of  the  most  interesting 
experiences  of  his  home  service. 

Firstly,  it  involved  a  separate  command  and  a  wide  scope  for  in 
dependent  action.  The  average  colonel  and  general  know  nothing 
of  signalling.  One  gallant  nobleman,  who  at  one  time  commandec. 
the  brigade,  when  he  chanced  upon  signallers  at  work,  had  a  stool 


THE   THOUGHTS   OF  A  TERRITORIAL.  579 

criticism  which  he  rarely  failed  to  make.  The  station  was  too 
exposed  ;  the  signalling  flags  too  visible  ;  a  little  more  concealment 
was  advisable — otherwise  all  was  excellent.  Then  the  subaltern 
would  salute  with  acquiescent  deference ;  the  brigadier's  horse, 
which  always  objected  to  signalling  flags  flapped  with  especial 
vigour  in  the  presence  of  the  great  man,  pranced  joyously  away, 
and  the  men  enquired  with  caustic  openness  how  the  next  station 
was  to  maintain  communication  if  the  flags  were  hidden  behind  a 
hill. 

Secondly,  the  signalling  work  taught  the  young  officer  on  a 
small  scale  how  to  manage  men  unaided  under  all  sorts  of  conditions, 
often  under  circumstances  of  difficulty  and  hardship.  A  soldier 
can  be  compelled  to  stand  at  attention  and  salute  for  instance  ;  no 
power  on  earth  can  force  a  sulky  signaller  to  read  lamp  flashes  at 
night  correctly  if  he  does  not  want  to  do  so.  And  tact  became 
especially  essential  when  the  course  of  events  promoted  the  writer 
to  the  position  of  brigade  signalling  officer  and  all  the  signallers 
of  the  battalions  of  the  brigade  were  grouped  under  his  command  as 
a  separate  unit.  Mutual  jealousies  had  to  be  stamped  out,  the 
slightest  suspicion  of  favouritism  avoided,  the  various  sections 
welded  into  one  working  whole.  It  was  not  an  easy  task.  That 
;this  was  successfully  accomplished  was  greatly  due  to  the  spirit  of 
jcomradeship  of  picked  N.C.O.s,  and  to  the  system  of  Whitsuntide 
ong  distance  signalling  lines. 

Each  Whitsuntide,  from  Saturday  to  Monday,  the  signalling 
jcompany  would  be  taken  on  to  the  Surrey  or  Chiltern  Hills  ;  the 
atter  proved  the  better.  Spread  over  a  line  of  some  twelve  to 
wenty  miles,  the  forty  odd  men  would  be  at  work  night  and  day 
n  sending  practice  messages.  The  experience  was  invaluable ; 
he  worries  considerable,  the  humours  often  immense. 

Proceedings  began  long  before  Whitsuntide  with  preliminary 
ketching  out  a  line.     Then  came  applications  for  permission  to 
andowners.     Almost  invariably  the  greatest  courtesy  was  shown  in 
panting  these  ;  and  where,  with  farmers,  a  written  application 
ised  suspicion  a  personal  interview  dispelled  it.     Satisfied  that 
ere  was  no  intention  to  light  fires  or  chevy  cows,  reluctance  dis- 
peared  ;  and  many  a  farmer  went  out  of  his  way  when  the  men 
me  to  offer  them  unsolicited  kindness,  such,  for  example,  as  hot 
a  on  a  cold  night. 

The  line  planned,  there  next  arose  the  very  serious  question  of 
llets  for  the  men.    Everything  had  to  be  done  at  an  extra- 

37—2 


580  THE  THOUGHTS   OF  A  TERRITORIAL. 

ordinarily  cheap  rate  ;  usually  ten  shillings  a  man  was  the  maximum 
sum  wrung  from  reluctant  regimental  finance  committees  to  cover 
all  expenses.  Deduct  an  average  of  two  shillings  each  for  railway 
fares  and  there  remained  eight  shillings  to  feed  and  sleep  a  man 
from  Saturday  to  Monday  afternoon.  The  efforts  to  keep  within 
this  amount  led  to  varied  results. 

A  signalling  detachment  averaged  about  eight  men.  In  some 
villages  small  public-houses  took  them  in  willingly  and  did  them 
well.  In  others — especially  at  the  Whitsuntide  holidays — the 
sum  offered  was  scoffed  at.  Occasionally,  when  all  other  means 
failed,  the  men  would  take  tents,  but  this  was  never  adopted  except 
as  a  last  resort ;  for  one  thing,  the  weather  at  Whitsuntide  is  often 
bad  for  camping  ;  for  another,  the  men  were  apt  to  spend  more  time 
in  cooking  than  in  signalling,  and  still  remain  improperly  fed  and 
warmed.  Sometimes  small  cottages  would  accommodate  a  man  or 
two.  It  was  in  one  of  these  that  two  signallers  in  a  room  found 
a  large  text  prominently  displayed  over  the  bed,  '  Be  good  to  one 
another.'  It  is  pleasant  to  record  that  in  all  the  years  during  which 
the  writer  was  responsible  there  was  never  a  single  case  of  trouble 
between  the  men  of  his  command  and  the  villagers  ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  popularity  of  the  signallers  was  immense,  especially 
with  the  feminine  element ;  and  if  the  same  line  was  selected  a 
second  year  the  same  places  were  eager  to  welcome  them  again. 

Signalling  adventures  had  their  humorous  side.      There  was 
persistent  trouble  with  the  hand  lamps,  which  would  not  carry  far 
enough,  especially  if  there  was  any  mist — a  constant  occurrence  at 
Whitsuntide.     One  attempt  at  remedy  was  made  by  an  inventive 
genius  with  acetylene  ;  and,  by  the  mercy  of  Providence,  every- 
body escaped  unhurt  when  the  explosion  came.     This  damped  th( 
spirit  of  invention.     On  another  occasion  oxy-hydrogen  apparatus 
was  hired.     After  the  coyness  of  the  railway  company  in  respect  t< 
the  conveyance  of  the  cylinders  had  been  overcome,  after  th 
recruits,  who  were  naturally  put  to  carry  the  heaviest  apparatu 
up  the  hills,  had  been  scared  into  due  appreciation  of  the  danger 
of  stumbling,  after  the  light  had  once  been  got  to  work,  the  resu.1 
was  splendid  and  carried  a  tremendous  distance.     But  first  a< 
exceedingly   stout  sergeant   of   the   Coldstream   Guards,   sent  t 
advise,  had  to  walk  six  miles  on  a  blazing  hot  Sunday  morning  t 
instruct  in  the  connection  of  apparatus  which  unravelled  itse 
unaided   precisely   five   minutes   before   the   instructor's   arnvs 
JJjs  comments  and  his  thirst  were  alike  unprecedented, 


THE   THOUGHTS   OF  A   TERRITORIAL.  581 

It  was  that  Whitsuntide  that  the  number  of  signallers  in  the 
brigade  was  inadequate  to  man  the  line  selected.  A  detachment 
of  the  Oxford  University  Corps  was  borrowed  to  assist.  They  were 
allotted  to  the  steepest  hill.  The  undergraduates  under  their  Don — 
a  corporal — attended  with  bicycles  and  a  heliograph.  At  the 
safe  distance  of  six  miles  they  fraternised — by  signal — with  the 
artisans  of  the  writer's  own  battalion,  and  the  mutual  adieux  when 
the  time  came — also  by  signal — were  touching.  Incidentally  the 
representatives  of  the  'Varsity  created  an  immense  sensation  by 
attending  the  village  church  on  Sunday  morning  in  the  full  glory  of 
red  coats,  and  the  Don  nearly  broke  his  neck  by  riding  his  bicycle 
down  the  steepest  lane  with  his  helio  stand  bumping  into  his  back 
wheel. 

Occasionally  there  were  contretemps  of  a  non-military  character. 
Once  a  bad  interruption  of  a  line  occurred  and  the  Brigade  Signalling 
Officer  descended  with  wrath  upon  a  station  to  learn  the  cause. 
He  was  met  by  caustic  comments  on  the  conduct  of  the  next  station 
—the  invariable  and  customary  rejoinder — and  bidden  respectfully 
to  look  for  himself.  It  was  a  hot  Sunday  afternoon,  with  a  slight 
heat  haze,  and  the  intervening  distance  was  long  for  flag  work. 
The  readers  had  been  completely  baffled  by  the  presence  of  members 
of  the  fair  population  of  the  neighbouring  little  town,  who  thronged 
round  the  distant  senders  in  white  summer  dresses.  White  flags 
and  white  garments  met  in  a  jumbled  blur  of  whiteness  which  was 
maddening  to  the  solitary  far-away  readers,  jealous  also  of  the  fact 
that  their  own  labours  had  attracted  no  pretty  wondering  faces  but 
merely  three  small  irritating  boys.  The  morals  and  misdeeds  of  the 
senders  were  a  subject  of  bitter  controversy  when  those  stations  met 
in  person  later  on. 

Stories  of  the  adventures  of  the  signallers  abound.  At  a  seaside 
town  leave  was  granted  to  place  a  station  on  the  tower  of  a  Sailors' 
Home,  this  communicating  with  another  station  on  the  roof  of  the 
local  waterworks.  The  passage  of  the  men  of  the  latter  to  their 
perch  caused  the  greatest  anxiety  to  their  officer  from  their  in- 
i  variably  skittish  behaviour  when  skirting  the  deepest  water  tank ; 
while  the  men  of  the  former  station,  descending  joyously  from 
heir  evening's  work  in  the  tower,  clattered  unexpectedly  into  the 
centre  of  a  prayer-meeting  below,  to  be  hailed  by  the  assembled 
worshippers  as  desirable  converts.  The  signallers  fled. 

There  can  be  no  controversy  that  the  institution  of  the  August 
camp  was  wise.  But  had  the  compulsion  to  attend  been  enforced 


582  THE  THOUGHTS   OF   A  TERRITORIAL. 

a  little  more  gradually  and  without  such  a  fulmination  of  penalties, 
the  wisdom  would  have  been  greater.  Large  numbers  of  first- 
class  men  took  fright  and  resigned.  For  a  while  their  places  were 
not  filled.  The  inception  of  the  Territorial  Army  was  marked  by 
dwindling  battalions  on  all  sides.  There  followed  disbandments 
and  amalgamations  ;  officers  were  shouldered  out,  or,  if  absorbed, 
all  promotion  was  blocked.  Then  came  the  extraordinary  boom  in 
recruiting  in  the  spring  of  1909.  Ranks  were  refilled  with  rapidity. 
But  the  men  were  the  youngest  lot  ever  enlisted. 

Not  for  one  moment  should  the  efforts  and  the  success  of  the 
campaign  by  certain  newspapers  and  a  theatrical  piece  be  under- 
rated. As  a  demonstration  of  the  influence  of  the  Press  it  was 
complete.  It  is  as  much  a  matter  for  congratulation  that  this 
power  was  wielded  to  bless  and  not  to  curse,  as  it  is  disquieting  to 
imagine  the  effect  if  the  opposite  course  had  been  adopted.  It  may, 
however,  be  queried  whether  it  is  quite  a  healthy  sign  that  the 
strength  of  the  home  defence  army  should  be  so  dependent  on  a 
swept-forward  wave  of  approving  journalism.  Thoughtful  ob- 
servers are  asking  what  will  happen  in  four  years'  time  when  the 
recruits  of  the  boom  are  time-expired. 

How  the  mind  reverts  to  the  stories  of  camp  !  For  two  years 
the  writer  served  as  A.D.C.  to  the  Brigadier,  relinquishing  the  post 
of  Brigade  Signalling  Officer.  The  lessons  and  experience  were 
abundant  and  varied. 

In  London  the  position  of  Colonel  of  a  regiment  of  Foot  Guards 
carries  with  it  the  command  of  a  Territorial  Brigade.  Nothing  can 
be  finer  than  the  manner  in  which  the  London  Volunteers  and 
Territorials  have  been  helped  by  officers  of  the  Guards.  Time  and 
labour  have  been  given  unstintingly  to  the  encouragement  of  the 
London  auxiliary  forces  ;  the  writer  is  only  one  of  the  numberless 
junior  officers  who  have  been  taught  and  assisted  on  scores  of 
occasions.  And  the  slight  knowledge  of  staff-work  gained  in 
addition  has  been  invaluable. 

Also  often  most  amusing.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  a  new  Brigadier 
was  to  gather  all  the  mounted  officers  of  the  Brigade,  especially  the 
brethren  weakest  in  horsemanship,  and  lead  them  at  a  gallop 
straight  up  a  steep  bank.  Such  as  arrived  at  the  top  of  all  had  a 
'  pow-wow.'  On  another  occasion  it  was  signified  that  the  new 
Minister  for  War,  during  the  period  of  his  '  deep  thinking,'  would 
visit  our  crack  Brigade  at  work  on  the  Sussex  Downs.  This  was 
just  prior  to  the  birth  of  the  Territorials.  Previous  arrangements 


THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL.  583 

were  hastily  cancelled,  and  a  striking  field-day  carefully  planned. 
It  was  calculated  that  the  Minister  would  arrive  at  the  critical 
stage  of  the  attack,  and  witness  the  brilliant  -finale  of  British  Volun- 
teers in  a  last  assault.  The  battle  progressed  furiously  and  the 
moment  for  the  climax  came.  But  the  Secretary  of  State  did  not. 
Operations  hesitated ;  the  Staff  rode  hurriedly  around,  ordering  a 
'  stand-fast.'  There  was  a  long  pause,  while  the  two  forces  lay  on 
their  stomachs  and  gazed  at  each  other  in  hostile  silence,  since  but  a 
few  rounds  of  blank  ammunition  remained  which  were  only  to  be 
expended  in  the  Presence.  The  sun  was  hot  and  many  of  the 
belligerents  soon  went  to  sleep. 

Suddenly  in  a  haze  of  dust  on  a  chalk  road  appeared  two  motor- 
cars and  sundry  cocked  hats.  The  Minister  for  War  arrived  in  a 
bowler  and  black  tail  coat.  After  the  repugnance  of  the  Brigadier's 
horse  to  the  motor  had  been  wrestled  with,  the  visitor  was  conducted 
ceremoniously  into  the  firing  line,  and  the  grimmest  of  battles  re- 
sumed. Everyone  had  a  glorious  time  to  the  finish.  The  Minister 
announced  that  he  was  delighted  at  the  patriotic  spirit  displayed ; 
the  General  of  Division  in  charge  of  him  was  complimentary  on  the 
'  show '  and  uncritical  about  dispositions ;  the  Brigade  Staff  were 
gleefully  exultant.  The  battalions  performed  prodigies  of  war 
and  marched  back  to  camp,  whistling  huskily  with  a  record  thirst. 
In  one  regiment  at  least  extra  beer  was  served  out  for  dinner  in 
commemoration  of  the  day. 

Once  there  was  a  famous  night  march.  A  Brigade  of  Regular 
Infantry  sat  on  a  Sussex  hill,  and  the  Volunteer  Brigade  sallied  out 
to  surprise  them.  Everything  was  done  to  deceive  Regular  scouts. 
Lights  were  lit  in  the  tents,  bugles  sounded  the  officers'  dinner  call, 
the  bands  played  before  the  mess  tents  as  usual.  Meanwhile  the 
men  left  camp  in  twos  and  threes,  and  were  formed  up  in  a  deep 
hidden  lane.  Then  as  soon  as  it  was  quite  dark  a  start  was  made, 
the  writer  accompanying  the  Brigadier  at  the  head  of  the  column. 
Rumours  of  a  cyclist  of  suspicious  demeanour,  who  had  been  ineffec- 
tually chased,  were  disturbing. 

The  Brigade  possessed  at  that  time  a  Supply  and  Transport 
officer  of  renown.  A  crack  revolver  shot,  and  inveterate  bridge 
player,  singularly  efficient  in  dealing  with  local  conundrums  of  all 
descriptions  (from  contractors'  steam  lorries  which  squashed  the 
camp  water  supply  pipes  on  Bank  holidays,  when  the  British  work- 
man would  not  mend  them,  to  local  experts  who  disparagingly 
analysed  the  contents  of  refuse  tubs  which  they  had  undertaken 


584  THE   THOUGHTS   OF  A   TERRITORIAL. 

to  remove),  the  Brigadier  committed  the  one  great  error  of  that 
night  march  when  he  permitted  the  gallant  major  to  accompany 
the  staff.  No  one  noticed  his  subsequent  disappearance  in  the 
darkness.  The  column  progressed  in  cautious  silence.  Suddenly 
a  stout,  very  breathless  figure  came  clattering  ponderously  into  our 
midst.  The  representative  of  the  Supply  and  Transport  had  gone 
off  scouting  on  his  own  account,  without  leave  or  wisdom.  Two 
hostile  Regulars  had  arisen  unexpectedly  from  a  cabbage  patch,  and 
—there  would  be  no  more  surprise  that  night.  The  evidently 
painful  restraint  which  the  Brigadier  imposed  upon  himself  as  he 
ordered  the  Supply  and  Transport  to  the  rear  was  one  of  the  features 
of  the  evening.  Another  was  the  final  yelling  charge  up  the  hill, 
in  which  the  writer  and  many  others  pitched  headlong  into  the 
furze  bushes.  A  third  was  the  dignified  '  pow-wow  '  in  the  dark, 
when  it  admittedly  came  out — with  reluctance — that  the  Volunteer 
secondary  column  on  a  flank,  unhampered  by  assistance  from  the 
Supply  and  Transport,  had  certainly  surprised  quite  effectually 
the  crack  Line  regiment  whom  they  had  attacked. 

If  there  was  one  thing  the  Brigadier  was  properly  strict  about 
it  was  the  disposal  of  the  camp  refuse.  This  was  one  of  the  most 
unfailing  topics  in  Brigade  orders.  Each  battalion  would  be 
provided  with  two  sets  of  tubs  ;  one  for  old  tins,  paper,  bottles,  &c., 
and  one  for  more  edible  remains  which  were  carted  away  to  nourish 
the  local  pigs.  The  difficulty  was  to  get  the  men  to  discriminate 
when  disposing  of  the  debris  from  the  tents.  Presently  comes  a 
farmer  obstinate  with  indignation  to  the  Brigadier.  He  had  con- 
tracted to  remove  pigs'  food,  and  lo  ! — he  enumerated  with  bitter- 
ness the  articles  found  in  the  pigs'  tubs  which  were  injurious  even 
to  low  forms  of  life.  The  contract  was  broken,  he  would  remove 
no  more,  &c. — at  great  length.  The  Brigadier  waited  till  the 
battalions  had  left  camp,  and  then  the  whole  staff  sallied  forth  to 
investigate.  As  he  neared  the  cook-house  of  the  unit,  which  was 
the  worst  offender,  the  pioneer  sentry  in  charge  caught  sight  of  the 
approaching  cocked  hats.  Filled  with  that  zeal  which  is  to  be 
deplored,  he  dived  into  a  tent,  snatched  up  a  large  tin  of  disin- 
fecting powder,  and  emptied  it  generously — over  the  wrong  tubs. 
This  to  the  exceeding  further  detriment  of  the  delicacies  for  pigs. 
Then  he  saluted  with  proud  satisfaction.  The  colonels  and  adju- 
tants of  battalions  were  summoned  that  evening  to  a  prolonged 
conference  on  sanitary  regulations. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  stories  of  camp.     Of  the  two  band* 


THE   THOUGHTS  OF   A   TERRITORIAL.  585 

which  endeavoured  to  drown  each  other's  music  owing  to  good 
feelings  having  been  jeopardised  by  a  coolness  over  the  issue  of 
blankets.  Of  the  recruit  discovered  shivering  at  dawn  outside 
the  colonel's  tent  with  a  pail  of  water  and  a  brush  sent  by  his  mess- 
mates to  clean  the  windows  and  uncertain  how  to  begin.  Of  the 
cigars  and  blarney  which  soothed  the  farmer  upset  by  the  Manoeuvre 
Act  and  the  passage  of  signallers  across,  instead  of  round,  his  pet 
field.  Or  tales  could  be  told  with  ease  of  London  incidents  ;  of 
Guards  of  Honour  to  Royalty  which  the  writer  has  been  privileged 
to  command,  such  as  when  the  leading  section  of  the  Guard  at  the 
Hospital  fraternised  with  the  nurses  after  the  Royal  Lady  had 
passed,  and  had  a  royal  time  on  their  own  account ;  of  parades  for 
the  Jubilee,  the  great  Queen's  funeral,  the  Coronation.  But  now, 
just  as  the  introduction  of  the  Territorial  system  has  infused  a 
sterner  spirit  into  the  ranks,  allusion  might  be  permitted  to  one  or 
two  more  sober  matters  in  conclusion. 

The  Territorial  has,  it  is  hoped,  come  to  stay.  The  writer  is 
one  of  a  small  minority  of  his  fellow  officers  who  do  not  believe  in 
compulsory  service  for  this  country.  Without  undue  conceit  he 
would  claim  to  be  a  successful  company  commander,  with  a  company 
140  strong,  and  yet  one  as  easily  handled  as  any  in  the  Brigade. 
At  present  the  method  of  rule  is  one  of  tact  and  leading  ;  introduce 
compulsion  and  the  rule  must  be  by  shoving  and  by  fear.  To 
command  more  or  less  unwilling  conscripts  is  not  a  task  to  which 
British  officers  have  ever  been  accustomed.  Some — of  course  by 
no  means  all — of  the  officers  who  clamour  loudest  for  compulsion 
are  those  whose  companies  are  always  weak,  have  never  flourished, 
and  never  will. 

Moreover,  the  writer  would  enter  a  vigorous  protest  against  the 
campaign  of  disparagement  waged  round  the  qualifications  of  the 
Territorial  officer.  That  he  is  not  the  equal  of  his  better  professional 
comrade  is  not  disputed.  But  the  writer  would  maintain  emphati- 
cally that  he  can  manage  the  men  of  the  Territorial  Force  far  better 
than  any  ordinary  ex-Regular.  In  this  connection  the  proposal 
that  the  command  of  Territorial  battalions  should  be  given  to  retired 
regular  officers  is — unless  under  exceptional  circumstances — a  wrong 
one.  To  be  colonel  commanding  the  battalion  in  which  many 
years  have  been  served  is  the  highest  rank  to  which  a  Territorial 
officer  can  attain.  Why  deprive  him  of  it  to  replace  him  by  a 
man  who  could  have  risen  higher  in  the  Army,  but  has  failed  to  do 
so  either  by  choice  or  by  inability  ?  There  is  little  inducement  to 


586  THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL. 

become  a  Territorial  officer  as  it  is.  And  what  ex-Regular,  retired 
on  a  pension,  would  spend  the  money  on  a  strange  battalion  to 
which  he  might  be  posted,  which  the  present  colonels  willingly  give 
to  the  regiments  in  which  they  have  risen  step  by  step  ? 

The  possession  of  private  means  is  still  essential  to  anyone  above 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  in  the  ordinary  Territorial  battalion.  It  was 
announced  with  a  flourish  that  officers  would  get  grants  for  uniform. 
Not  till  questions  had  been  asked  in  Parliament  long  months 
afterwards  were  small  amounts  doled  out  covering  a  fraction  of  the 
cost.  Officers'  pay  in  a  camp  barely  meets  their  mess  bills,  however 
economical,  but  full  income  tax  is  deducted  though  the  result  to  the 
individual  is  a  loss.  Still  as  ever,  a  man  is  the  loser  who  is  willing 
to  learn  to  defend  his  country.  Still  efficiency  in  many  ways  depends 
on  the  extent  to  which  officers  put  their  hands  in  their  pockets. 
There  is  no  mention  of  this  notorious  fact  by  the  numerous  writers 
in  the  Press  who  are  never  so  happy  as  when  reiterating  that  the 
weakness  of  the  Force  lies  in  the  qualifications  of  its  officers.  The 
writer  would  like  to  take  one  such  assertor  and  put  him  in  charge 
of  a  London  artisan  company  for  a  year.  But  the  writer  would  be 
very  sorry  indeed  to  succeed  him  in  command  of  that  unfortunate 
company  afterwards. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  plea  might  be  entered  for  a  closer  associa- 
tion between  Regular  and  Territorial  battalions.  The  latter  have 
everything  to  gain  by  Field  days,  in  which  they  are  employed  side 
by  side  with  or  against  their  professional  comrades.  There  has 
been  too  little  of  this  lately  on  Salisbury  Plain,  at  any  rate  with  the 
London  brigades.  There  was  not  one  occasion  during  the  fortnight 
of  last  year's  training  on  the  Plain  when  the  writer's  battalion  even 
saw  a  battalion  of  Regular  infantry,  much  less  manoeuvred  either 
with  or  against  one.  Temporarily  attaching  a  Regular  battalion 
to  a  Territorial  Brigade  for  manoeuvres  would  do  a  world  of  good, 
but  the  hope  for  this  is  presumably  Utopian.  The  mind  shrinks 
from  contemplation  of  the  correspondence  between  Divisional 
and  Brigade  Staffs,  Accountants  and  Quartermasters  which  this 
innovation  would  involve. 

The  vexed  questions  of  musketry  should  be  left  to  Hythe  men 
alone.  Mention  might  be  allowed  here,  however,  of  two  things. 
Firstly,  the  common  assertion  that  the  shooting  of  the  Territorials 
is  bad.  Admittedly  with  the  London  Battalions  it  is  not  good; 
But  this  is  not  surprising  when  ranges  are  so  very  few  and  so  very 
far.  Also  with  the  ceasing  of  the  old  Volunteers  lias  conic  the 


THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL.  587 

elimination  of  the  pot-hunting  shots — men  who  did  the  bare  mini- 
mum of  drills  and  cared  alone  for  prize  shooting.  These  men  were  a 
perfect  plague  too  often  to  their  company  officers  in  the  field  on  the 
rare  occasions  on  which  they  were  constrained  unwillingly  to  appear. 
They  raised  the  statistical  average  of  battalion  shooting ;  yet  their 
disappearance  from  the  ranks  is  regretted  by  no  one  except  the 
compilers  of  the  annual  musketry  returns. 

Secondly,  one  of  the  great  problems  of  future  war  with  infantry 
will  be  the  supply  of  ammunition  to  the  firing  line.  Some  experts 
read  long  papers  on  the  subject ;  others  devise  strange  experiments 
on  manoeuvres.  The  solution  has  yet  to  be  found.  With  the 
modern  magazine  rifle  the  expenditure  of  ammunition  is  enormous, 
the  difficulty  of  persuading  young  soldiers  to  husband  their  stock 
of  cartridges  equally  great.  For  it  is  a  truism  that  in  a  wide-flung 
firing  line  the  control  of  the  officer,  flat  on  his  stomach  among  his 
men,  is  limited  to  the  nearest  few.  Then  is  it  wise  to  teach  recruits, 
as  in  the  new  musketry  course,  that  to  fire  away  eight  shots  in  a 
minute  and  hit  the  target  anywhere  if  possible,  is  as  much  to  be 
desired  as  to  take  careful  aim  at  a  bull's-eye  and  '  get  there '  ? 
The  writer  doubts  it. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  the  London  man  on  Salisbury  Plain 
is  a  very  bored  individual.  He  trudges  along  stolidly — always 
preferring  a  road  to  the  grass — with  seemingly  the  smallest  interest 
in  the  proceedings.  Till,  on  some  field-day,  shooting  begins  and 
he  gets  a  definite  glimpse  of  some  hostile  heads.  Then  attention 
revives  marvellously,  lagging  limbs  grow  brisk,  and  boredom  passes 
into  briskness.  This  is  typical  of  the  attitude  of  the  nation  in 
military  matters. 

Yet  a  skilful  company  commander  will  find,  and  does  find, 
means  to  interest  his  men  at  duller  moments  than  when  the  crackle 
of  rifle  fire  spatters  along  the  firing  line.  Similarly  the  national 
interest  in  the  Army  has  kindled  under  the  stimulus  of  the  Territorial 
Forces  without  waiting  for  the  emergencies  of  invasion,  which  it 
is  prayed  may  be  averted,  but  which  many  thoughtful  folk  think  a 
nearer  possibility  than  has  ever  been  the  case  for  generations.  The 
South  African  war  taught  the  Empire  the  value  of  Auxiliary 
Forces.  The  inexplicable  attitude  of  hostility  of  Labour  Conferences 
has  failed  to  discourage  the  training  of  many  of  the  nation's  young 
manhood  to  defend  their  country.  Why  this  aversion  on  the 
part  of  the  Labour  party  has  been  so  persistent  is  one  of  the  mysteries 
of  politics  to  a  plain  man.  There  is  no  class  in  the  country  which 


588  THE   THOUGHTS   OF   A   TERRITORIAL. 

has  responded  more  loyally  to  the  call  to  training  to  arms  than  the 
working  men.  The  artisan  population  has  been  splendid  in  its 
manful  service.  Yet  its  recognised  political  chiefs  would  apparently 
prefer  the  perfectly  possible  chances  of  life  under  a  foreign  conquest 
when  their  avowed  ideals  would  be  absolutely  unattainable.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  exactly  how  many  Labour  leaders 
have  ever  shouldered  a  rifle  and  tramped  for  long  hours  through 
heat  or  cold  in  the  fulfilment  of  a  duty  which  their  followers 
recognise  in  thousands.  It  would  be  well  if  the  leaders  were  in  this 
respect  the  led. 

Of  the  two  medals  which  the  writer  is  privileged  to  wear,  one 
was  received  at  the  hands  of  the  King  for  service  in  South  Africa, 
and  the  other  at  the  hands  of  his  colonel  for  long  service  at  home. 
They  are  reminders  of  what  the  Auxiliary  Forces  can  do  and  have 
done.  Looking  back  through  the  vista  of  years  the  record  of  the 
Volunteers  is  one  of  steady  progress.  So  it  will  be  with  the  Terri- 
torial Army.  It  sees  the  ideal  before  it — to  be  completely  efficient 
for  defence.  Slowly  the  hampering  conditions  are  passing  away. 
Given  time  now  to  develop  on  the  present  lines,  given  real  en- 
couragement by  the  Authorities,  given  a  still  more  universal  recog- 
nition by  employers,  the  newly  organised  Auxiliary  Forces  will  be- 
come a  power  for  peace  such  as  a  possible  disturber  will  hesitate 
to  attack.  Or  if,  greatly  daring,  he  risks  it,  he  will  suffer  a  reckoning 
unanticipated  and  complete. 


589 


THE   OSBORNES.1 
BY  E.  F.  BENSON. 

CHAPTER  X. 

CLAUDE,  as  befitted  the  future  candidate  for  the  constituency  of 
West  Brentwood,  was  sedulous  and  regular  in  reading  the  House 
of  Commons  debates,  and  two  mornings  later  was  sitting  after  break- 
fast with  his  '  Times '  in  front  of  him,  to  which  he  devoted  an 
attention  less  direct  than  was  usual  with  him,  for  he  expected  every 
moment  to  be  told  that  the  visitor  whom  he  was  waiting  for  would 
be  announced,  and  he  could  form  no  idea  of  what  the  visitor's 
business  might  be.  Half  an  hour  ago  he  had  been  summoned  to 
the  telephone  and  found  that  he  was  speaking  to  one  of  the  partners 
in  Grayson's  bank,  who  asked  if  he  could  see  him  at  once.  No  clue 
as  to  what  so  pressing  a  business  might  be  was  given  him,  and  Mr. 
Humby,  the  partner  who  spoke  to  him,  only  said  that  he  would 
start  immediately.  He  had  first  telephoned,  it  appeared,  to 
Claude's  flat,  and  his  servant  had  given  him  the  address. 

In  itself  there  was  little  here  that  was  tangibly  disquieting, 
for  Claude  stood  outside  the  region  of  money  troubles,  but  other 
things  combined  to  make  him,  usually  so  serene,  rather  nervous 
and  apprehensive.  For  the  last  day  or  two  he  had  been  vaguely 
anxious  about  his  mother,  who  appeared  to  him  not  to  be  well, 
though  in  answer  to  his  question  she  confessed  to  nothing  more 
than  July-fatigue,  while  his  relations  with  Dora,  or  rather  his  want 
of  them,  continued  to  perplex  or  distress  him.  She  was  evenly 
polite  to  him,  she  went  out  with  him  when  occasion  demanded,  but 
that  some  barrier  had  been  built  between  them  he  could  no  longer 
doubt.  He  had  not  only  his  own  feeling  to  go  upon,  for  his  mother 
had  remarked  it,  and  asked  if  there  was  any  trouble.  Lady  Osborne 
was  the  least  imaginative  of  women,  he  was  afraid,  and  her  question 
had  so  emphasised  it  to  his  mind  that  he  had  determined,  should  no 
amelioration  take  place,  to  put  a  direct  question  to  Dora  about  it. 
He  would  gladly  have  avoided  that,  for  his  instinct  told  him  that 
the  trouble  was  of  a  sort  that  could  scarcely  be  healed  by  mere 
»  Copyright,  1910,  by  JJ.  F,  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America, 


590  THE   OSBORNES. 

nvestigation,  but  the  present  position  was  rapidly  growing  intoler- 
able. All  these  things  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  concentrate 
his  attention  on  the  fiscal  question,  and  it  was  almost  with  a  sense 
of  relief  to  him  that  the  interruption  he  had  been  waiting  for  came. 

He  shook  hands  with  Mr.  Humby,  who  at  once  stated  his 
business. 

' 1  may  be  troubling  you  on  a  false  alarm,  Mr.  Osborne,'  he  said, 
'  but  both  my  partners  and  I  thought  that  one  of  us  had  better  see 
you  at  once  in  order  to  set  our  minds  at  rest.' 

'  You  have  only  just  caught  me,'  said  Claude.  '  I  am  going 
into  the  country  before  lunch.' 

'  Then  I  have  saved  myself  a  journey,'  said  Mr.  Humby  gravely. 

He  produced  an  envelope  and  took  a  cheque  out  of  it. 

4  The  cheque  came  through  to-day,'  he  said ;  '  it  was  cashed  two 
days  ago  at  Shepherd's  Bank,  quite  regularly.  But  it  is  drawn 
by  you  to  "  self  "  over  a  week  ago.  That  was  a  little  curious,  since 
cheques  drawn  to  self  are  usually  cashed  at  once.  Also,  though  that 
is  no  business  of  ours,  it  is  a  rather  large  sum,  five  hundred  pounds, 
to  take  in  cash.  You  have  banked  with  us  for  some  years,  Mr. 
Osborne,  and  we  find  you  have  never  drawn  a  large  sum  to  yourself 
before.  But  the  combination  of  these  things  seemed  to  warrant 
us  in  making  sure  the  cheque  was — ah,  genuine.  The  handwriting 
appears  to  be  yours.' 

Claude  looked  at  the  date. 

'  June  24,'  he  said.  *  I  did  draw  a  large  cheque  about  that 
time  for  a  motor-car.' 

'  That  has  been  presented  ;  it  was  drawn  to  Daimler's,'  said  Mr. 
Humby. 

Claude  turned  the  cheque  over  :  it  was  endorsed  with  his  name, 
but  search  how  he  might  he  could  not  recollect  anything  about  it. 
And  slowly  his  inability  to  remember  deepened  into  the  belief  that 
he  had  drawn  no  such  cheque. 

'  If  you  would  refer  to  your  cheque-book,'  said  Mr.  Humby, 
'  we  could  clear  the  matter  up.  I  am  sorry  for  giving  you  so  much 
trouble ' 

'  The  question  is,  Where  is  my  cheque-book  ?  '  said  Claude.  '  I 
came  over  here  over  a  week  ago,  but  before  that  I  was  at  my  flat. 
But  I  will  look.' 

He  went  upstairs,  into  the  sitting-room  which  was  his  and 
Dora's.  She  was  sitting  there  now,  writing  notes,  and  looked  up 
as  he  came  in. 


THE    OSBORNES.  591 

1  Claude,  can  I  speak  to  you  for  a  minute  ?  '  she  said. 

'  Yes,  dear,  but  not  this  moment.  I  have  to  find  my  cheque- 
book. Where  do  you  suppose  it  is  ?  One  must  attend  to  business, 
you  know.' 

'  Oh,  quite  so,'  said  she,  and  resumed  her  letter  again. 

Claude's  heart  sank.  Perhaps  she  wanted  to  speak  to  him 
about  things  that  were  of  infinitely  greater  moment,  and  he  had 
made  a  mess  of  it,  repulsed  her,  by  his  foolish  speech. 

'  Dora,  what  is  it  ? '  he  asked.     '  Is  it 

She  must  have  known  what  was  in  his  mind,  for  she  made  an 
impatient  gesture  of  dissent. 

'  No  ;  if  you  can  give  me  a  minute  later  on,  it  will  be  all  right, 
she  said. 

His  search  was  soon  rewarded,  but  proved  to  be  fruitless,  for 
the  cheque-book  was  a  new  one,  and  he  had  only  used  it  for  the 
first  time  three  days  ago.  But  perhaps  she  would  remember 
something. 

'  Dora,  did  I  give  you  a  rather  big  cheque  for  household  bills 
or  anything,  while  we  were  in  the  flat  ?  '  he  asked. 

'  Yes,  I  remember  that  you  did,'  she  said.  '  And  I  remember 
endorsing  it  as  you  drew  it  to  me.  Why  ? ' 

'  Only  that  there  is  a  cheque  that  I  appear  to  have  drawn  for 
five  hundred  pounds,  just  before  I  left  the  flat,  and  for  some  reason 
my  bankers  want  to  be  sure  that  I  did  draw  it.' 

4  You  mean  they  think  that  it  may  be  forged  ?  ' 

'  Yes.' 

'  But  who  can  have  got  hold  of  your  cheque-book  ? '  asked  Dora, 
'  You  have  found  it,  haven't  you  ? ' 

'  Yes,  but  this  is  no  use.  The  cheque  in  question  was  drawn 
before  I  began  this  book.  I  suppose  I  left  it  at  the  flat.' 

Dora  had  continued  writing  her  note  as  she  talked,  for  it  was 
only  a  matter  of  a  few  formal  phrases  of  regret,  but  at  this  moment 
her  hand  suddenly  played  her  false,  and  her  pen  spluttered  on  the 
paper.  And  though  she  did  not  know  at  that  second  why  this  had 
happened,  a  moment  afterwards  she  knew. 

Below  his  cheque-book  in  the  drawer  lay  Claude's  passbook. 
It  had  been  very  recently  made  up,  for  his  allowance  from  Uncle 
Alfred,  paid  on  June  28,  appeared  to  his  credit,  and  on  the  debit 
side  a  cheque  to  Dora  of  150L,  cashed  on  the  previous  day. 
That,  no  doubt,  was  the  cheque  for  '  books '  of  which  she  had 
spoken. 


592  THE   OSBORNES. 

She  had  gone  on  writing  again,  and  Claude  apparently  had 
noticed  nothing  of  that  pen-splutter. 

'  Yes,  here  are  cheques  I  have  drawn  up  till  the  29th,'  he  said, 
'  and  none  of  500/.  It  looks  rather  queer.  I'll  be  back  again  in 
five  minutes.  I  must  just  see  Mr.  Humby,  and  tell  him  I  can't 
trace  it.' 

Claude  went  rather  slowly  downstairs  again.  The  matter  was 
verging  on  certainty.  He  had  drawn  a  cheque  for  five  hundred 
pounds,  on  June  24,  and  it  had  not  been  presented  till  two  days  ago. 
The  cheque  for  the  car  was  entered  and  the  cheque  for  books  to 
Dora.  He  hated  to  think  that  Parker  had  forged  his  name,  but  if  he 
had,  good  servant  though  he  was,  there  was  no  clemency  possible. 

'  May  I  look  at  the  cheque  again  ?  '  he  asked. 

He  examined  it  more  closely. 

'  I  can  find  no  trace  of  drawing  any  such  cheque,'  he  said,  '  and 
I  believe  it  is  a  forgery.  It  is  very  like  my  handwriting,  but  I 
don't  believe  I  wrote  it.' 

'  That  is  what  we  thought,'  said  Mr.  Humby. 

'  Then  what  are  you  going  to  do  ? '  asked  he. 

'  Find  out  who  presented  the  cheque,  and  prosecute.  I  am  very 
sorry  :  it  is  an  unpleasant  business,  but  the  bank  can  take  no  other 
course.' 

He  folded  up  the  cheque  again,  put  it  in  his  pocket  and  left  the 
room.  But  Claude  did  not  at  once  go  back  to  Dora.  There  had 
started  unbidden  into  his  mind  the  memory  of  a  morning  at  Grote 
before  they  were  married,  of  a  game  of  croquet,  of  a  sovereign. 
Next  minute  he  too  had  left  the  room,  and  the  minute  after  he  was 
in  the  road,  walking  quickly  to  Mount  Street.  His  old  cheque-book 
no  doubt  was  there,  and  he  would  be  able  to  find  it.  And  all  the 
way  there  he  tried  desperately  to  keep  at  bay  a  suspicion  that 
threatened  to  grip  him  by  the  throat.  And  upstairs  Dora  waited 
for  him  :  the  same  doubt  threatened  to  strangle  her. 

Jim  was  out,  but  was  expected  back  every  moment,  and  Claude 
went  into  his  small  room,  and  began  searching  the  drawers  of  his 
writing-table.  There  was  a  sheaf  of  letters  from  Dora  in  one,  a 
copy  of  his  speech  on  municipal  taxation  in  another,  and  in  the 
third  a  heap  of  old  cards  of  invitation  and  the  butt-end  of  his 
cheque-book. 

Sun-blinds  were  down  outside  the  windows,  the  room  was  nearly 
dark,  and  he  carried  this  out  into  the  large  sitting-room  and  sat 
down  to  examine  it.  There  was  a  whole  batch  of  cheques,  most  of 


THE   OSBORNES.  593 

which  he  could  remember  about,  drawn  on  June  22.  Then  came  a 
blank  counterfoil,  and  then  the  last  counterfoil  of  the  book,  bearing  a 
docket  of  identification  as  cheque  to  Dora  for  150Z.  That  was  drawn 
on  the  27th. 

He  heard  a  step  outside  ;  the  door  opened  and  Jim  entered.  He 
was  whistling  as  he  came  round  the  corner  of  the  screen  by  the 
door.  Then  he  saw  Claude,  his  whistling  ceased,  and  his  face  grew 
white.  Once  he  tried  to  speak,  but  could  not. 

Claude  saw  that,  the  blank  face,  the  whitened  lips  ;  it  was 
as  if  Jim  had  been  brought  face  to  face  with  some  deadly  spectre, 
instead  of  the  commonplace  vision  of  his  brother-in-law  sitting 
in  his  own  room,  looking  through  the  useless  but  surely 
innocuous  trunk  of  an  old  cheque-book.  And  instantaneously, 
automatically,  Claude's  mind  leaped  to  the  conclusion  which  he 
had  tried  to  keep  away  from  it.  But  it  could  be  kept  away  no 
longer :  the  inference  closed  upon  him  like  the  snap  of  a  steel 
spring. 

In  the  same  instant  there  came  upon  him  his  own  personal 
dislike  of  Jim,  and  his  distrust  of  him.  How  deep  that  was  he 
never  knew  till  this  moment.  Then  came  the  reflection  that  he 
was  doing  Jim  a  monstrous  injustice  in  harbouring  so  horrible  a 
suspicion,  and  that  the  best  way  of  clearing  his  mind  of  it  was  to  let 
the  bank  trace  the  cheque  and  prosecute.  But  he  knew  that  it  was 
his  dislike  of  his  brother-in-law  that  gave  birth  to  this,  not  a  sense 
of  fairness.  And  on  the  top  of  it  all  came  the  thought  of  Dora 
and  his  love  for  her,  and  mingled  with  that  a  certain  pity  that  was 
its  legitimate  kinsman. 

The  pause,  psychically  so  momentous,  was  but  short  in  duration, 
and  Claude  jumped  up.  His  mind  was  already  quite  decided  :  it 
seemed  to  have  decided  itself  without  conscious  interference  on  his 
part. 

'  Good  morning,  Jim,5  he  said.  '  I  must  apologise  for  making 
an  invasion  in  your  absence,  but  I  had  to  refer  back  to  an  old 
cheque-book.' 

Jim  commanded  his  voice. 

4  Nothing  wrong,  I  hope,'  he  said. 

Again  Claude  had  to  make  a  swift  decision.  He  could  tell  Jim 
|that  a  cheque  of  his  had  been  forged,  and  that  the  matter  was 
•eady  in  the  hands  of  the  bank :  that  probably  would  force  a 
•nfession,  if  there  was  cause  for  one.  But  it  would  still  be  his 
islike  (though  he  might  easily  call  it  justice)  that  was  the  mover 

VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  166,  N.S.  38 


594  THE   OSBORNES. 

here.  There  was  a  wiser  way  than  that,  a  way  that,  for  all  the  surface 
falsehood  of  it,  held  a  nobler  truth  within. 

'  No,  nothing  whatever  is  wrong,'  he  said.  '  Excuse  me  :  I  must 
telephone  to  the  bank,  to  say  the  cheque  is  all  right.  Ah,  I'll  tele- 
phone from  here  if  you  will  allow  me.' 

The  telephone  was  just  outside,  and  Jim  heard  plainly  all  that 
passed.  The  number  was  rung  up,  and  then  Claude  spoke. 

'  Yes,  I'm  Mr.  Claude  Osborne.  I  am  speaking  to  Mr.  Grayson, 
am  I  ?  It  is  the  matter  that  Mr.  Humby  came  to  speak  to  me  about 
this  morning.  Yes,  yes  :  the  cheque  for  500Z.  I  find  I  have  made 
a  complete  error.  The  cheque  was  drawn  by  me  and  is  perfectly 
correct.  Yes.  It  was  very  stupid  of  me.  Please  let  Mr.  Humby 
know  as  soon  as  he  gets  back.  Yes.  Thank  you.  Good  morning.' 

Claude  paused  a  moment  with  the  receiver  in  his  hand.  Then 
he  called  to  Jim  : 

'  Can't  stop  a  moment,'  he  said.  '  I've  the  devil  of  a  lot  to  do. 
Good-bye.' 

He  walked  back  again  at  once  to  Park  Lane,  still  thinking 
intently,  still  wondering  if  he  could  have  done  better  in  any  way. 
Honest  all  through,  he  hated  with  a  physical  repulsion  the  thought 
of  what  he  felt  sure  Jim  had  done,  but  oddly  enough,  instead  of 
feeling  a  crescendo  of  dislike  to  Jim  himself,  he  was  conscious 
only  of  a  puzzled  sort  of  pity.  By  instinct  he  separated  the  deed 
from  the  doer,  instead  of  bracketing  them  both  in  one  clause  of 
disgusted  condemnation.  And  then  he  ceased  to  wonder  at  that : 
it  seemed  natural,  after  all. 

He  went  straight  up  to  Dora's  room,  and  found  her  still  at 
her  table  with  letters  round  her.  But  when  he  entered  she  was 
not  writing  ;  she  was  staring  out  of  the  window  with  a  sort  of  terror 
on  her  face.  Claude  guessed  what  it  was  that  perhaps  had  put  it 
there,  and  what  lurked  behind  that  look  of  agonised  appeal  that 
she  turned  on  him. 

'  I'm  sorry  for  being  so  long,  dear,'  he  said,  l  but  I've  been 
making  a  fool  of  myself.  That  cheque  I  spoke  to  you  about  is 
quite  all  right.  I  found  the  counterfoil  in  my  old  book  at  the  flat. 
I  drew  it  right  enough.  Mr.  Humby  expects  a  fellow  to  carry  in 
his  head  the  memory  of  every  half-crown  he  spends.' 

Dora  gave  one  great  sobbing  sigh  of  relief,  which  she  could  not 
check. 

1  I'm  glad,'  she  said.  '  I  hated  to  think  that  Parker  perhaps 
had  gone  wrong.  One — one  hates  suspicion,  and  its  atmosphere. 


THE   OSBORNES.  595 

Claude  heard,  could  not  help  hearing,  the  relief  in  the  voice, 
could  not  help  seeing  that  the  smile  she  gave  him  struggled  like 
mist-ridden  sunlight  to  shine  through  the  dispelled  clouds  of 
nameless  apprehension.  Nor  could  his  secret  mind  avoid  guessing 
what  that  apprehension  was,  for  it  was  no  stranger  to  him  ;  he  had 
been  sharer  in  it  till  he  had  seen  Jim,  when  it  deepened  into  a 
certainty  which  was  the  opposite  to  that  which  at  this  moment 
brought  such  relief  to  his  wife.  The  other  certainty,  his  own, 
must  of  course  be  kept  sealed  and  locked  from  her,  and  Claude 
hastened  to  convey  it  away  from  her  presence,  so  to  speak,  by 
talking  of  something  else,  for  fear  that  it  might,  in  despite  of  him, 
betray  some  hint  of  its  existence. 

'  But  there  was  something  you  wanted  to  speak  to  me  about,' 
he  said. 

'  Yes.    It  is  about  your  mother.    Do  you  think  she  is  well  ?  ' 

'  No,  I  haven't  thought  so  for  the  last  three  or  four  days,'  said 
he.  '  What  have  you  noticed  ? ' 

'  I  went  into  her  room  just  now/  said  Dora,  '  and  she  was 
sitting  doing  nothing.  And  she  was  crying.' 

Claude  paused  in  astonishment. 

'  Crying,'  he  said.     '  The  mater  crying  ? ' 

4  Yes.  She  clearly  did  not  wish  me  to  see  it,  and  so  I  pretended 
Hot  to.  I  had  thought  she  wasn't  well  before  now.  We  must  do 
something,  Claude  ;  make  her  see  a  doctor.' 

'  But  why  hasn't  she  been  to  see  a  doctor  all  these  days  ? '  he 
asked.  '  The  governor  goes  to  a  doctor  if  his  nails  want  cutting.' 

'  I  don't  know  why  she  hasn't  been.  There  might  be  several 
reasons.  But  I  thought  I  would  speak  to  you  first,  and  then  if  you 
approved  I  would  go  to  her  and  try  to  find  out  what  is  the  matter.' 

'  I  wish  you  would,'  he  said. 

Dora  got  up,  but  her  mind  went  back  to  that  which  she  had 

n  brooding  over  in  his  absence,  that  which  frightened  her. 

'  Did  you  see  Jim  ?  '  she  asked. 

'  Yes  :  he  came  in  when  I  was  there.' 

'  How  was  he  ?  '  she  asked  negligently. 

4  Oh,  much  as  usual.    I  couldn't  stop  because  I  wanted  to  get 

k  to  you.  Will  you  come  and  tell  me  about  the  mater,  after 
ou  have  seen  her  ?  ' 

Dora  went  back  to  Lady  Osborne's  room  and  knocked  before 
ie  entered.  The  apparition  of  her  sitting  and  crying  all  alone 

38-2 


596  THE   OSBORNES. 

had  frightened  her  more  than  she  had  let  Claude  see,  for  as  a  rule 
her  mother-in-law's  cheerfulness  was  of  a  quality  that  seemed  to 
be  proof  against  all  the  minor  accidents  of  life,  and  Dora 
remembered  how,  one  day  in  Italy,  when  they  had  missed  a  train 
at  Padua,  and  had  to  wait  three  hours,  Lady  Osborne's  only  com- 
ment had  been  '  Well,  now,  that  will  give  us  time  to  look  about  us.' 
She  was  afraid  therefore  that  the  cause  of  her  tears  was  not  trivial. 

And  now,  when  she  went  in  again,  receiving  a  rather  indistinct 
answer  to  her  knock,  she  found  Lady  Osborne  hastily  snatching 
up  the  day's  paper,  so  as  to  pretend  to  be  occupied.  But  her  face 
wore  an  expression  extraordinarily  contorted,  as  if  her  habitual 
geniality  found  it  a  hard  task  to  struggle  to  the  surface. 

'  And  I'm  sure  the  paper  gets  more  and  more  interesting  every 
day,'  said  she,  '  though  it's  seldom  I  find  time  to  have  a  glance  at 
all  the  curious  things  that  are  going  on  in  the  world.  What  a 
dreadful  place  Morocco  must  be ;  I  couldn't  sleep  quiet  in  my  bed 
if  I  was  there  !  What  is  it,  my  dear  ?  ' 

On  her  face  and  in  her  voice  the  trace  of  tears  bravely  sup- 
pressed still  lingered,  and  a  great  wave  of  pity  suddenly  swept 
over  Dora.  Something  was  wrong,  something  which  at  present 
Lady  Osborne  was  bearing  in  secret,  for  it  was  quite  clear  that 
her  husband,  whose  cheerfulness  at  breakfast  had  bordered  on  the 
boisterous,  knew  nothing,  nor  did  Claude  know.  Her  mother-in- 
law,  as  Dora  was  well  aware,  was  not  a  woman  of  complicated  or 
subtle  emotion,  who  could  grieve  over  an  imagined  sorrow,  or  could 
admit  to  a  personal  relation  with  herself  the  woe  of  the  world, 
for  with  more  practical  wisdom  she  gave  subscriptions  to  those 
whose  task  it  was  to  alleviate  any  particular  branch  of  it.  Her 
family,  her  hospitalities,  her  comfortable  though  busy  life  had  been 
sufficient  up  till  now  to  minister  to  her  happiness,  and  if  something 
disturbed  that,  Dora  rightly  thought  that  it  must  be  something 
tangible  and  personal.  So  she  went  to  the  sofa,  and  sat  down 
by  her,  and  did  not  seek  to  be  subtle. 

'  What  is  it  ?  '  she  said.     '  Is  there  anything  the  matter  ? ' 

The  simplicity  was  not  calculated ;  it  was  perfectly  natural, 
and  had  its  effect.  Lady  Osborne  held  the  paper  in  front  of  her  a 
moment  longer,  but  it  was  shaken  with  the  trembling  of  her  hands. 
Then  she  dropped  it. 

'  My  dear,  I  am  a  selfish  old  woman,'  she  said,  '  but  I  can  t 
bear  it  any  longer.  I've  not  been  well  this  long  time,  but  I've 
tried  to  tell  myself  it  was  my  imagination,  and  not  bother  anybody. 


THE   OSBORNES.  597 

And  I  could  have  held  on,  my  dear,  a  little  longer,  if  you  hadn't 
come  to  me  like  this.  I  warrant  you,  there  would  have  been  plenty 
of  laughing  and  chaff  at  Grote  this  week  end,  as  always.  But  the 
pain  this  morning  was  so  bad  that  I  just  thought  I  would  have  a 
bit  of  a  cry  all  to  myself.' 

'  But  why  have  you  told  nobody  ?  '  said  Dora.  '  Not  Claude, 
nor  Dad  nor  me  ? ' 

Lady  Osborne  mopped  her  eyes. 

'  Bless  your  heart,  haven't  we  all  got  things  to  bear,  and  best 
not  to  trouble  others  ?  '  she  said.  '  I  know  well  enough  how  you'd 
all  spend  your  time  in  looking  after  me,  and  having  the  doctor 
and  what  not,  and  I  thought  I  could  get  through  to  the  end  of  the 
season  and  then  go  and  rest,  and  see  what  was  the  matter.  And, 
my  dearie,  I'm  a  dreadful  coward,  you  know,  and  I  couldn't  abear 
the  thought  of  being  pulled  about  by  the  doctor,  and  maybe  worse 
than  that.  Anyhow,  I've  not  given  in  at  once.  Some  days  my 
colour  has  been  awful  and  no  appetite,  but  I've  kept  my  spirits 
up  before  you  all.  And  I  can't  bear  to  think  now  that  I  must  give 
in,  and  have  to  take  doctor's  stuff,  and  lie  up,  spoiling  all  your 
pleasure.  But  I  don't  think  as  I  can  go  on  much  longer  like  this. 
Perhaps  it's  best  that  you  know.  Poor  Eddie !  Him  and  his 
jokes  this  morning  at  breakfast,  chaffing  me  about  Sir  Thomas 
Lor,  my  dear,  what  spirits  he  has  !  I  declare  he  quite  took  my 
thoughts  off.  And  about  Claude  and  Lizzie  too,  as  if  Claude  ever 
gave  a  thought  to  anyone  but  yourself.' 

Lady  Osborne  patted  Dora's  hand  a  moment  in  silence.  She 
was  not  sure  that  Dora  had  '  relished  '  her  husband's  fun  at  break- 
fast ;  now  was  the  time  to  set  it  right. 

1  But  then,  Eddie  knew  that,  else  he'd  never  have  made  a  joke 
of  it,'  she  said.  '  And  you,  my  dearie,  have  been  so  sweet  to  me 
these  weeks,  not  that  you  haven't  been  that  always,  as  if  you  was 
my  own  daughter.  Indeed,  not  that  I  complain  of  Lizzie,  for  I 
don't — often  and  often  she's  behaved  high  to  Mr.  0.  and  me,  when 
you,  who  have  excuse  enough,  have  never  done  such  a  thing. 
(Often  I've  said  to  him,  "  It's  as  if  Dora  was  an  Osborne  herself." 
hank  you,  my  dearie,  for  that,  and  for  all  you've  done  and  been, 
dare  say  it's  been  difficult  for  you  at  times,  but  there  !  I  dare  say 
ou  think  I've  not  noticed,  but  I  have,  my  dear,  and  you've  behaved 

utiful  always.  I  wanted  just  to  say  that,  and  you're  behaving 
weet  and  kind  to  me  still.' 

Somehow,  deep  down,  this  cut  Dora  like  a  knife.     There  was 


598  THE   OSBORNES. 

a  wounding  pathos  about  it,  that  made  those  efforts  she  had  put 
forth  to  behave  decently,  appear  infinitely  trivial,  humiliatingly 
cheap.  And  the  gentle  patting  on  her  hand  continued. 

'  And  now,  dearie,  Fm  going  to  ask  you  to  do  another  thing 
yet,'  said  Lady  Osborne,  '  and  that  is  to  take  my  place  down  at 
Grote  this  Sunday,  and  let  me  stay  up  here  and  see  my  doctor  this 
afternoon.  If  you  hadn't  had  such  quick  and  loving  eyes,  I  should 
have  gone  through  with  it  and  held  on,  my  dear,  even  if  there  was 
more  mornings  like  this  in  store.  But  with  you  knowing,  my  dear, 
I'll  not  wait  longer,  and  maybe  make  matters  worse,  though  per- 
haps it's  me  as  has  been  making  a  fuss  about  nothing,  and  a  bottle 
of  medicine  will  make  me  as  fit  as  a  flea  again,  as  Mr.  0.  used  to 
say.  Now  we  must  put  our  heads  together  and  contrive,  so  that 
he  may  think  it's  just  a  touch  of  the  liver  and  nothing  to  be  alarmed 
for,  else  he'll  never  go  and  leave  me.  He's  gone  off  already  to  some 
committee,  and  the  car  is  to  call  for  him  at  twelve  and  drive  him 
straight  down,  so  that  he'll  find  himself  at  Grote  before  he  knows 
anything  is  wrong.  And  then,  my  dear,  you  must  do  your  best 
to  make  him  think  it's  nothing,  as,  please  God,  it  isn't.  What  a 
trouble  our  insides  are,  though,  to  be  sure,  mine's  given  me  little 
enough  to  complain  of  all  these  years.  I've  always  eaten  my 
dinner  and  got  a  good  night's  rest  until  this  began.' 

They  talked  long,  '  contriving,'  as  Lady  Osborne  had  said,  the 
sole  point  of  the  contrivance  being  that  her  husband  should  enjoy 
his  day  or  two  at  Grote,  and  have  everything  to  his  liking,  and  not 
fret  about  her.  Once  and  again  and  again  once  Dora  tried  to  lead 
the  conversation  back  to  Lady  Osborne  herself,  to  get  from  her 
some  inkling  of  what  her  indisposition  might  be,  what  its  symptoms 
were,  with  a  view  of  encouraging  her  to  face  the  doctor  with  equa- 
nimity, for  this  was  clearly  an  ordeal  she  dreaded.  But  on  Dora's 
third  attempt  she  put  an  end  to  further  questions  on  this  subject. 

'  I  think,  dearie,  we'll  not  talk  about  that,'  she  said,  '  because, 
as  I  told  you,  I'm  such  a  coward  as  never  was,  and  the  more  I 
think  about  it,  the  more  coward  I  shall  be  when  I  get  to  the  doctor's 
door.    It  was  just  the  same  with  me  about  my  teeth  before  I  lost; 
them  all :  if  one  had  to  come  out,  I  had  such  a  shrinking  from  a 
bit  of  pain,  that  if  I  thought  about  it,  I  knew  I  shouldn't  go  to! 
the  dentist  at  all.    So  I  used  to  busy  myself  with  other  things,  and 
plan  a  treat,  maybe,  for  the  working  folk,  or  an  extra  good  dinner. 
for  Mr.  0.,  or  a  surprise  for  Per  or  Claude  ;  and  it's  similar  to  that 


THE   OSBORNES.  599 

what  I'll  do  now,  if  you  don't  mind.  And  I  assure  you  I'm  so 
bothered  over  the  thought  of  you  and  Dad  being  at  Grote  without 
me  that  I've  little  desire  to  think  about  anything  else.  Thirty-five 
years  is  it  last  May,  my  dear,  since  we  took  each  other  for  better 
or  worse,  and  it's  always  been  better,  and  not  a  night  since  then, 
I  assure  you,  have  we  not  slept  under  the  same  roof,  and  in  the 
same  room  save  when  I  had  a  cold  and  feared  to  give  it  him.  And 
he's  got  to  depend  on  me,  God  bless  him  !  and  knows  that  I  shall 
see  he  has  a  biscuit  or  two  on  a  plate  by  his  bedside  and  a  glass  of 
milk,  against  he  wakes  in  the  night.  Servants  are  never  to  be 
trusted,  my  dear,  though  I'm  sure  it's  a  shame  to  say  it,  when  ours 
are  so  attentive.  But  he's  got  a  new  valet  just  of  late,  and  if  you 
could  peep  in  at  my  lord's  bedroom  door  when  you  went  up  to  bed, 
and  see  as  all  was  prepared,  and  that  his  slippers  was  put  where 
he  can  see  them  in  his  dressing-room,  else  he'll  walk  to  bed  in  his 
bare  feet  and  step  on  a  pin  or  a  tack  some  day,  which  I  always 
dread  for  him.  And  if  he  comes  in  hot,  as  he's  like  to  do  in  this 
weather  from  his  walk,  just  you  behave  as  if  you  was  me,  and  say 
to  him,  "  Mr.  0.,  you  go  and  change  your  vest  and  your  socks, 
else  I  don't  pour  you  out  your  cup  of  tea,"  and  knowing  as  you'll 
do  that  will  take  a  load  off  my  mind,  and  I  shall  go  to  the  doctor 
this  afternoon,  knowing  as  you  are  looking  after  him  as  if  I  was 
there,  as  comfortable  as  if  I  was  going  to  have  a  cheque  cashed  for 
me.  And,  my  dear,  if  you'd  sit  next  him  in  church  and  just  nudge 
him  if  he  attempts  to  follow  the  Lesson  without  putting  his  glasses 
on.  It's  small  print  in  his  Bible,  and  never  another  one  will  he  let 
me  give  him,  just  because  it  was  that  one  he  used  to  read  out  of 
to  me  when  we  were  in  Cornwall  on  our  wedding  trip,  and  sometimes 
no  church  within  distance.  But  be  sure  he  changes  his  underwear, 
my  dear,  when  he  comes  in,  for  he  catches  cold  easy,  and  his  skin 
acts  so  well  that  it's  as  if  he'd  had  a  bath.  And  give  him  plenty  of 
milk  in  his  coffee  at  breakfast,  not  that  he  likes  it,  but  he  will  have 
the  coffee  made  so  strong  that  it's  enough  to  rasp  the  coats  of  the 
stomach,  as  they  say,  unless  you  drown  it  in  milk.  And  you'll 
cheer  him  up,  I  know,  my  dear,  if  he  gets  anxious,  and  just  say  to 
him  "  Stuff  and  nonsense,  Dad,  Mrs.  O.'s  had  a  bit  of  an  upset, 
same  as  you  have  times  without  number,  and  she's  always  nervous 
about  herself,  and  has  gone  to  see  the  doctor,  and  as  like  as  not 
will  come  down  to-morrow  afternoon,  with  a  couple  of  pills  in  her 
pocket,  and  ready  to  be  laughed  at  to  your  heart's  content." 
That's  what  I  want  you  to  say,  my  dear,  though  you'll  put  it  in 


600  THE   OSBORNES. 

your  own  words,  and  much  better  I'm  sure.  But  to-day  it's  as 
if  I  feel  I  couldn't  go  and  look  after  my  friends,  now  that  I  know 
you'll  take  my  place,  for  when  there's  a  multitude  in  the  house, 
sometimes  the  mistress  can't  get  to  bed  till  it  may  be  one  o'clock 
or  worse,  and  I  want  a  good  long  night.  I  shall  try  to  see  Sir  Henry 
as  soon  as  may  be,  and  after  that  I  don't  doubt  I  shall  just  get  to 
bed  and  sleep  the  clock  round.  I'm  so  tired,  my  dear,  and  there's 
something — well,  I  make  no  doubt  that  before  many  hours  are 
out  we  shall  all  be  laughing  together  over  my  silliness,  and  Mr.  0. 
will  be  asking  if  I've  taken  my  phosphorus  jelly,  or  what  not. 
Lor,  he'll  never  let  me  hear  the  last  of  it ! ' 

That  was  a  triumphant  conclusion.  The  whole  speech,  punc- 
tuated by  silences,  punctuated  by  a  little  dropping  of  tears  and 
by  a  little  laughter,  was  hardly  less  triumphant.  Once,  ages  ago, 
so  it  seemed  to  Dora,  Claude  had  held  up  his  father  and  mother 
as  examples  of  the  ideal  antidote  against  the  grey-business  of 
middle  age,  and  it  had  failed  to  satisfy  her  then.  She  would  have 
thought  it  comical,  had  not  there  been  some  very  keen  sense  of 
disappointment  about  it,  that  a  lover  should  speak  to  his  beloved  in 
such  language.  But  now,  with  rekindled  meaning,  she  remembered 
the  incident  and  its  setting.  She  had  asked  him  for  consolation 
with  regard  to  the  grey-business  that  awaited  everybody,  hoping 
to  hear  words  of  glowing  romance,  and  had  found  it  half  comical, 
half  tragic,  that  he  refuted  her  doubts  by  the  visible  example  of 
his  father  and  mother.  He  had  said  that  she  '  was  his  best  girl 
still.'  But  now  Dora  did  not  feel  either  the  comedy  or  the  tragedy 
of  his  reply  ;  she  felt  only  the  truth  of  it.  And  she  did  not  wonder 
that  her  mother-in-law  was  Dad's  best  girl  still. 

But  for  herself,  though  there  was  heart-ache  in  much  that 
had  been  said,  there  was  the  beginning  of  understanding  also,  or, 
at  any  rate,  the  awakening  of  the  sense  that  there  was  something 
to  understand.  Lady  Osborne  had  called  herself  a  coward,  and 
reiterated  that  charge,  with  regard  to  seeing  a  doctor  only.  But 
love — a  golden  barrier  of  solid  defence,  no  filigree  work — had 
come  between  her  and  her  fear ;  and  yet  it  was  scarcely  true 
to  say  that  it  had  come  there :  it  was  always  there.  Once  Dora 
had  thought  that,  compared  to  romance,  any  relation  that  could 
exist  between  Claude's  parents  must  necessarily  be  of  an  ash-cold 
quality.  But  was  it  ?  She  herself  had  known  the  romantic,  but 
in  comparison  with  all  that  she  had  been  conscious  of  with  regard 


THE   OSBORNES.  601 

to  Claude  for  Ike  last  few  weeks  she  could  not  call  Lady  Osborue 
ash-cold.  In  her  there  was  some  glow,  some  authentic  fire  that 
had  never  known  quenching.  It  might  have  altered  in  superficials, 
for  flames  there  might  have  been  substituted  the  glowing  heart  of 
the  fire.  But  it  was  the  same  fire.  There  had  not  been  ashes  at 
any  time :  the  fire  always  burned,  unconsumed,  with  no  waste  of 
cinder  ;  it  was  immortal,  radium-like. 

Then  for  the  first  time  the  beauty  of  it  struck  her.  Before  this 
moment  she  had  seen  something  that  appeared  comical ;  then, 
with  better  vision,  she  had  seen  something  that  struck  her  as 
pathetic.  Now  with  true  vision  she  saw  all  she  had  missed  before — 
Beauty.  It  was  that  she  had  worshipped  all  her  life,  thinking  that 
she  would  always  recognise  and  adore.  But  she  had  missed  it 
altogether  in  that  which  was  so  constantly  under  her  eyes.  She 
had  been  too  quick  in  seeing  all  that  was  obvious :  wealth,  in- 
discriminate hospitality,  vulgarity  (since  she  had  chosen  to  call 
it  so) ;  but  the  big  thing,  that  which  was  the  essential,  she  had 
missed  altogether.  Once  before,  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Osborne 
shared  a  hymn-book  in  church,  she  had  seen,  and  thought  she 
understood.  Now  she  was  really  beginning  to  understand.  She 
began  to  want  to  take  other  hearts  into  her  own.  The  desire  was 
there.  The  beauty  she  had  at  last  seen  attracted  her,  drew  her 
to  it.  Strangely  had  it  been  unveiled,  by  tale  of  slippers  and 
biscuits  and  underwear.  She  never  had  expected  to  find  it  in  such 
garb.  But  Claude  had  known  it  was  there ;  he  had  not  been 
diverted  by  superficial  things,  but  had  seen  always  that  c  the 
mater  was  the  governor's  best  girl  still.' 

Dora  left  her  mother-in-law  that  morning  with  a  sense  of 
humility,  a  sense  also  of  disgust  at  herself  for  her  own  stupidity. 
All  these  months  a  thing  as  beautiful  as  this  great  love  and  tender- 
ness had  been  in  front  of  her  eyes,  and  she  had  not  troubled  to 
look  at  it  with  enough  attention  to  recognise  that  there  was  beauty 
there.  But  now  the  tears  that  dimmed  her  own  eyes  quickened 
her  vision.  At  last  she  saw  the  picture  in  its  true  value,  and  it 
made  her  ashamed.  Was  she  equally  blind,  too,  with  regard  to 
Claude  ?  Was  there  something  in  him,  some  great  thing,  which 
mattered  so  much  that  all  which  for  months  had  got  on  her  nerves 
more  and  more  every  day  was,  if  seen  truly,  as  trivial  as  she  now 
saw  were  those  things  that  had  blinded  her  in  the  case  of  Lady 
Osborne  ?  It  might  be  so  ;  all  she  knew  was  that  if  it  was  there, 


602  THE   OSBORNES. 

she  had  not  troubled  to  look  for  it.  At  first  she  had  so  loved  his 
beauty  that  nothing  else  mattered  ;  nor  did  it  seem  to  her  possible 
that  such  love  could  ever  be  diminished  or  suffer  eclipse.  But 
that  had  happened,  even  before  she  had  borne  a  child  to  him ; 
and  to  take  its  place  (and  more  than  take  its  place)  there  had 
sprung  up  no  herbs  of  more  fragrant  beauty  than  the  scarlet  of 
that  first  flower.  She  had  nothing  in  her  garden  for  him  but 
herbs  of  bitterness  and  resentment.  That,  at  least,  was  all  she 
knew  of  till  now. 

She  paused  a  moment  outside  the  door  of  the  sitting-room 
where  she  had  left  him,  before  entering,  for  she  knew  his  devotion 
to  his  mother,  and  was  sorry  for  him.  And  somehow  she  felt 
herself  unable  to  believe  that  Lady  Osborne's  optimistic  forecast 
would  be  justified ;  she  did  not  think  that  in  a  few  hours  they 
would  be  all  laughing  over  her  imaginary  ailment.  And  Claude 
must  see  that  she  was  anxious  ;  it  would  be  better  to  confess  to 
that,  and  prepare  him  for  the  possibility  of  there  being  something 
serious  in  store. 

He  looked  up  quickly  as  she  came  in,  throwing  away  the 
cigarette  he  had  only  just  begun. 

'  Well  ?  '  he  said. 

Dora  heard  the  tremble  and  trouble  in  that  one  word,  and 
she  was  sorry  for  him.  That  particular  emotion  she  had  never 
felt  for  him  before ;  she  had  never  seen  him  except  compassed 
about  with  serene  prosperity. 

'  Claude,  I'm  afraid  she  is  ill,'  she  said.  '  She  feels  it  herself 
too.  She  has  been  in  great  pain.' 

'  But  how  long  has  it  been  going  on  ? '  he  asked.  '  Why  hasn't 
she  been  to  a  doctor  ?  ' 

'  Because  she  didn't  want  to  spoil  things  for  us.  She  thought 
she  could  hold  on.  But  she  is  going  now,  to-day.' 

'  What  does  she  think  it  is  ?  '  asked  he. 

'  She  wouldn't  talk  of  it  at  all,'  said  Dora.  '  I  think  she  could 
hardly  think  of  it,  because  she  was  thinking  of  Dad  so  much. 
She  won't  come  down  to  Grote,  you  see,  but  stop  up  here,  unless 
she  is  told  it  is  nothing.  And  so  we  must  do  our  best  that  he 
sha'n't  be  anxious  or  unhappy  until  we  know  whether  there  is  real 
cause  or  not.  She  wants  me  particularly  to  go  down  there,  or  of 
course  I  would  stop  with  her.' 

'  The  mater  must  feel  pretty  bad  if  she's  not  coming  to  Grote,' 
said  he. 


THE    OSBORNES.  603 

'  Yes,  I  am  afraid  she  does.  Oh,  Claude,  I  am  so  sorry  for  her, 
and  you  all !  Her  bravery  has  made  us  all  blind.  I  ought  to  have 
seen  long  ago.  I  reproach  myself  bitterly.' 

'  No,  no,  there's  no  cause  for  that,'  said  he  gently.  '  She's 
taken  us  all  in,  and  it's  just  like  her.  Besides,  who  knows  ?  it  may 
be  nothing  in  the  least  serious.' 

'  I  know  that,'  said  she,  '  and  we  won't  be  anxious  before  we 
have  cause.  Go  and  see  her,  dear,  before  we  start,  and  make 
very  light  of  it ;  just  say  you  are  glad  she  is  being  sensible  at  last 
in  going  to  be  put  right.  There  is  no  cause  for  anxiety  yet.  I  shall 
go  round  to  Sir  Henry's  and  arrange  an  appointment  for  her  this 
afternoon,  if  possible,  and  get  him  to  write  to  us  very  fully  this 
evening,  so  that  we  shall  know  to-morrow.  And  then,  if  we  are 
to  get  down  by  lunch,  it  will  be  time  for  us  to  start.  I  ordered 
the  motor  for  twelve.' 

Lord  Osborne  was  a  good  deal  perturbed  at  the  news  with 
which  Dora  met  him  at  Grote,  and  it  was  an  affair  that  demanded 
careful  handling  to  induce  him  not  to  go  back  at  once  to  town 
and  see  her. 

'  Bless  me !  Maria  not  well  enough  to  come  down,  and  you 
expect  me  to  take  my  Sunday  off,  and  eat  my  dinner  as  if  my 
old  lady  was  a-seated  opposite  me  ? '  he  asked.  '  Not  I,  my 
dear ;  Maria's  and  my  place  is  together,  wherever  that  place 
may  be.' 

'  But  you  can't  go  against  her  wish,  Dad,'  said  Dora.  '  And 
what's  to  become  of  me  if  you  do  ?  I've  been  sent  down  on 
purpose  to  play  at  being  her.  You've  got  to  have  a  glass  of 
milk  by  your  bed,  and  a  couple  of  biscuits.  Oh,  I  know  all 
about  it ! ' 

'  To  think  of  your  knowing  that !  '  he  said,  rather  struck  by 
this  detail. 

'  Yes  ;  but  only  this  morning  did  I  know  it,'  said  Dora.  '  I  sat 
with  her  a  long  time,  and  all  she  could  think  about  was  that  you 
should  be  comfortable  down  here.' 

'  Well,  it  goes  against  the  grain  not  to  be  with  her,'  said  he. 
'  But,  as  you  say,  there's  no  cause  to  be  alarmed  yet.  And  Sir 
Henry's  going  to  see  her  this  afternoon  ? ' 

'  Yes,  and  telegraph  to  me  afterwards.  Dad,  if  you  upset  all 
our  beautiful  arrangements,  neither  she  nor  I  will  ever  speak  to 
you  again.  Oh,  do  be  good  ! ' 


604  THE   OSBORNES. 

'  But  it  won't  be  like  home  not  to  have  Lady  0.  here,'  said  lie. 

'  She  knows  that ;  but  Claude  and  T  have  to  make  as  good  an 
imitation  as  we  can.  And  you'll  put  me  in  a  dreadful  hole  if  you 
go  back  to  town.  She  will  say  I  have  made  no  hand  of  looking 
after  you  at  all.  I  shall  be  in  disgrace,  as  well  as  you.' 

'  Well,  God  bless  you,  my  dear  ! '  said  he  ;  '  and  thank  you  for 
being  so  good  to  us.  Here  I'll  stop,  if  it's  the  missus's  wish.  No, 
I  don't  fancy  any  pudding  to-day,  thank  you.' 

Dora  laid  down  her  spoon  and  fork. 

'  Dad,  not  one  morsel  do  I  eat  unless  you  have  some  !  '  she  said. 
c  And  I'm  dreadfully  hungry.' 

Lord  Osborne  laughed  within  himself. 

'  Eh !  you've  got  a  managing  wife,  Claude,'  he  said.  '  She 
twists  us  all  round  her  little  finger.' 

The  expected  telegram  arrived  in  the  course  of  the  evening, 
and  though  it  contained  nothing  definite,  Lord  Osborne  was  able 
to  interpret  it  in  the  most  optimistic  manner. 

'  Well,  Sir  Henry  tells  you  that  Mrs.  O.'s  in  no  pain,  and  that 
he's  going  to  see  her  again  to-morrow,'  he  said.  '  Why,  I  call  that 
good  news,  and  it  relieves  my  mind,  my  dear.  Bless  her !  she'll 
get  a  good  night's  rest,  I  hope,  now,  and  feel  a  different  creature 
in  the  morning.  There's  nothing  else  occurs  to  you,  my  dear  ? 
Surely  he  would  have  said  if  he  had  found  anything  really  wrong  ? ' 

Dora  read  the  telegram  again. 

'  No  ;  I  think  you  are  quite  righ£  to  put  that  interpretation 
on  it,'  she  said  truthfully  enough.  '  We'll  hope  to  get  good  news 
again  to-morrow.  I  am  glad  she  is  out  of  pain.' 

But  secretly  she  feared  something  she  did  not  say — namely, 
that  there  was  something  wrong,  but  that  Sir  Henry  had  not  been 
able  without  further  examination  to  say  what  it  was.  Yet,  after 
all,  that  interpretation  might  be  only  imagination  on  her  part. 
But  there  was  nothing  in  the  telegram  which  appeared  to  her  to 
be  meant  to  allay  the  anxiety  which  he  must  know  existed. 

Dora  went  to  bed  that  evening  with  a  great  many  things  to 
think  about,  which  had  to  be  faced,  not  shirked  or  put  aside.  The 
day,  which  by  the  measure  of  events  had  been  almost  without 
incident,  seemed  terribly  full  of  meaning  to  her.  Lady  Osborne 
had  seen  a  doctor ;  she  had  talked  over  domestic  affairs  with 
Dora  .  .  .  that  was  not  quite  all :  Claude  had  thought  that  a  cheque 
had  been  forged,  but  found  on  examination  that  he  had  made  a 


THE   OSBORNES.  605 

mistake.  Set  out  like  that,  there  seemed  little  here  that  could 
occupy  her  thoughts  at  all,  still  less  that  could  keep  away  from 
her  the  sleep  that  in  general  was  so  punctual  a  visitor  to  her.  But 
to-night  it  did  not  come  near  her,  and  she  did  not  even  try  to 
woo  its  approach.  She  had  no  thought  of  sleep,  though  she  was 
glad  to  have  the  darkness  and  the  silence  round  her  so  that  she 
might  think  without  distraction.  All  these  things,  trivial  as  events, 
seemed  to  her  to  be  significant,  to  hold  possibilities,  potentialities, 
altogether  disproportionate  to  their  face  value.  It  might  prove 
not  to  be  so  when  she  examined  them  ;  it  might  be  that  for  some 
reason  a  kind  of  nightmare  inflation  was  going  on  in  her  mind,  so 
that,  as  in  physical  nightmare  things  swell  to  gigantic  shape,  in 
her  imagination  these  simple  little  things  were  puffed  out  to 
grotesque  and  terrifying  magnitude.  She  had  to  think  them  over 
calmly  and  carefully ;  it  might  easily  be  that  they  would  sink  to 
normal  size  again. 

She  took  first  that  affair  of  the  cheque,  which  had  turned  out, 
apparently,  to  be  no  affair  at  all.  Claude  had  made  a  mistake,  so 
he  had  himself  said,  and  the  cheque  which  he  and  the  bank  had 
suspected  was  perfectly  genuine.  But  Dora,  between  the  time  of 
his  thinking  there  was  something  wrong  and  of  his  ascertaining 
that  there  was  not,  had  passed  a  very  terrible  quarter  of  an  hour — 
one  that  it  made  her  feel  sick  to  think  of  even  now.  There  was 
no  use  in  blinking  it :  she  had  feared  that  Jim  had  forged  her 
husband's  cheque.  She  had  hardly  given  a  thought  to  what  the 
consequences  might  be ;  what  turned  her  white  and  cold  was  the 
thought  that  he  had  done  it.  Her  pen  had  spluttered  when  the 
thought  first  occurred  to  her,  but  she  believed  Claude  had  not 
noticed  that.  But  had  he  noticed  the  sob  of  relief  in  her  voice  when 
he  told  her  that  the  cheque  was  all  right  ?  He  was  not  slow  to 
observe  ;  his  perceptions,  especially  where  she  was  concerned,  were 
remarkably  vivid,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  he  must  have  noticed 
it.  Yet  he  had  said  nothing. 

Anyhow  the  cheque  was  correct,  and  she  was  left  with  the  fact 
that  it  had  seemed  to  her  possible  that  Jim  had  been  guilty  of  this 
gross  meanness.  And,  just  as  if  the  thing  had  been  true,  she  found 
herself  trying  to  excuse  him,  saw  herself  pleading  with  Claude  for 
him.  Poor  Jim  was  not  .  .  .  was  not  quite  like  other  people  :  he 
did  not  seem  to  know  right  from  wrong.  He  had  always  cheated 
at  games  ;  she  remembered  telling  Claude  so  one  day  down  here  at 
Grote,  when  he  and  Jim  had  been  playing  croquet  and  Jim  had 


606  THE   OSBORNES. 

cheated.  But  they  had  not  been  playing  for  money.  So  Claude 
had  told  her.  And  he  had  told  her  the  cheque  was  all  right.  That 
was  all :  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  thought  of  with  regard  to 
this. 

Yet  she  still  lingered  on  the  threshold  of  the  thought  of  it. 
Jim  had  got  'cleaned  out'  (his  own  phrase)  in  the  Derby  week, 
had  pledged  the  quarter's  rent  of  Grote  in  advance  to  pay  his  Derby 
debts.  And  somebody  had  told  her  that  Jim  had  lost  heavily  at 
Newmarket  afterwards,  and  he  had  told  her  that  he  had  paid  and 
was  upright  before  the  world  in  the  matter  of  debts  of  honour. 

She  had  passed  the  threshold  of  that  thought  and  was  inside 
again.  Where  had  he  got  the  money  from  ?  Well,  anyhow  not  by 
forgery.  Claude  had  said  that  the  mistake  was  his.  But  how  odd 
that  he  should  not  have  been  able  to  recollect  about  a  cheque  for 
five  hundred  pounds,  drawn  only  ten  days  before  ! 

Dora  still  lingered  in  the  precincts  of  that  thought,  though  she 
beckoned,  so  to  speak,  another  thought  to  distract  her.  What  a 
wonderful  thing,  how  triumphant  and  beautiful  was  the  love  of  which 
she  had  seen  a  glimpse  to-day.  It  was  all  the  more  wonderful  because 
it  seemed  to  be  common,  to  be  concerned  with  biscuits  and  coffee. 
A  hundred  times  she  had  seen  Lady  Osborne  wrapped  up  in  such 
infinitesimal  cares  as  these,  and  had  thought  only  that  her  mind 
and  her  soul  were  altogether  concerned  with  serving,  that  the  pro- 
vision for  the  comfortable  house  and  the  good  dinner  was  aspiration 
sufficient  for  her  spiritual  capacity.  Yet  there  had  always  been  a 
little  more  than  that :  there  had  been  the  moment  in  church  when  the 
sermon  was  to  her  taste,  and  the  hymn  a  favourite,  and  she  and  her 
husband  had  tunelessly  sung  out  of  one  book.  That  had  touched 
Dora  a  little,  but  she  had  then  dismissed  it  as  a  banal  affair  of 
goody-goody  combined  with  a  melodious  tune,  when  she  saw  the 
great  lunch  that  they  both  ate  immediately  afterwards. 

But  now  these  details,  these  Martha- cares,  had  taken  a  different 
value.  This  morning  Lady  Osborne  had  been  in  great  pain,  had 
broken  down  in  her  endeavour  to  carry  on  somehow,  and  was  face 
to  face  with  a  medical  interview  which  she  dreaded.  But  still  she 
could  think  with  meticulous  care  of  her  husband's  milk,  of  his 
slippers,  of  his  tendency  towards  strong  coffee.  What  if  below  the 
Martha  was  Mary,  if  it  was  Mary's  love  that  made  Martha  so 
sedulous  in  serving  ? 

All  that  she  had  overlooked,  not  caring  to  see  below  a  surface 


THE   OSBORNES.  607 

which  she  said  was  commonplace  and  prosperous.  The  surface 
was  transparent  enough,  too  :  it  was  not  opaque.  She  could  have 
seen  down  into  the  depths  at  any  time  if  she  had  taken  the  trouble 
to  look. 

Before  her  marriage,  and  for  a  few  months  after  it,  she  had 
thought  she  knew  what  '  depths  '  meant.  She  thought  she  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  absorbed  in  another.  Then  had  come  her  dis- 
illusionment. She  had  worshipped  surface  only :  she  knew  no 
more  of  Claude  than  that.  She  had  loved  his  beauty,  she  had  got 
accustomed  to  it.  She  had  at  first  disregarded  what  she  had  grown 
to  call  his  vulgarity,  and  had  not  got  accustomed  to  it.  She  had 
known  he  was  honest  and  true  and  safe,  but  she  had  grown  to  take 
all  that  for  granted.  She  had  never  studied  him,  looked  for  what 
was  himself,  she  had  but  had  glimpses  of  him,  no  more  than  she  had 
had  of  his  mother.  But  to-day  she  felt  that  with  regard  to  her  these 
glimpses  were  fused  together :  they  made  a  view,  a  prospect  of  a 
very  beautiful  country.  But  as  yet  there  had  no  fusing  like  that 
come  with  regard  to  her  husband.  Now  that  she  '  saw,'  even  the 
country,  the  country  of  the  grey-business  was  beautiful.  And  at 
present  in  her  own  warm  country,  her  young  country,  beauty  was 
lacking. 

Perhaps — here  the  third  subject  came  in — perhaps,  even  in  the 
trouble  that  she  felt  threatened  them,  there  were  elements  that 
might  be  alchemised.  She  was  willing,  at  least,  to  attempt  to  find 
gold,  to  transform  what  she  had  thought  was  common  into  the  fine 
metal.  Some  alchemy  of  the  sort  had  already  taken  place  before 
her  eyes ;  she  no  longer  thought  common  those  little  pathetic 
anxieties  which  she  had  heard  this  morning.  For  days  and  months 
the  same  anxieties,  the  same  care  had  been  manifest.  There  was  no 
day,  no  hour  in  which  Lady  Osborne  had  not  been  concerned  with 
the  material  comfort  of  those  whom  she  loved.  She  was  always 
wondering  if  her  husband  had  got  his  lunch  at  the  House,  and  what 
they  gave  him  ;  whether  the  motor  had  got  there  in  time,  and  if  he 
remembered  to  put  his  coat  on.  Nor  had  her  care  embraced  him 
alone.  One  day  she  had  come  up  to  Dora's  sitting-room  and  found 
that  there  was  a  draught  round  the  door,  and  so  had  changed  her 
seat.  But  next  day  there  was  a  screen  placed  correctly.  Or  Claude 
had  sneezed  at  dinner,  and  a  mysterious  phial  had  appeared  on  his 
dressing-table  with  the  legend  that  directed  its  administration.  He 
had  come  in  to  Dora  to  ask  if  she  had  any  explanation  of  the  bottle. 
But  she  had  none,  and  they  concluded  Mrs.  Osborne  had  put  it 


608  THE   OSBORNES. 

there,  fussily  no  doubt,  for  a  sneeze  was  only  a  sneeze,  but  with 
what  loving  intent !  She  remembered  everything  of  that  sort. 
Per  liked  kidneys  :  his  wife  liked  cocoa.  It  was  all  attended  to. 
Martha  was  in  evidence.  But  Mary  was  there. 

Dora's  thoughts  had  strayed  again.  She  had  meant  to  think 
about  the  trouble  that  she  felt  was  threatening,  and  to  see  if  by 
some  alchemy  it  might  be  transformed  into  a  healing  of  hurt.  She 
did  .\ot  believe  that  she  was  fanciful  in  expecting  bad  news  :  she 
wished  to  contemplate  the  effect  of  it,  if  it  came.  Supposing  Lady 
Osborne  was  found  to  be  suffering  from  something  serious,  how  was 
she  herself  to  behave  ?  She  had  to  make  things  easier  for  her  father- 
in-law  :  she  had  to  be  of  some  use.  That  was  not  so  difficult :  a 
little  affection  meant  so  much  to  him.  He  glowed  with  pleasure 
when  she  was  kind.  But  for  Claude  ?  That  was  more  difficult. 
She  had  to  be  all  to  him.  It  was  much  harder  there  to  meet  the 
needs  she  ought  to  meet,  and  should  instinctively  meet  without 
thought.  Once,  if  she  had  said,  '  Oh,  Claude  !  '  all  would  have  been 
said  because  the  simple  words  were  a  symbol.  But  now  she  could 
not  say,  '  Oh,  Claude  ! '  like  that.  She  could  be  Martha,  that  was 
easy.  But  it  was  not  Martha  who  was  wanted. 

The  door  from  his  dressing-room  opened,  and  he  came  in, 
shielding  with  his  hand  the  light  of  his  candle,  so  that  it  should  not 
fall  on  her  face.  The  outline  of  his  fingers  even  to  her  half-shut  eyes 
was  drawn  in  luminous  red,  where  the  light  shone  through  the  flesh. 
He  had  often  come  in  like  that,  fearing  to  awaken  her.  Often  she 
had  been  awake,  as  she  was  now. 

To-night  she  feigned  sleep.  And  she  heard  the  soft  breath  that 
quenched  the  candle ;  she  heard  a  whisper  of  voice  close  to  her 
words  of  one  who  thought  that  none  heard. 

'  Good  night,  my  darling  ! '  he  said. 


(To  be  continued.') 


THE 

COKNHILL     MAGAZINE. 


MAY   1910. 


CANADIAN  BORN.1 
BY   MRS.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 

EPILOGUE. 

ABOUT  nine  months  later  than  the  events  told  in  the  last  chapter, 
the  August  sun,  as  it  descended  upon  a  lake  in  that  middle  region  of 
the  northern  Kockies  which  is  known  as  yet  only  to  the  Indian 
trapper,  and — on  certain  tracks — to  a  handful  of  white  explorers, 
shone  on  a  boat  containing  two  persons — Anderson  and  Elizabeth. 
It  was  but  twenty-four  hours  since  they  had  reached  the  lake,  in 
the  course  of  a  long  camping  expedition  involving  the  company 
of  two  guides,  a  couple  of  half-breed  voyageurs,  and  a  string  of 
sixteen  horses.  No  white  foot  had  ever  before  trodden  the  slender 
beaches  of  the  lake ;  its  beauty  of  forest  and  water,  of  peak  and 
crag,  of  sun  and  shadow,  the  terror  of  its  storms,  the  loveliness  of 
ts  summer, — only  some  stray  Indian  hunter,  once  or  twice  in  a 
century  perhaps,  throughout  all  the  aeons  of  human  history,  had 
ever  beheld  them. 

But  now,  here  were  Anderson  and  Elizabeth ! — first  invaders  of 
an  inviolate  Nature,  pioneers  of  a  long  future  line  of  travellers 
and  worshippers. 

They  had  spent  the  day  of  summer  sunshine  in  canoeing  on  the 

road  waters,  exploring  the  green  bays,  and  venturing  a  long  way 

p  a  beautiful  winding  arm  which  seemed  to  lose  itself  in  the  bosom 

f  superb  forest-skirted  mountains,  whence  glaciers  descended,  and 

cataracts  leapt  sheer  into  the  glistening  water.     Now  they  were 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  39 


610  CANADIAN    BORN. 

floating  slowly  towards  the  little  promontory  where  their  two  guides 
had  raised  a  couple  of  white  tents,  and  the  smoke  of  a  fire  was  rising 
into  the  evening  air. 

Sunset  was  on  the  jagged  and  snow-clad  heights  that  shut  in 
the  lake  to  the  eastward.  The  rose  of  the  sky  had  been  caught  by 
the  water  and  interwoven  with  its  own  lustrous  browns  and  cool 
blues ;  while  fathom-deep  beneath  the  shining  web  of  colour 
gleamed  the  reflected  snows  and  the  forest  slopes  sliding  down- 
wards to  infinity.  A  few  bird-notes  were  in  the  air, — the  scream  of 
an  eagle,  the  note  of  a  whip-poor-will,  and  far  away  across  the  lake 
a  dense  flight  of  wild  duck  rose  above  a  reedy  river-mouth,  black 
against  a  pale  band  of  sky. 

They  were  close  now  to  the  shore,  and  to  a  spot  where  lightning 
and  storm  had  ravaged  the  pines  and  left  a  few  open  spaces  wherein 
the  sun  might  work.  Elizabeth,  in  delight,  pointed  to  the  beds  of 
wild  strawberries  crimsoning  the  slopes,  intermingled  with  stretches 
of  bilberry,  and  streaks  of  blue  and  purple  asters.  But  a  wilder  life 
was  there.  Far  away  the  antlers  of  a  swimming  moose  could  be 
seen  above  the  quiet  lake.  Anderson,  sweeping  the  lake  side  with 
his  field  glass,  pointed  to  the  ripped  tree-trunks,  which  showed  where 
the  brown  bear  or  the  grizzly  had  been,  and  to  the  tracks  of  lynx  or 
fox  on  the  firm  yellow  sand.  And  as  they  rounded  the  point  of  a 
little  cove  they  came  upon  a  group  of  deer  who  had  come  down  to 
drink. 

The  gentle  creatures  were  not  alarmed  at  their  approach ;  they 
raised  their  heads  in  the  red  light,  seeing  man  perhaps  for  the  first 
time,  but  they  did  not  fly.  Anderson  stayed  the  boat,  and  he  and 
Elizabeth  watched  them  with  enchantment — their  slender  bodies 
and  proud  necks,  the  bright  sand  at  their  feet,  the  brown  water  in 
front,  the  forest  behind. 

Elizabeth  drew  a  long  breath  of  joy, — looking  back  again  at  the 
dying  glory  of  the  lake,  and  the  great  thunder- clouds  piled  above 
the  forest. 

4  Where  are  we  exactly  ?  '  she  said.     '  Give  me  our  bearings.' 

4  We  are  about  seventy  miles  north  of  the  main  line  of  th 
C.P.R.  and  about  forty  or  fifty  miles  from  the  projected  line  of  th 
Grand  Trunk  Pacific,'  said  Anderson.  '  Make  haste,  dearest,  an< 
name  your  lake  ! — for  where  we  come,  others  will  follow.' 

So  Elizabeth  named  it — Lake  George — after  her  husband 
seeing  that  it  was  his  topographical  divination,  his  tracking  of  th' 
lake  through  the  ingenious  unravelling  of  a  score  of  Indian  clue 


CANADIAN    BORN.  611 

which  had  led  them  at  last  to  that  Pisgah  height  whence  the  silver 
splendour  of  it  had  first  been  seen.  But  the  name  was  so  hotly  re- 
pudiated by  Anderson  on  the  ground  of  there  being  already  a  famous 
and  an  historical  Lake  George  on  the  American  continent,  that  the 
probability  is,  when  that  noble  sheet  of  water  comes  to  be  generally 
visited  of  mankind,  it  will  be  known  rather  as  Lake  Elizabeth  ;  and 
so  those  early  ambitions  of  Elizabeth,  which  she  had  expressed  to 
Philip  in  the  first  days  of  her  Canadian  journeying,  will  be  fulfilled. 
Alas  ! — poor  Philip  !  Elizabeth's  black  serge .  dress,  and  the 
black  ribbon  on  her  white  sun-hat  were  the  outward  tokens  of  a 
grief,  cherished  deep  in  her  protesting,  pitiful  heart.  Her  brother 
had  lived  for  some  four  months  after  her  engagement  to  Anderson ; 
always,  in  spite  of  encouraging  doctors,  under  the  same  sharp 
premonition  of  death  which  had  dictated  his  sudden  change  of 
attitude  towards  his  Canadian  friend.  In  the  January  of  the  new 
year,  Anderson  had  joined  them  at  Bordighera,  and  there,  after 
many  alternating  hopes  and  fears,  a  sudden  attack  of  pneumonia 
had  slit  the  thin-spun  life.  A  few  weeks  later,  at  Mrs.  Gaddesden's 
urgent  desire,  and  while  she  was  in  the  care  of  a  younger  sister 
to  whom  she  was  tenderly  attached,  there  had  been  a  quiet  wedding 
at  Genoa,  and  a  very  pale  and  sad  Elizabeth  had  been  carried  by 
her  Anderson  to  some  of  the  beloved  Italian  towns,  where  for  so 
long  she  had  reaped  a  yearly  harvest  of  delight.  In  Eome,  Florence, 
and  Venice  she  must  needs  rouse  herself,  if  only  to  show  the  keen 
novice  eyes  beside  her  what  to  look  at,  and  to  grapple  with  the 
unexpected  remarks  which  the  spectacle  evoked  from  Anderson. 
He  looked  in  respectful  silence  at  Bellini  and  Tintoret;  but  the 
industrial  growth  of  the  north,  the  strikes  of  braccianti  on  the  central 
plains,  and  the  poverty  of  Sicily  and  the  south — in  these  problems 
e  was  soon  deeply  plunged,  teaching  himself  Italian  in  order  to 
nderstand  them. 

Then  they  had  returned  to  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  and  to  the  surrender 
f  Martindale  to  its  new  master.  For  the  estate  went  to  a  cousin, 
nd  when  the  beauty  and  the  burden  of  it  were  finally  gone,  Philip's 
entle  ineffectual  mother  departed  with  relief  to  the  moss-grown 
ower-house  beside  Bassenthwaite  lake,  there  to  sorrow  for  her 
nly  son,  and  to  find  in  the  expansion  of  Elizabeth's  life,  in 
Elizabeth's  letters,  and  the  prospects  of  Elizabeth's  visits,  the  chief 
neans  left  of  courage  and  resignation.  Philip's  love  for  Anderson, 
is  actual  death  in  those  strong  arms,  had  strengthened  immeasur- 
bly  the  latter' s  claim  upon  her  ;  and  in  March  she  parted  with  him 

39—2 


612  CANADIAN    BORN. 

and  Elizabeth,  promising  them  boldly  that  she  would  come  to  them 
in  the  fall,  and  spend  a  Canadian  winter  with  them. 

Then  Anderson  and  Elizabeth  journeyed  West  in  hot  haste  to 
face  a  general  election.  Anderson  was  returned,  and  during  three  or 
four  months  at  Ottawa,  Elizabeth  was  introduced  to  Canadian 
politics,  and  to  the  swing  and  beat  of  those  young  interests  and 
developing  national  hopes  which,  even  after  London,  and  for  the 
Londoner,  lend  romance  and  significance  to  the  simpler  life  of 
Canada's  nascent  capital.  But  through  it  all  both  she  and  Anderson 
pined  for  the  West,  and  when  Parliament  rose  in  early  July,  they  fled 
first  to  their  rising  farm-buildings  on  one  of  the  tributaries  of  the 
Saskatchewan,  and  then,  till  the  homestead  was  ready,  and  the  fall 
ploughing  in  sight,  they  had  gone  to  the  Rockies,  in  order  that  they 
might  gratify  a  passionate  wish  of  Elizabeth's — to  get  for  once  beyond 
beaten  tracks,  and  surprise  the  unknown.  She  pleaded  for  it  as 
their  real  honeymoon.  It  might  never  be  possible  again  ;  for  the 
toils  of  life  would  soon  have  snared  them. 

And  so,  after  a  month's  wandering  beyond  all  reach  of  civilisa- 
tion, they  were  here  in  the  wild  heart  of  Manitou's  wild  land, 
and  the  red  and  white  of  Elizabeth's  cheek,  the  fire  in  her  eyes 
showed  how  the  god's  spell  had  worked.  .  .  . 

The  evening  came.  Their  frugal  meal,  prepared  by  one  of  the 
Indian  half-breeds,  and  eaten  in  a  merry  community  among  beds  of 
orchids  and  vetch,  was  soon  done ;  and  the  husband  and  wife  pushed 
off  again  in  the  boat — for  the  densely  wooded  shores  of  the  lake  were 
impassable  on  foot — to  watch  the  moon  rise  on  this  mysterious 
land. 

And  as  they  floated  there,  often  hand  in  hand,  talking  a  little, 
but  dreaming  more — Anderson's  secret  thoughts  reviewed  the  past 
year,  and  the  incredible  fortune  which  had  given  him  Elizabeth 

Deep  in  his  nature  was  still  the  old  pessimism,  the  old  sadness 
Could  he  make  her  happy  ?     In  the  close  contact  of  marriage  hfj 
realised  all  that  had  gone  to  the  making  of  her  subtle  and  delicate 
being — the  influences  of  a  culture  and  tradition  of  which  he  waf' 
mostly  ignorant,  though  her  love  was  opening  many  gates  to  him,! 
He  felt  himself  in  many  respects  her  inferior, — and  there  were  darl 
moments  when  it  seemed  to  him  inevitable  that  she  must  tire  o 
him.     But  whenever  they  overshadowed  him,  the  natural  reactior 
of  a  vigorous  manhood  was  not  far  off.    Patriotism  and  passion- 
a   profound   and   simple   pride — stood  up  and  wrestled  with 


CANADIAN    BORN.  613 

doubt.  She  was  not  less,  but  more,  than  he  had  imagined  her. 
What  was  in  truth  his  safeguard  and  hers,  was  the  fact  that, 
at  the  very  root  of  her,  Elizabeth  was  a  poet !  She  had  seen 
Canada  and  Anderson  from  the  beginning  in  the  light  of  imagina- 
tion ;  and  that  light  was  not  going  to  fail  her  now.  For  it  sprang 
from  the  truth  and  glow  of  her  own  nature ;  by  the  help  of  it 
she  made  her  world ;  and  Canada  and  Anderson  moved  under  it, 
nobly  seen  and  nobly  felt. 

This  he  half  shrinkingly  understood,  and  he  repaid  her  with 
adoration,  and  a  wisely  yielding  mind.  For  her  sake  he  was 
ready  to  do  a  hundred  things  he  had  never  yet  thought  of, 
reading,  inquiring,  observing,  in  wider  circles  and  over  an  ampler 
range.  For  as  the  New  World,  through  Anderson,  worked  on 
Elizabeth, — so  Europe,  through  Elizabeth,  worked  on  Anderson. 
And  thus,  from  life  to  life,  goes  on  the  great  inter-penetrating, 
inter-mingling  flux  of  things. 

It  seemed  as  though  the  golden  light  could  not  die  from  the 
lake,  though  midsummer  was  long  past.  And  presently  up  into  its 
midst  floated  the  moon,  and  as  they  watched  the  changing  of 
the  light  upon  the  northern  snow-peaks,  they  talked  of  the  vast 
undiscovered  regions  beyond,  of  the  valleys  and  lakes  that  no  survey 
has  ever  mapped,  and  the  rivers  that  from  the  beginning  of  time 
have  spread  their  pageant  of  beauty  for  the  heavens  alone ;  then,  of 
that  sudden  stir  and  uproar  of  human  life — prospectors,  navvies, 
|  lumbermen — that  is  now  beginning  to  be  heard  along  that  narrow 
I  strip  where  the  new  line  of  the  Grand  Trunk  Pacific  is  soon  to  pierce 
the  wilderness, — yet  another  link  in  the  girdling  of  the  world.  And 
further  yet,  their  fancy  followed,  ever  northward, — solitude  beyond 
solitude,  desert  beyond  desert — till,  in  the  Yukon,  it  lit  upon 
Igold-seeking  man,  dominating,  at  last,  a  terrible  and  hostile  earth, 
(which  had  starved  and  tortured  and  slain  him  in  his  thousands, 
Before  he  could  tame  her  to  his  will. 

And  last — by  happy  reaction — it  was  the  prairies  again — their 
fruitful  infinity — and  the  emigrant  rush  from  East  and  South. 

'  When  we  are  old ' — said  Elizabeth  softly,  slipping  her  hand  into 
Anderson's — '  will  all  this  courage  die  out  of  us  ?  Now — nothing 
f  all  this  vastness,  this  mystery  frightens  me.  I  feel  a  kind  of 
nsolent,  superhuman  strength ! — as  if  I — even  I,  could  guide  a 
lough,  reap  corn,  shoot  rapids,  "  catch  a  wild  goat  by  the  hair — 
nd  hurl  my  lances  at  the  sun  !  "  ' 


614  CANADIAN   BORN. 

1  With  this  hand  ?  '  said  Anderson,  looking  at  it  with  a  face 
of  amusement.  But  Elizabeth  took  no  heed, — except  to  slip  the 
other  hand  after  it — both  into  the  same  shelter. 

She  pursued  her  thought,  murmuring  the  words,  the  white  lids 
falling  over  her  eyes  : — 

4  But  when  one  is  feeble  and  dying,  will  it  all  grow  awful  to  me  ? 
Suddenly — shall  I  long  to  creep  into  some  old,  old  corner  of  England 
or  Italy — and  feel  round  me  close  walls,  and  dim  small  rooms,  and 
dear,  stuffy,  familiar  streets  that  thousands  and  thousands  of  feet 
have  worn  before  mine  ?  ' 

Anderson  smiled  at  her.  He  had  guided  their  boat  into  a  green 
cove  where  there  was  a  little  strip  of  open  ground  between  the  water 
and  the  forest.  They  made  fast  the  boat,  and  Anderson  found  a 
mossy  seat  under  a  tall  pine  from  which  the  lightning  of  a  recent 
storm  had  stripped  a  great  limb,  leaving  a  crimson  gash  in  the 
trunk.  And  there  Elizabeth  nestled  to  him,  and  he  with  his  arm 
about  her,  and  the  intoxication  of  her  slender  beauty  mastering 
his  senses,  tried  to  answer  her  as  a  plain  man  may.  The  common- 
places of  passion — its  foolish  promises — its  blind  confidence — its 
trembling  joy : — there  is  no  other  path  for  love  to  travel  by,  and 
Elizabeth  and  Anderson  trod  it  like  their  fellows. 

Six  months  later  on  a  clear  winter  evening  Elizabeth  was 
standing  in  the  sitting-room  of  a  Saskatchewan  farmhouse.  She 
looked  out  upon  a  dazzling  world  of  snow,  lying  thinly  under  a 
pale  greenish  sky  in  which  the  sunset  clouds  were  just  beginning 
to  gather.  The  land  before  her  sloped  to  a  broad  frozen  river  up 
which  a  waggon  and  a  team  of  horses  was  plodding  its  way, — the 
steam  rising  in  clouds  round  the  bodies  of  the  horses  and  men. 
On  a  track  leading  to  the  river  a  sledge  was  running, — the  bells 
jingling  in  the  still,  light  air.  To  her  left  were  the  great  barns  of 
the  homestead,  and  beyond,  the  long  low  cowshed,  with  a  group 
of  Shorthorns  and  Herefords  standing  beside  the  open  door.  Her 
eyes  delighted  in  the  whiteness  of  the  snow,  or  the  touches  of 
orange  and  scarlet  in  the  clumps  of  bush,  in  a  note  of  crimson 
here  and  there,  among  the  withered  reeds  pushing  through  the  snow, 
or  in  the  thin  background  of  a  few  taller  trees, — the  '  shelter-belt ' 
of  the  farm — rising  brown  and  sharp  against  the  blue. 

Within  the  farmhouse  sitting-room  flamed  a  great  wood  fire, 
which  shed  its  glow  on  the  white  walls,  on  the  prints  and  photo- 
graphs and  books  which  were  still  Elizabeth's  companions  in  the 


CANADIAN   BORN.  615 

heart  of  the  prairies,  as  they  had  been  at  Martindale.  The  room 
was  simplicity  itself,  yet  full  of  charm,  with  its  blue  druggeting, 
its  pale  green  chairs  and  hangings.  At  its  further  end,  a  curtain 
half  drawn  aside  showed  another  room,  a  dining-room,  also  fire- 
lit — with  a  long  table  spread  for  tea,  a  bare  floor  of  polished  wood- 
blocks, and  a  few  prints  on  the  walls. 

The  waggon  she  had  seen  on  the  river  approached  the  home- 
stead. The  man  who  was  driving  it — a  strong-limbed,  fair-haired 
fellow — lifted  his  cap  as  he  saw  Elizabeth  at  the  window.  She 
nodded  and  smiled  at  him.  He  was  Edward  Tyson,  one  of  the 
two  engine-drivers  who  had  taken  her  and  Philip  through  the 
Kicking  Horse  pass.  His  friend  also  could  be  seen  standing  among 
the  cattle  gathered  in  the  farmyard.  They  had  become  Ander- 
son's foremen  and  partners  on  his  farm  of  twelve  hundred  acres, 
of  which  only  some  three  hundred  acres  had  been  as  yet  brought 
under  the  plough.  The  rest  was  still  virgin  prairie,  pasturing  a 
large  mixed  head  of  cattle  and  horses.  The  two  north-countrymen 
had  been  managing  it  all  in  Anderson's  Parliamentary  absences, 
and  were  quite  as  determined  as  he  to  make  it  a  centre  of  science 
and  progress  for  a  still  remote  and  sparsely  peopled  district.  One 
of  the  brothers  was  married,  and  lived  in  a  small  frame-house, 
a  stone's  throw  from  the  main  buildings  of  the  farm.  The  other 
was  the  head  of  the  '  bothy '  or  boarding-house  for  hired  men, 
a  long  low  building,  with  cheerful  white-curtained  windows,  which 
could  be  seen  just  beyond  the  cow-house. 

As  she  looked  over  the  broad  whiteness  of  the  farmlands, 
above  which  the  sunset  clouds  were  now  tossing  in  climbing  lines 
of  crimson  and  gold,  rising  steeply  to  a  zenith  of  splendour,  and 
opening  here  and  there,  amid  their  tumult,  to  show  a  further 
heaven  of  untroubled  blue — Elizabeth  thought  with  lamentation 
that  their  days  on  the  farm  were  almost  done.  The  following 
week  would  see  them  at  Ottawa  for  the  opening  of  the  session. 
Anderson  was  full  of  Parliamentary  projects ;  important  work 
for  the  Province  had  been  entrusted  to  him ;  and  in  the  general 
labour  policy  of  the  Dominion  he  would  find  himself  driven  to 
take  a  prominent  part.  But  all  the  while  his  heart  and  Elizabeth's 
were  in  the  land  and  its  problems  ;  for  them  the  true,  the  entrancing 
Canada  was  in  the  wilds.  And  for  Anderson,  who  through  so 
many  years,  as  an  explorer  and  engineer,  had  met  Nature  face  to 
face,  his  will  against  hers,  in  a  direct  and  simple  conflict,  the 
tedious  and  tortuous  methods  of  modern  politics  were  not  easy 


616  CANADIAN   BORN. 

to  learn.  He  must  indeed  learn  them — he  was  learning  them  ; 
and  the  future  had  probably  great  things  in  store  for  him,  as  a 
politician.  But  he  came  back  to  the  Saskatchewan  farm  with 
joy,  and  he  would  leave  it  reluctantly. 

i  If  only  I  wasn't  so  rich  !  '  thought  Elizabeth,  with  com- 
punction. For  she  often  looked  with  envy  on  her  neigh- 
bours who  had  gone  through  the  real  hardships  of  the  country ; 
who  had  bought  their  Canadian  citizenship  with  the  toil  and 
frugality  of  years.  It  seemed  to  her  sometimes  that  she  was 
step-child  rather  than  daughter  of  the  dear  new  land,  in  spite  of 
her  yearning  towards  it. 

And  yet  money  had  brought  its  own  romance.  It  had  enabled 
Anderson  to  embark  on  this  ample  farm  of  nearly  two  square 
miles,  to  staff  it  with  the  best  labour  to  be  got,  on  a  basis  of  co- 
partnership, to  bring  herds  of  magnificent  cattle  into  these  park- 
like  prairies,  to  set  up  horse-breeding,  and  to  establish  on  the 
borders  of  the  farm  a  large  creamery  which  was  already  proving 
an  attraction  for  settlers.  It  was  going  to  put  into  Elizabeth's 
hands  the  power  of  helping  the  young  University  of  Strathcona 
just  across  the  Albertan  border,  and  perhaps  of  founding  in  their 
own  provincial  capital  of  Regina  a  training  college  for  farm- 
students — girls  and  boys — which  might  reproduce  for  the  West 
the  college  of  St.  Anne's,  that  wonderful  home  of  all  the  useful 
arts,  which  an  ever- generous  wealth  has  given  to  the  Province 
of  Quebec.  Already  she  had  in  her  mind  a  cottage  hospital 
— sorely  wanted — for  the  little  town  of  Donaldminster,  wherein 
the  weaklings  of  this  great  emigrant  army  now  pouring  into  the 
country  might  find  help. 

Her  heart,  indeed,  was  full  of  schemes  for  help.  Here  she  was, 
a  woman  of  high  education,  and  much  wealth,  in  the  midst  of 
this  nascent  community.  Her  thoughts  pondered  the  life  of  these 
scattered  farms — of  the  hard-working  women  in  them — the  lively 
rosy-cheeked  children.  It  was  her  ambition  so  to  live  among  them 
that  they  might  love  her — trust  her — use  her. 

Meanwhile  their  own  home  was  a  '  temple  of  industrious  peace.' 
Elizabeth  was  a  prairie  house- wife  like  her  neighbours.  She  had 
indeed  brought  out  with  her  from  Cumberland  one  of  the  Martin- 
dale  gardeners  and  his  young  wife  and  sister ;  and  the  two  north- 
country  women  shared  with  the  farm  mistress  the  work  of  the  house, 
till  such  time  as  Anderson  should  help  the  husband  to  a  quarter 
section  of  his  own,  and  take  someone  else  to  train  in  his  pi 


kTMM     , 

" 


CANADIAN    BORN.  617 

But  the  atmosphere  of  the  house  was  one  of  friendly  equality. 
Elizabeth — who  had  herself  gone  into  training  for  a  few  weeks  at 
St.  Anne's — prided  herself  on  her  dairy,  her  bread,  her  poultry. 
One  might  have  seen  her,  on  this  winter  afternoon,  in  her  black 
serge  dress  with  white  cap  and  apron,  slipping  into  the  kitchen 
behind  the  dining-room,  testing  the  scones  in  the  oven,  looking 
to  the  preparations  for  dinner,  putting  away  stores,  and  chatting 
to  the  two  clear-eyed  women  who  loved  her,  and  would. not  for 
the  world  have  let  her  try  her  strength  too  much.  For  she 
who  was  so  eagerly  planning  the  help  of  others  must  now  be 
guarded  and  cherished  herself — lest  ill  befall ! 

But  now  she  was  at  the  window,  watching  for  Anderson. 

The  trail  from  Donaldminster  to  Battleford  passed  in  front  of 
the  house,  dividing  the  farm.  Presently  there  came  slowly  along 
it  a  covered  waggon  drawn  by  a  pair  of  sorry  horses  and  piled  at  the 
back  with  household  possessions.  In  front  sat  a  man  of  slouching 
carriage,  and  in  the  interior  of  the  waggon  another  figure  could  be 
dimly  seen.  The  whole  turn-out  gave  an  impression  of  poverty  and 
misfortune  ;  and  Elizabeth  looked  at  it  curiously. 

Suddenly,  the  waggon  drew  up  with  a  jerk  at  the  gate  of  the  farm, 
and  the  man  descended,  with  difficulty,  his  limbs  being  evidently 
numb  with  cold. 

Elizabeth  caught  up  a  fur  cloak  and  ran  to  the  door. 

'  Could  you  give  us  a  bit  of  shelter  for  the  night  ?  '  said  the  man 
sheepishly.  '  We'd  thought  of  getting  on  to  Battleford,  but  the 
little  un's  bad — and  the  missus  perished  with  cold.  We'd  give  you 
no  trouble  if  we  might  warm  ourselves  a  bit.' 

And  he  looked  under  his  eyebrows  at  Elizabeth,  at  the  bright  fire 
behind  her,  and  all  the  comfort  of  the  new  farmhouse.  Yet  under 
his  shuffling  manner  there  was  a  certain  note  of  confidence.  He 
was  appealing  to  that  Homeric  hospitality  which  prevails  throughout 
the  farms  of  the  north-west. 

And  in  five  minutes  the  horses  were  in  the  barn,  the  man  sitting 
by  the  kitchen  fire,  while  Elizabeth  was  ministering  to  the  woman  and 
the  child.  The  new-comers  made  a  forlorn  trio.  They  came  from 
a  district  some  fifty  miles  further  south,  and  were  travelling  north 
in  order  to  take  shelter  for  a  time  with  relations.  The  mother  was 
a  girl  of  twenty,  worn  with  hardship  and  privation.  The  father,  an 
English  labourer,  had  taken  up  free  land,  but  in  spite  of  much 
help  from  a  paternal  Government,  had  not  been  able  to  fulfil  his 
statutory  obligation,  and  had  now  forfeited  his  farm.  There  was 


618  CANADIAN   BORN. 

a  history  of  typhoid  fever,  and  as  Elizabeth  soon  suspected,  an 
incipient  history  of  drink.  In  the  first  two  years  of  his  Canadian  life 
the  man  had  worked  for  a  farmer  during  the  summer,  and  loafed  in 
Winnipeg  during  the  winter.  There  demoralisation  had  begun,  and 
as  Elizabeth  listened,  the  shadow  of  the  Old  World  seemed  to  be 
creeping  across  the  radiant  Canadian  landscape.  The  same  woes  ? — 
the  same  weaknesses  ? — the  same  problems  of  an  unsound  urban  life  ? 

Her  heart  sank  for  a  moment — only  to  provoke  an  instant 
reaction  of  cheerfulness.  No  ! — in  Canada  the  human  will  has  still 
room  to  work,  and  is  not  yet  choked  by  a  jungle  growth  of  interests. 

She  waited  for  Anderson  to  come  in,  and  meanwhile  she  warmed 
and  comforted  the  mother.  The  poor  girl  looked  round  her  in 
amazement  at  the  pretty  spacious  room,  as  she  spread  her  hands, 
knotted  and  coarsened  by  work,  to  the  blaze.  Elizabeth  held  her 
sickly  babe,  rocking  it  and  crooning  to  it,  while  upstairs  one  of  the 
kind-eyed  Cumberland  women  was  getting  a  warm  bath  ready,  and 
lighting  a  fire  in  the  guest-room. 

'  How  old  is  it  ?  '  she  asked. 

'  Thirteen  months.' 

'  You  ought  to  give  up  nursing  it.  It  would  be  better  for  you 
both.' 

'  I  tried  giving  it  a  bit  o'  what  we  had  ourselves,'  said  the  mother, 
dully — '  But  I  nearly  lost  her.' 

'  I  should  think  so  ! '  laughed  Elizabeth  indignantly ;  and  she 
began  to  preach  rational  ways  of  feeding  and  caring  for  the  child, 
while  the  mother  sat  by,  despondent,  and  too  crushed  and  hopeless 
to  take  much  notice.  Presently  Elizabeth  gave  her  back  the  babe, 
and  went  to  fetch  hot  tea  and  bread  and  butter. 

'  Shall  I  come  and  get  it  in  the  kitchen  ?  '  said  the  woman, 
rising. 

'  No,  no — stay  where  you  are  ! '  cried  Elizabeth.  And  she  was 
just  carrying  back  a  laden  tray  from  the  dining-room  when  Anderson 
caught  her. 

'  Darling  ! — that's  too  heavy  for  you  ! — what  are  you  about  ?  ' 

1  There's  a  woman  in  there  who's  got  to  be  fed — and  there's 
a  man  in  there  ' — she  pointed  to  the  kitchen — '  who's  got  to  be 
talked  to.  Hopeless  case  ! — so  you'd  better  go  and  set  about  it ! ' 

She  laughed  happily  in  his  face,  and  he  snatched  a  kiss  from  her 
as  he  carried  off  the  tray. 

The  woman  by  the  fire  rose  again  in  amazement  as  she  saw 
the  broad-shouldered  handsome  man  who  was  bringing  in  the  tea. 


CANADIAN   BORN.  619 

Anderson  had  been  tramping  through  the  thin-lying  snow  all  day, 
inquiring  into  the  water-supply  of  a  distant  portion  of  the  farm. 
He  was  ruddy  with  exercise,  and  the  physical  strength  that  seemed 
to  radiate  from  him  intimidated  the  wanderer. 

'  Where  were  you  bound  to  ?  '  he  said  kindly,  as  he  put  down  the 
tea  beside  her. 

The  woman,  falteringly,  told  her  story.  Anderson  frowned  a  little. 

'  Well,  I'd  better  go  and  talk  to  your  husband.  Mrs.  Anderson 
will  look  after  you.' 

And  Elizabeth  held  the  baby,  while  the  woman  fed  languidly — 
too  tired  and  spiritless  indeed  to  eat. 

When  she  could  be  coaxed  no  further,  Elizabeth  took  her  and  the 
babe  upstairs. 

'  I  never  saw  anything  like  this  in  these  parts ! '  cried  the  girl, 
looking  round  her  at  the  white-tiled  bathroom. 

'  Oh,  they're  getting  quite  common  !  '  laughed  Elizabeth.  '  See 
how  nice  and  warm  the  water  is  !  Shall  we  bath  the  baby  ?  ' 
And  presently  the  child  lay  warm  and  swaddled  in  its  mother's 
arms,  dressed  in  some  baby-clothes  produced  by  Elizabeth  from 
a  kind  of  travellers'  cupboard  at  the  top  of  the  stairs.  Then  the 
mother  was  induced  to  try  the  bath  for  herself,  while  Elizabeth 
tried  her  hand  at  spoon-feeding  the  baby  ;  and  in  half  an  hour  she 
had  them  both  in  bed,  in  the  bright  spare-room, — the  young  mother's 
reddish  hair  unbound  lying  a  splendid  mass  on  the  white  pillows, 
and  a  strange  expression — as  of  some  long  tension  giving  way — 
on  her  pinched  face. 

'  We'll  not  know  how  to  thank  you  ' — she  said  brokenly.  '  We 
were  just  at  the  last.  Tom  wouldn't  ask  no  one  to  help  us  before. 
But  we'd  only  a  few  shillings  left — we  thought  at  Battleford,  we'd 
sell  our  bits  of  things — perhaps  that'd  take  us  through.5  She  looked 
piteously  at  Elizabeth,  the  tears  gathering  in  her  eyes. 

'  Oh  !  well,  we'll  see  about  that !  '  said  Elizabeth,  as  she  tucked 
the  blankets  round  her.  '  Nobody  need  starve  in  this  country  ! 
Mr.  Anderson  '11  be  able  perhaps  to  think  of  something.  Now  you 
go  to  sleep,  and  we'll  look  after  your  husband.' 

Anderson  joined  his  wife  in  the  sitting-room,  with  a  perplexed 
countenance.  The  man  was  a  poor  creature, — and  the  beginnings 
of  the  drink-craving  were  evident. 

'  Give  him  a  chance,'  said  Elizabeth.  '  You  want  one  more  man 
in  the  bothy.' 

She  .sat  down  beside  him,  while  Anderson  pondered,  his  legs 


620  CANADIAN   BORN. 

stretched  to  the  fire.  A  train  of  thought  ran  through  his  mind, 
embittered  by  the  memory  of  his  father. 

He  was  roused  from  it  by  the  perception  that  Elizabeth  was 
looking  tired.  Instantly  he  was  all  tenderness,  and  anxious  mis- 
giving. He  made  her  lie  down  on  the  sofa  by  the  fire,  and  brought 
her  some  important  letters  from  Ottawa  to  read,  and  the  English 
newspapers. 

From  the  elementary  human  need  with  which  their  minds  had 
just  been  busy,  their  talk  passed  on  to  national  and  imperial  affairs. 
They  discussed  them  as  equals  and  comrades,  each  bringing  their 
own  contribution. 

'  In  a  fortnight  we  shall  be  in  Ottawa  !  '  sighed  Elizabeth,  at 
last. 

Anderson  smiled  at  her  plaintive  voice. 

'  Darling  ! — is  it  such  a  tragedy  ? ' 

*  No,  I  shall  be  as  keen  as  anybody  else  when  we  get  there. 
But — we  are  so  happy  here  !  ' 

4  Is  that  really,  really  true  ?  '  asked  Anderson,  taking  her  hand 
and  pressing  it  to  his  lips. 

'  Yes  ' — she  murmured — '  yes — but  it  will  be  truer  still  next 
year  ! ' 

They  looked  at  each  other  tenderly.  Anderson  stooped  and 
kissed  her,  long  and  closely. 

He  was  called  away  to  give  some  directions  to  his  men,  and 
Elizabeth  lay  dreaming  in  the  firelight  of  the  past  and  the  future, 
her  hands  clasped  on  her  breast,  her  eyes  filling  with  soft  tears. 
Upstairs,  in  the  room  above  her,  the  emigrant  mother  and  baby 
lay  sleeping  in  the  warmth  and  shelter  gathered  round  them  by 
Elizabeth.  But  in  tending  them,  she  had  been  also  feeding  her 
own  yearning,  quickening  her  own  hope.  She  had  given  herself 
to  a  man  whom  she  adored,  and  she  carried  his  child  on  her  heart. 
Many  and  various  strands  would  have  gone  to  the  weaving  of  that 
little  soul ;  she  trembled  sometimes  to  think  of  them.  But  no  fear 
with  her  lasted  long.  It  was  soon  lost  in  the  deep  poetic  faith  that 
Anderson's  child  in  her  arms  would  be  the  heir  of  two  worlds,  the 
pledge  of  a  sympathy,  a  union,  begun  long  before  her  marriage  in 
the  depths  of  the  spirit,  when  her  heart  first  went  out  to  Canada, — 
to  the  beauty  of  the  Canadian  land,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
Canadian  life. 

THE    END. 


621 


HOW  BONDAGE   CAME    TO    THE  JUNGLE. 
BY  SIR  HUGH  CLIFFORD,   K.C.M.G. 

I  THINK  it  was  at  the  moment  when  my  eye  and  my  sense  of  the 
eternal  fitnesses  first  came  into  abrupt  collision  with  an  appalling, 
composite,  and  (to  me)  new  substantive  that  I  began  to  have  an 
inkling  that  woeful  things  were  about  to  befall  the  jungle.  Kraal- 
town  was  the  horrid  word — The  Latest  from  Kraaltown,  the  unlovely 
sentence  in  which  it  abode,  sprawling  in  the  smudgy  print  peculiar 
to  local  stereotype  as  a  new  headline  in  four  daily  papers.  Below 
this  legend  followed  news,  written  in  the  carefully  assumed  slang 
of  the  journalistic  sportsman — the  sort  of  slang  which  always 
describes  bowling  as  '  trundling,'  and  never  allows  a  cricket  bat 
to  be  anything  except  a  '  willow.'  It  had  much  to  say  on  the 
subject  of  pachyderms — infuriated  pachyderms,  bewildered  pachy- 
derms, incarcerated  pachyderms,  and  the  like.  It  told  also  of 
buildings  and  preparations — temporary  hotels,  railway  arrange- 
ments, special  trains,  excursion  tickets,  and  other  modern  inven- 
tions more  appropriate  to  the  town  than  to  the  kraal.  I,  who  love 
the  jungle,  and  of  old  knew  it  rather  intimately,  read  all  this  stuff 
with  a  sort  of  sick  disgust.  Then  my  more  recent  and  more  pain- 
fully acquired  intimacy  with  the  triumphs  of  modern  journalism 
came  to  comfort  me.  I  concluded  (the  hope  being  father  to  the 
thought)  that  most  of  it  was  not  true,  and  the  rest  inaccurate  or 
exaggerated. 

Upon  the  morning  of  the  appointed  day,  I  chucked  the  last  of 
the  big  files  of  official  papers  with  which  I  had  to  deal  on  to  the 
heap  upon  the  floor,  where  lay  the  rest  of  its  decently  despatched 
relatives.  Then  I  rose  up  with  a  groan  of  relief.  I  stretched  my 
limbs  luxuriously,  snuffing  at  the  air.  Already,  it  seemed  to  me, 
I  could  smell  the  keen-edged  reek  of  wood-smoke  in  the  dawn,  and 
could  hear  the  solemn  silence — which  is  made  up  of  a  thousand  tiny 
voices — that  broods  over  the  forest-lands  at  night.  For  the 
moment  I  was  a  free  man,  and  before  me  lay  the  jungle. 

I  got  into  a  friend's  motor-car,  and  together  we  began  to  drop 
down  two  thousand  feet  into  the  low  country,  through  the  wonder- 
ful, fairy  garden-land  which  is  Ceylon.  The  cool  air  fled  past  us, 


622          HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE. 

fanning  our  faces,  as  we  plunged  noiselessly  down  the  glade, 
swinging  round  the  curves  of  roads  scarped  out  of  the  hill-sides. 
About  us  and  around  lay  vivid  green  rice-fields,  set  in  tiers  of  tiny 
terraces.  Clumps  of  trees  of  a  darker  shade  flanked  and  encircled 
them.  The  white  road  ran  sun-flecked  beneath  branches  heavy 
with  leaf  and  flower.  The  wind  was  laden  with  the  fragrance  of 
all  this  clustering  vegetation  ;  and  across  the  valleys  the  hills  stood 
forth,  incredibly  near,  turquoise-tinted,  purple-shadowed,  and 
veiled  by  the  ethereal,  delicate  haze  whereof  this  land  of  sunshine 
and  beauty  holds  the  immortal  secret. 

On  every  side  single-storied  houses  were  set  among  the 
greenery,  and  on  the  road  was  the  never-ending  kaleidoscopic 
traffic  of  Ceylon.  Figures  that  had  stepped  forth  from  the  pages 
of  the  '  Arabian  Nights  '  stood  aside  to  watch  us  as  we  flashed 
past ;  bearded  Singhalese  villagers,  gloriously  unhampered  by  super- 
fluous clothes,  raised  slow  heads  to  gaze  upon  the  speeding  car ; 
little  puff-balls  of  children  clamoured  at  us  from  the  dust ;  clumsy 
carts  strained  and  creaked,  as  the  bullocks  yoked  to  them  marked 
our  coming  with  small,  distrustful  eyes ;  the  little,  spirited  bulls 
in  the  hackeries  jibbed  at  our  approach,  while  their  drivers  yelled, 
and  the  dust  lent  to  all  things  a  golden  glamour  in  the  sunshine. 
Through  village  after  village,  through  cocoanut  gardens,  cocoa 
plantations,  through  groves  of  palm  and  fruit  trees,  we  sped,  then 
througlTan  ordered,  well-kept  town,  with  its  lamp-posts,  its  ugly, 
trim  buildings,  and  straight-set  lines  of  shops,  then  through  more 
villages,  paefo'-fields  and  palm  and  fruit  groves,  gradually  dwindling 
in  extent  and  luxuriance,  till  at  last  the  jungle  flung  wide  its  arms 
to  us. 

The  jungle  of  Ceylon  is  a  dusty  thing  ;  it  is  not  much  more 
dense  than  an  ordinary  English  covert  in  November,  and  much  less 
damp  and  green.  The  leaf-carpet  under  foot  is  brittle  with  dry- 
ness,  a  strange  contrast  to  the  damp,  eternally  renewed  leaf -mould 
which  forms  the  base  of  the  glorious  Malayan  forests.  The  atmo- 
sphere, too,  is  parched  and  arid  ;  the  trees  stunted  and  grey  with 
dust ;  the  underwood  sparse  and  reluctant.  Whereas  throughout 
the  Malayan  jungles  streams  patter  merrily,  at  intervals  of  less 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  the  one  from  the  other,  here  no  water  is, 
and  the  moist,  dank  fragrance  which  there  makes  of  all  the  forest- 
land  one  vast,  stupendously  successful  forcing-house,  is  replaced 
in  Ceylon  by  an  arid  hunger  of  drought. 

Our  car  ran  through  mile  after  mile  of  this  featureless  country, 


HOW   BONDAGE    CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE.          623 

which  might  have  been  the  result  of  a  separate  act  of  creation 
from  that  which  had  brought  into  being  the  smiling  garden-land 
through  which  so  short  a  while  before  we  had  been  passing,  until 
we  were  arrested  by  a  sign-post.  '  To  Kraaltown.  Not  suitable  for 
Motors?  And  we  sped  onward. 

Five  miles  further  on  we  encountered  yet  another  sign-post. 
*  To  Kraaltown.  Motor  Road.9  And  we  turned  off  to  the  right,  up 
the  great  North  Koad  which  leads  to  Jaffna  at  the  extreme  point  of 
the  island.  Here  and  there  a  meagre-looking  village  squatted 
beside  a  tank,  and  its  inhabitants,  huddled  together  in  the  only 
patch  of  shade  visible,  watched  us  pass  -with  dull  eyes.  In  the 
country  we  had  quitted,  Nature  plays  the  part  of  an  over-indulgent 
foster-mother,  and  mankind,  placing  all  trust  in  her  bounty, 
sprawls  indolently  in  her  lap.  Here  she  is  an  enemy  and  a  task- 
mistress  ;  and  man,  her  slave,  niches  a  living  in  spite  of  her,  watching 
her  with  cowed  and  fearful  glances.  The  contrast  is  striking,  and 
the  story  written  plainly  on  the  faces  of  the  people  of  the  two 
districts.  It  is  only  when  men  have  energy  and  grit  sufficient  to 
conquer  Nature  that  her  enmity  strengthens  and  inspires.  Here 
these  qualities  are  lacking,  and  man  lies  defeated — in  the  dust. 

Presently  we  reached  yet  another  parting  of  the  ways.  On 
our  right,  not  two  hundred  yards  distant,  a  temporary  platform, 
built  of  sleepers,  flanked  the  railway  line.  On  our  left  a  broad, 
dusty  earth  road,  beaten  bare  and  hard  by  the  tread  of  innumerable 
unshod  feet,  led  away  at  right  angles  into  the  jungle.  We  turned 
into  this  road,  and  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later  were  pushing  through 
the  crowded  main  street  of  Kraaltown. 

Have  you  ever  seen  the  annual  fair  on  the  place  of  a  Breton 
town  ?  If  you  have,  you  know  without  detailed  description  what 
Kraaltown  resembled.  Booths  of  every  variety  of  tawdry  ugliness 
flanked  the  road  and  reared  their  piles  of  swearing  bunting  against 
the  dusty  background  of  forest.  Huge  letters  of  many  colours 
lured  the  public  to  '  Grand  Hotel '  or  '  Eestaurant.'  Big  casks 
of  liquor  stood  under  tents,  tempting  the  thirsty.  A  roaring  trade 
was  being  done  in  a  long  line  of  shops.  Gramophones,  warring  one 
with  another,  made  tinned  music  as  nasty  as  the  canned  provisions 
stored  in  the  booths  that  held  them.  A  motley  crowd  thronged 
the  street,  European  planters  in  breeches  and  gaiters  and  squasher 
hats,  town-bred  Europeans  elaborately  arrayed  for  the  jungle, 
town-bred  natives  faithful  to  their  stick-up  collars  and  bowler 
hats,  Mohammedans  in  their  eternal  red  turbans,  Low  Country 


624          HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE    JUNGLE. 

Singhalese,  with  combs  in  their  hair  and  nondescript  garments 
bearded  Kandyan  Chiefs  with  their  tails  of  followers — business-like 
looking  folk  these  last ;  a  praying  fakir  or  two  by  the  wayside,  and 
a  host  of  shaggy  creatures  who  had  strayed  in  from  the  jungle 
villages  around.  And  the  voice  of  these  people  was  like  a  chorus 
in  Babel. 

The  chiefs  had  erected  a  charming  little  bungalow  for  me,  and 
here  presently  we  lunched  in  what  the  boarding-house  advertise- 
ments describe  as  '  all  the  comforts  of  a  home.'  My  thoughts 
flew  back  to  the  life  which  I  had  lived  in  those  jungles  further  East 
— to  the  hastily  improvised  shacks  in  which  our  nights  were  spent, 
to  the  big  meal  of  rice  (and  very  little  with  it)  with  which  as  dawn 
was  breaking  we  armed  ourselves  for  the  long  day's  tramp,  to 
the  sodden  sleeping-mat  which  then  was  one's  only  furniture,  to 
the  wood-smoke  curling  slowly  upward  through  the  damp,  heavy 
air  of  morning,  and  to  the  penetrating  reek  of  it  which  is,  to  him 
who  has  lived  the  jungle  life,  the  vivid  interpreter  of  all  jungle 
things.  But  that  was  Malaya,  this  Ceylon ;  that  the  free  forest, 
with  men,  merely  a  handful  of  unconsidered  atoms,  lost  in  the  vast 
heart  of  it,  and  this  Kraaltown,  a  thing  of  bunting  and  booths  and 
gramophones. 

In  the  cool  of  the  afternoon  I  turned  my  back  on  Kraaltown 
and  wandered  out  along  the  lines  of  the  beaters  who  were  engaged 
in  herding  the  wild  elephants.  The  kraal  itself,  into  which  the 
beasts  were  to  be  driven,  was  a  parallelogram  of  enclosed  forest 
about  one  hundred  and  twenty  yards  by  eighty  in  extent.  The 
stockade  was  a  fairly  solid  erection,  fortified  by  stays  on  the  outer 
side ;  but  any  single  elephant,  who  gave  his  mind  to  it,  could  have 
gone  through  it  as  easily  as  a  clown  leaps  through  a  paper  hoop. 
The  arms  of  stockade  which  led  to  the  entrance,  forming  two  sides 
of  a  rough  triangle  with  the  gate  as  its  apex,  were  even  more  fragile. 
A  fairly  strong  man  could  have  pushed  them  down  with  his  shoulder, 
and  they  extended  to  a  distance  of  not  more  than  a  hundred  yards 
into  the  jungle.  All  this  I  saw  in  detail  later  on,  and  by  then  I 
knew  that  the  elephant-driver  trusts  not  to  the  strength  of  his 
defences,  but  to  the  fear  which  he  can  inspire  in  the  big  beasts 
that  are  his  prey. 

The  lines  of  the  beaters  were  drawn  in  a  second  parallelogram, 
about  a  mile  and  a  half  long  by  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide,  enclosing 
the  jungle  in  which  two  large  herds  were  imprisoned.  For  weeks 
the  elephants  had  been  enclosed,  night  and  day,  by  shifting  lines 


HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE,          625 

of  fire.  Daily  and  nightly  the  fires  ahead  of  them  had  been  extin- 
guished; those  on  their  flanks  had  remained  constant,  or  crept 
slowly  forward,  those  behind  them  had  advanced  with  hosts  of 
shouting,  yelling  men,  to  the  clang  of  discharged  firearms.  Before 
these  the  elephants  had  fled  headlong,  presently  to  be  arrested 
anew  by  a  fresh  line  of  fires,  manned  by  hostile  crowds,  securely 
barring  their  advance.  Now  the  panic-stricken  brutes  were 
huddled  in  the  patch  of  jungle  over  against  the  gate  of  the  stockade. 
They  were  invisible,  of  course — they  took  care  of  that;  but  the 
men  who  had  so  long  been  herding  them  had  had  them  often  in 
view.  They  reckoned  variously  that  elephants  to  the  number  of 
from  eighty  to  a  hundred  and  twenty  were  within  the  lines,  two 
big  herds  having  been  brought  together  from  opposite  points  of 
the  compass  and  forced  into  temporary,  unwilling  comradeship. 
The  drive-in  was  fixed  for  the  morrow. 

As  I  walked  round  the  lines  and  watched  the  beaters,  squatting 
under  rough  lean-to  shelters,  busy  preparing  their  evening  meal, 
I  seemed  for  a  little  space  to  be  transported  back  to  the  real  jungle 
life  of  long  ago.  Every  detail  of  the  scene  was  intimately  familiar, 
and  the  well-loved  reek  of  it  filled  my  nostrils  ;  but,  alas,  these 
were  not  Malays  upon  the  warpath,  but  Singhalese  villagers,  of 
whose  language  I  was  ignorant.  I  could  not  squat  beside  them 
in  their  huts,  pass  the  time  of  day  in  the  vernacular,  and  learn 
from  them  something  of  the  incidents  which  had  crowded  them- 
i  selves  into  the  long  days  and  nights  which  they  had  devoted  to  the 
i'jive.  That  hurt  badly,  making  one  in  the  jungle  world  once 
more,  but  hopelessly  far  removed  from  it ;  and  there  were  other 
discordant  notes.  The  lines  were  being  patrolled  by  crowds  of 
(sightseers  for  whom  the  jungle  held  no  memories,  and  I,  too, 
jwas  only  a  sightseer,  and  my  memories  were  distant,  irrevocable 
things. 

Towards  the  small  hours  of  the  night  that  followed,  the  silence 
hich  had  fallen  upon  the  camp,  when  the  choruses  of  discordant 
ong  and  the  irritating  insistence  of  the  gramophones  had  been 
tilled  at  last,  was  rudely  broken.  From  the  jungle,  where  lay  the 
ines  of  beaters,  there  arose  a  tumult  of  shrill  whoopings  blended 
th  the  reports  of  many  muskets.  The  uproar  lasted  for  an  hour, 
>nd  then  once  more  the  silence  fell.  They  told  me  next  morning, 
hen  I  went  round  the  lines,  that  some  of  the  elephants  had 
ttempted  to  break  away  and  had  been  driven  back  with  difficulty, 
n  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  however,  I  incline  to  the  opinion 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  40 


626          HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE    JUNGLE. 

that  an  effort  had  been  made  to  effect  the  drive-in  while  Kraaltown, 
the  abominable,  was  wrapped  in  the  peace  of  slumber.  If  this  be 
so,  the  attempt  was  a  failure. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  hour  announced  for  the 
drive-in,  the  stockade  presented  a  curious  picture.  The  grand- 
stands erected  for  the  accommodation  of  notables  were  crammed ; 
the  trees  were  thick  with  climbers  perched  high  among  their 
branches.  A  dense  crowd,  drawn  from  every  section  of  the  hetero- 
geneous population  of  Ceylon,  stood  five  deep  round  the  stockade, 
clambering  on  to  one  another's  shoulders  to  obtain  a  view  of— 
nothing.  An  occasional  motor-car  whirred  and  spat.  The  reek 
of  over-hot  humanity  made  heavy  the  jungle  air.  A  tumult  of 
voices  went  up  unceasingly  from  the  crowd.  Two  adventurous 
souls — Europeans,  I  regret  to  say — the  type  of  person  who  always 
heads  a  fox — flattened  their  noses  against  the  entrant  arms  of 
stockade  without  the  kraal,  and  after  they  had  frightened  the 
elephants  back  at  least  once,  were  eventually  retrieved  by  the 
police. 

Again  and  again  the  elephants,  with  a  howling,  gun-firing  mob 
at  their  heels  and  on  their  flanks,  were  driven  up  to  the  very  door 
of  the  stockade ;  but  the  inappropriate  crowd  ahead  of  them  held 
for  these  wise  beasts  more  notable  horrors  than  those  by  which 
they  were  pursued.  Time  after  time  they  broke  back,  and  at  the 
end  of  an  hour  of  desperate  but  fruitless  effort,  the  attempt  to 
drive  in,  which  had  been  made  in  the  face  of  circumstances  more 
adverse  than  any  hitherto  recorded,  and  in  defiance  of  all  prob- 
ability, was  perforce  abandoned. 

During  the  night  that  followed  a  third  drive-in  was  tried,  and| 
when,  in  the  grey  light  of  early  morning,  I  visited  the  stockade,  a 
herd  of  sixteen  elephants  were  to  be  seen  restlessly  trampling  the 
sparse  jungle  in  the  enclosure.  The  rest — any  number,  from  eighty 
to  a  hundred  probably — were  still  in  the  jungle  without. 

I  sat  and  watched  them  for  an  hour  and  more — watched  these 
slate-coloured  monsters,  pressing  and  shouldering  and  bargeingj 
and  nosing  into  one  another,  surging  suddenly  in  one  direction  01 
another,  in  ponderous,  swerving  unison,  only  to  bring  up  shortly! 
to  scatter  a  little,  and  then,  drawing  into  a  packed  mass  again,  tq 
swerve  and  surge  anew.  A  heavy  atmosphere — half  the  mist  o: 
early  morning,  half  wood-smoke — for  a  closely-set  line  of  fires  nov 
girded  the  place  about — hung  low  above  the  stockade,  and  througl 
the  haze  this  pack  of  restless,  impotent,  defeated  beasts  movec 


HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE.          627 

ceaselessly  with  something  of  the  unreal  reality  of  things  seen  in 
dreams. 

The  first  and  most  insistent  impression  produced  by  sight  of 
wild  things  dragged  out  of  the  jungle,  and  forced  to  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being  under  the  prying  eyes  of  man,  is 
always  more  than  a  little  shocking.  Thus  to  strip  naked  and  expose 
to  the  vulgar  gaze  that  which  the  jungle  designs  to  cover  and 
maintain  in  cherished  privacy,  is  felt  to  be  an  act  of  gross  indecency. 
And  the  beasts  feel  it,  too.  It  is  not  only  fear  that  inspires  them, 
or  so  one  fancies — not  only  fear,  but  disgust.  Man  to  the  wild 
things  of  the  forest  is  a  thing  loathsome  and  abhorrent.  His 
proximity  is  an  outrage  to  every  sense.  He  is  to  them  the  unnatural 
animal,  the  beast  which,  alone  among  its  fellows,  has  defied  and 
conquered  Nature  :  and  to  the  jungle,  Nature  is  the  only  god. 
Man  is  the  iconoclast,  the  blasphemer,  the  defiler  of  the  jungle 
temples,  the  rebel  who  has  sought  to  cast  down  the  Jungle  Deity 
from  his  throne.  Thus  all  forest  creatures  hate  him — fear  him, 
yes  ! — but  loathe  and  abhor  him  even  more.  He  is  to  the  jungle 
the  Unclean  Thing. 

This  was  well  seen  when,  immediate  attempts  to  effect  a  further 
drive-in  having  for  the  moment  been  abandoned,  the  business  of 
securing  the  captives  began. 

A  dense  crowd  had  again  gathered  about  the  kraal,  and  the 
scent  of  perspiring  and  packed  humanity  and  the  ceaseless  clamour 
that  went  up  from  them  were  offensive  even  to  human  senses. 
The  elephants,  still  huddled  together,  still  possessed  by  a  demon 
of  restlessness,  surged  aimlessly  hither  and  thither,  trampling  the 
underwood  to  dust.    There  was  one  big  bull,  a  cow  with  a  dislo- 
cated leg,  four  calves,  two  of  them  not  much  bigger  than  large 
I  St.  Bernards,  and  ten  other  animals  of  fair  or  medium  size.    Any 
'one  of  the  bigger  beasts  could  have  breached  the  stockade  with 
ease.    By  a  concerted  rush  the  herd  could  have  passed  through  it 
as  though  it  had  been  made  of  straw.   But  the  initiative  and  com- 
ination  necessary  for  any  such  attempt  were  alike  lacking.    The 
lephants  were  bewildered,  dazed.    If  for  a  moment  they  chanced 
o  surge  towards  the  side  of  the  stockade,  though  the  bulk  of  the 
rowd  fled  like  wind-scattered  leaves,  and  never  seemed  to  know 
riien  to  stop  running,  the  clamour  raised  by  the  men  who  stood 
heir  ground  and  the  discharge  of  a  musket  or  two  served  easily 
X)  turn  the  herd.    There  was  something  pitiful  in  the  sight  of  so 
much  strength  of  body  rendered  impotent  byjparalysis  of  mind. 

40—2 


628          HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO  THE   JUNGLE. 

The  elephant  is  a  very  wise  beast,  and  his  reasoning  powers  are 
considerable,  as  those  of  us  who  have  worked  and  travelled  with 
him  know  ;  but  since  man  quitted  the  common  life  of  his  fellows 
of  the  forest  he  has  climbed  very  far.  Even  the  lowest  of  our  kind 
have  learned  to  remedy  physical  weakness  by  mental  acuteness. 

After  long  waiting  came  the  dramatic  moment.  Three  huge 
tame  elephants,  each  with  a  couple  of  men  astride  upon  neck  and 
back,  and  with  three  attendants  on  foot  sheltering  themselves 
against  its  flank,  were  led  into  the  stockade.  Of  the  men  on  foot, 
two  of  each  party  were  armed  with  long  goads,  wherewith  to  aid 
in  repulsing  the  charge  of  any  of  the  wild  elephants.  The  third 
held  in  his  hands  a  noose  made  of  plaited  deer-hide,  one  end  of 
which  was  made  fast  about  the  neck  of  the  elephant  which  he 
attended.  Very  slowly — and  nothing  can  be  more  slow  or  solemn 
than  the  deliberate  advance  of  an  elephant — this  group  of  enemies 
marched  towards  the  captive  herd.  Inexorable,  unhurrying,  secure 
of  their  victims,  they  came  with  the  majestic  relentlessness  of 
Doom  ;  and  even  upon  that  mob  around  the  stockade  an  awed 
silence  fell. 

But  the  wild  elephants  had  forgotten  the  mob.  All  their  atten- 
tion was  concentrated  upon  the  advancing  horror.  For  horror,  to 
them,  it  plainly  was.  Every  line  of  restless  trunk  and  quivering 
flank  was  eloquent.  The  big  animals,  pressing  and  bargeing  into 
one  another  more  closely  than  before,  seemed  to  be  possessed  by 
no  ordinary  fear.  The  coming  of  these  monstrous  fellows  of  theirs, 
whose  great  bulk  dwarfed  the  largest  bull  among  them  into 
insignificance,  was  in  itself  a  spectacle  fraught  with  terror  ;  but  to 
see  them  thus  working  in  fellowship,  and  under  the  control  of  the 
Unclean  Thing,  transformed  their  approach  into  an  onset  of  the 
Supernatural !  Paralysed  with  fear,  as  a  man  who  sees  a  ghostly 
vision,  the  poor  brutes  could  only  huddle  together  in  a  panic- 
stricken  mass,  seeking  some  poor  measure  of  consolation  by  physical 
contact  one  with  another  ;  and  as  the  appalling  apparition  drew1 
inexorably  near,  the  herd  wheeled  about  and  ran. 

This  was  the  opportunity  for  which  the  noosers  had  waited. 
The  tame  elephants  pressed  forward  hard  upon  the  heels  of  thej 
rocking  herd,  and  a  little  brown  figure,  bending  almost  to  the  ground 
and  keeping  well  under  the  flank  of  his  elephant,  darted  into  the 
pack,  and  quick  as  lightning  slipped  a  noose  over  the  uplifted  hi  IK! 
leg  of  a  cow,  jumped  excitedly  aside,  and  drew  the  slip-knot  tight. 
At  once  the  tame  elephant,  to  whose  neck  the  noose  was  made  fast, 


HOW  BONDAGE  CAME  TO  THE  JUNGLE.    629 

planted  his  fore-legs  firmly  to  take  the  strain.  The  herd  of  wild 
things  surged  away.  The  captured  cow  raised  a  dismal  squeal  as 
her  near  hind-leg  held  her  prisoner,  and  her  fellows  drew  away  from 
her.  Fiercely  she  strained,  but  the  tame  elephant  was  the  stronger, 
and  soon,  bunted  backward  by  the  two  disengaged  beasts,  and 
pulled  violently  by  the  leg,  she  was  drawn  in  a  scrambling,  scuttering 
rush,  in  which  all  the  propriety  and  dignity  of  beasthood  was  lost, 
helpless  across  the  kraal. 

Next,  two  of  the  tame  elephants  ranged  themselves  one  on  either 
side  of  her,  leaning  against  her  flanks  and  preventing  all  movement, 
while  the  third  drew  the  hide-rope  that  held  her  round  the  base  of 
a  stout  tree.  For  nearly  an  hour  this  position  was  maintained, 
while  the  noosers,  a  good  half-dozen  of  them,  laboured  at  the  rear 
of  her,  making  fast  her  hind-legs.  When  at  last  the  slow  task  was 
completed  and  the  tame  elephants  moved  away,  the  unhappy  cow 
was  seen  with  four  or  five  anklets  of  thick  coir  rope  made  fast  about 
either  hind-leg,  the  whole  being  passed  around  the  tree-trunk  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  leave  it  enough  play  to  prevent  twisting  or 
knotting.  She,  poor  wretch,  rendered  suddenly  disgraceful  and 
grotesque,  tugged  with  monotonous,  hopeless  persistence  at  her 
bonds,  her  body  thrown  forward,  all  the  weight  of  her  brought  to 
3ear,  every  muscle  of  her  taut  and  straining.  Once  in  a  while  she 
would  throw  herself  upon  the  ground  in  her  wild  efforts  to  regain 
ler  freedom  ;  but  the  ropes  held,  and  the  tree  did  not  yield.  Yet 
:or  hours  she  maintained  the  useless  struggle,  varied  only  at  rare 
ntervals  by  well-intended,  but  painful,  attempts  at  assistance 
rendered  clumsily  by  her  fellows  of  the  herd.  She  could  not  bring 
lerself  to  a  belief  in  the  inevitable,  could  not  grasp  the  possibility 
of  the  strength  which  had  always  so  sufficed  her  proving  now  to  be 
nsufficient  for  her  needs.  Like  all  of  us,  whom  Fate  hits  savagely, 
she  could  not  find  it  credible  that  '  the  thing  that  couldn't  had 
occurred.'  Mayhap  she  was  doomed  to  die  of  heartbreak  and 
gangrene  in  her  legs,  as  is  the  fate  of  a  large  percentage  of  captured 
lephants  ;  but  if  she  ever  learned  to  recognise  the  futility  of 
resistance,  and  to  make  with  evil  fortune  such  sorry  terms  as  she 
was  able,  something  more  precious  than  life  died  in  her,  I  think, 
that  day. 

Again  the  herd  was  assailed  by  the  slow-moving  captors.  Onoe 
more  a  squealing  animal — a  calf  this  time — was  tumbled  and 
bunted  backward,  helplessly  sprawling,  across  the  arena ;  and 
another  long  pause  ensued  while  the  captive  was  made  fast. 


630          HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE. 

Elephant-noosing  in  Ceylon,  it  should  be  noted,  is  not  a  brisk 
sport. 

The  day  having  now  worn  to  afternoon,  it  was  decided  by  the 
chief  who  had  organised  the  kraal  to  make  yet  another  attempt  to 
drive  in  the  remainder  of  the  elephants. 

Every  device  known  to  Singhalese  art  had  been  tried  already 
to  effect  this  manoeuvre.  The  medicine-man,  who  is  elephant- 
charmer  by  virtue  of  descent  from  uncounted  generations  of  elephant- 
charming  ancestors,  had  taken  his  seat  at  the  corner  of  the  stockade 
and  had  intoned  his  incantations  to  the  accompaniment  of  drum 
and  cymbal.  A  spirit  had  been  coaxed  out  of  the  Beyond  into  the 
body  of  a  man,  and  the  hypnotised  creature  had  stated,  in  Lazarus- 
like  tones,  that  the  elephants  were  reluctant  to  enter  the  enclosure 
because  there  was  too  large  a  crowd — a  fact  that  leaped  to  the 
eyes,  not  to  say  to  the  noses,  of  even  the  unhypnotised.  But  now 
some  attempt  to  nullify  the  effects  of  this  invasion  of  the  jungle  by 
the  town  was  made.  The  crowd  was  driven  back  to  a  certain 
distance  ;  some  of  the  clamour  was  stilled  ;  smoking,  as  a  general 
practice,  ceased  for  a  space ;  and  from  the  closely-drawn  line  of 
beaters,  invisible  in  the  jungle  beyond  the  stockade,  arose  a  tumult 
of  yells  and  hoots  and  insistent  volleys  of  firearms. 

For  half  an  hour  this  endured  without  visible  result.  Then 
the  uproar  ceased.  Who  had  brought  ball-cartridges  to  aid  the 
work  of  the  beaters  is  not  known.  It  is  not  a  practice  of  the  jungle. 
But  ball-cartridges  suddenly  made  their  appearance,  and  casualties 
ensued.  A  cow  elephant  was  shot  dead  in  the  very  wings  of  the 
kraal ;  a  man  was  killed  ;  three  others  were  seriously  wounded,  one 
among  the  injured  losing  his  chin.  Two  more  men  had  been  killed 
by  the  stampeding  elephants.  It  was  the  last  straw. 

The  jungle  and  the  jungle-dwellers  had  endured  many  and  evil 
things  during  the  last  few  days  at  the  hands  of  the  town,  and  of 
that  strange  new  creation  of  the  white  men  which,  in  a  recent 
memorial,  I  saw  aptly  described  as  '  The  Civilisation.'  Every 
precedent,  known  and  unknown,  had  been  ruthlessly  violated ;  every 
tradition  of  the  elephant-folk  had  been  set  at  nought ;  every 
observance  sacred  to  the  jungle  gods  had  been  desecrated ;  inci- 
dentally, common  sense  had  been  defied,  though  that  was  the  least 
part  of  the  indictment ;  and  the  result  had  been  what  it  had  been — j 
three  men  killed,  three  men  injured,  and  only  sixteen  elephants; 
captured.  No  wonder  the  jungle  and  the  jungle-dwellers  were 
outraged.  The  latter— the  two  thousand  odd  men  who  had  been 


HOW   BONDAGE   CAME   TO   THE   JUNGLE.          631 

driving  the  elephants  for  weeks — took  up  their  beds  and  walked, 
like  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy.  By  nightfall  the  beaters'  lines  were 
deserted,  and  their  quarry  had  broken  loose  and  was  tramping  back 
to  the  jungle  and  to  freedom. 

I  like  to  think  of  the  experiences  and  the  joys  which  that  first 
night  must  have  held  for  the  harassed  beasts — the  bee-line  made 
for  the  nearest  tank,  there  to  slake  the  thirst  of  days  ;  the  glorious 
wallow  in  the  cool,  black  slime  ;  the  mighty  spouting  of  water  from 
trunks  splendidly  refreshed;  and  then  the  long,  steady  march 
through  the  calm  of  the  moonlit  forest,  unhampered  as  of  late  by 
yelling  men,  the  noisy  explosion  of  muskets,  and  the  unyielding 
rows  of  fires,  till  the  free  dawn- wind,  whispering  to  the  jungle, 
brought  with  it  liberty  and  peace. 

Yes,  they  doubtless  had 

For  all  their  sorrows,  all  their  fears, 
An  over-payment  of  delight. 

But  to  me  it  seems  that  the  extra-special  trains  to  Kraaltown 
brought  to  the  jungles  of  Ceylon  a  new  and  horrible  bondage. 


632 


PASTELS    UNDER    THE   SOUTHERN  CROSS. 
BY   MABGABET  L.   WOODS. 

I.— THE  STEERAGE  ENTERTAINMENT. 

THE  steerage  deck  entertains  this  evening  ;  or,  rather,  the  third 
class  entertains  the  steerage  on  its  deck.  The  two  horses,  the  grey 
and  the  bay,  who  are  deck  passengers,  stir  in  their  boxes.  They 
act  spectators  of  the  affair  according  to  their  different  tempera- 
ments— the  bay,  in  his  retired  phlegmatic  way,  just  visible  ;  the  grey 
with  an  alert  nose  on  his  high  window-sill.  The  first  and  second 
class  act  spectators  too.  We  lean  on  the  railing  and  look  down 
from  our  deck,  like  the  gods  from  a  theatre  gallery.  Below  the 
strong  concentrated  glare  of  electric  lights  is  thrown  on  rows  and 
groups  of  faces,  all  their  different  flesh-tones  heightened  by  sea- 
wind  and  sun.  It  is  an  East-end  audience,  set  against  a  back- 
ground of  dun  sailcloth  and  the  dark  racing  waters  of  a  moonless 
ocean.  There  are  Jewish  faces  of  the  immigrant  sort,  sallow  and 
furtive-eyed  ;  English  faces  florid  and  featureless,  or  sharp-chinned 
and  blond,  with  the  colourless  blondness  of  the  type.  Faces  of 
the  East- end  aristocracy  :  slim,  clean-collared  young  men  with 
small  moustaches  and  young  women  in  light  blouses,  their  beautiful 
hair  beautifully  dressed  after  the  modernest  fashion.  There  is  a 
sprinkling  of  little  girls  among  them,  too  :  Sunday  little  girls  with 
fair  front  locks  tied  in  the  biggest  and  sky-bluest  of  poodle-bows. 
Now  and  again  one  of  the  younger  of  these  dainty,  white-frocked 
little  creatures  kicks  against  the  pricks  of  that  class  decorum  which 
prescribes  immobility  and  a  reserved  demeanour  in  mixed  society. 
Serious  young  Papas  are  sent  forth  to  reclaim  their  errant  offspring, 
who  are  maybe  dancing  primitive  round  dances  in  the  hug  of  un- 
desirable infants.  Yes,  they  are  serious  the  Select,  but  by  no 
means  sad  ;  dignified  but  affable  too.  Not  so  She,  the  supremely  j 
Select,  the  One  who  '  has  been  second  class  before.'  Her  spectacles 
beacon  in  the  front  row,  her  precedence  is  undisputed,  an  atmo- 
sphere of  respectful  condolence  surrounds  her,  yet  she  bates  not  an 
inch  of  her  haughty  gloom.  Beyond  the  leading  fact  as  to  the 
second  class  I  have  never  got,  but  I  take  her  to  have  been  a  school- 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN    CROSS.        633 

mistress  before  she  led  to  the  altar  that  superlatively  neat,  intelligent, 
energetic,  but  naturally  pale  and  depressed  young  man  who  is 
conducting  the  entertainment. 

On  the  low  central  platform  immediately  in  front  of  them — yet 
separated  from  them  by  how  tremendous  a  gulf  ! — there  sprawl  on 
back  and  stomach  three  or  four  sallow  unshaven  young  Russian 
Jews,  singing  together  very  unmelodiously  from  a  book,  which  one 
of  them  holds  upright  under  a  strong  light.  Their  sordid  shirts 
are  torn  wide  open  at  the  neck,  and  as  they  sing  they  hand  a  black 
bottle  about  and  about,  and  take  in  turn  long  pulls  at  it,  with  lifted 
chin.  They  have  no  human  respect,  these  unhappy  and  unpleasing 
young  men.  It  does  not  occur  to  them  that  they,  their  sockless 
feet  and  stubbly  chins,  their  black  bottle  and  their  vocal  inhar- 
monies,  are  intrusive,  out  of  place  just  where  they  are,  before  this 
audience,  on  this  platform,  where  an  open  piano  awaits  the  advent 
of  a  young  person  in  a  white  frock  and  a  very  long  pigtail,  tied  with 
a  very  large  bow.  But  presently  certain  officers  motion  them  to 
be  off,  and  they  slink  away  hurriedly,  vanish  almost  like  nocturnal 
animals  surprised,  divining  that  even  here  men  in  uniform  are  not 
to  be  trifled  with. 

Then  the  Entertainment  begins,  despite  the  obvious  reluctance 
of  the  piano.  And  presently  there  comes  into  it  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  sounds  in  Nature,  yet  one  not  infrequently  heard  at  an 
East-end  or  village  concert :  the  sound  of  a  warm,  soft  young  tenor 
voice.  So  long  as  it  does  not  downright  murder  music  the  most 
foolish  composition  in  the  world  cannot  rob  it  of  its  beauty.  Its 
secret  is  the  secret  of  those  three  long  notes  of  the  nightingale, 
which,  for  no  reason  known  either  to  the  singer  or  the  scientist,  have 
thrilled  through  the  nerves  of  men  for  uncounted  generations,  and 
will  continue  so  to  thrill  through  them  until  our  great  democracy 
has  destroyed  every  faint-scented  hawthorn  grove  and  bosky  wood 
where  that  delicate  spirit  of  young  passion  and  sweet  melancholy 
is  used  to  haunt.  But  for  all  the  bird's  wings,  Man  is  the  true 
migrant,  and  this  voice,  which  certainly  comes  from  some  English 
countryside,  lifts  itself  undeterred  by  alien  surroundings,  pours  its 
nightingale-notes  as  freely  here  as  under  the  holly  and  mistletoe  in 
some  village  schoolroom,  redolent  of  gas  and  goloshes.  Here  where 
the  great  ship's  bows,  dimly  visible,  are  rising  and  falling  with  the 
heave  of  illimitable  Ocean,  where  the  echoless  roof  is  built  of  a  close 
tropical  darkness  against  which  her  lights  are  launching  their  long 
pale  shafts — while  through  the  rigging  forward  burn,  veiled  and  low 


634         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

on  the  horizon,  the  Four  Stars  of  the  Southern  Cross  and  the  wide 
coil  of  the  Dragon — the  unconquerable  voice  continues  pouring 
forth  all  its  soft  passion,  its  else  unutterable  human  yearning  and 
sadness,  out  and  away  over  the  dim  mysterious  sea  and  up  into  that 
echoless  roof  of  the  Infinite. 

The  Infinite  has  its  way  completely  with  the  other  voices  that 
attack  it ;  they  vanish  in  faint  squeaks,  all  except  the  comic  one, 
which  has  its  own  method  of  dealing  with  Space.  Meantime  we 
are  moving  through  it  with  that  amazing  indifference  to  the  Great 
Powers  in  whose  lap  we  so  visibly  lie,  which  marks  the  average 
civilised  human  being,  until  he  is  confronted  with  them  in  their 
fierce  primal  energy  and  indifference  to  him.  This  crowd  above 
and  below  is  living  almost  entirely  in  the  tiny  fortuitous  world  held 
within  the  iron  walls  of  the  ship,  except  for  that  meed  of  attention 
some  give  to  the  nightly  pageant  of  the  sunset  sky,  the  more  general 
interest  in  the  performances  of  troupes  of  porpoises  or  flying-fish, 
or  in  the  state  of  the  sea  as  affecting  the  comfort  of  the  bad  sailors 
among  us.  Yet  could  some  conscient  Being,  with  eyes  undulled  by 
habit,  look  down  upon  us,  in  what  strangely  different  proportions 
would  everything  appear  !  He  would  be  conscious  first  and  mainly 
of  the  dark  shining  ocean,  so  terrible  in  its  vastness,  its  titanic 
strength,  its  enormous  solitude.  A  solitude  not  less,  but  perhaps 
greater,  because  under  its  surface  it  hides  a  multitudinous  Life, 
alien,  silent,  going  on  its  secret  way  as  ignorant  of  Man's  existence 
as  though  we  inhabited  another  planet.  A  huge  and  unfamiliar 
monster  of  the  deep  swimming  past  at  high  speed,  a  strange  glare 
breaking  for  a  few  moments  on  the  darkness  of  the  waters,  occasion- 
ally something  new  and  good  to  eat — this  is  all  of  Man  and  his  works 
that  the  deep  sea  knows,  and  Man  for  his  part  moves  about  on  it 
with  but  a  trifle  more  knowledge  or  consciousness  of  its  mysteries. 
That  imagined  Being  would  see  this  ship  of  ours  as  a  small  brilliant 
object,  something  very  like  a  miniature  comet,  rushing  across  the 
darkness  of  outer  space.  He  would  conceive  of  us  minute  creatures 
in  our  little  contrivance,  as  filled  with  a  conscious  heroism,  as  we 
precipitate  ourselves  further  and  further  into  this  immensity  with 
its  awful  possibilities,  leaving  behind  us  all  our  natural  surroundings, 
even  to  the  familiar  stars.  And  all  the  while  we  are  peacefully 
preoccupied  with  our  infinitesimally  small  concerns.  We  are 
carrying  on  our  English  Parish  Entertainment,  and  scarcely  one  of 
us  turns  aside  to  watch  through  the  glare  of  the  electric  light,  the 
wild  continual  play  of  sheet  lightning  over  a  dark  bank  of  cloud 
which  stretches  far  along  the  eastern  horizon.  This  is  the  reflection 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.         635 

of  a  thunderstorm,  which  must  be  raging  over  the  deserts  and 
marshy  jungles  of  Senegambia,  where  countless  rivers  are  now 
spreading  their  floods — life-giving,  life-destroying.  From  the  upper 
deck  one  watches  with  an  aesthetic  pleasure  the  play  of  its  lambency. 
Meantime  over  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of  square  miles  of 
country  every  living  thing  is  cowering  in  terror  under  it.  Black 
men  are  huddled  prostrate  in  their  clay  huts,  invoking  their  fetishes, 
fierce,  un tameable  creatures  are  fleeing  distracted  before  it  or  crouch- 
ing in  such  shelter  as  they  can  find.  It  was,  I  think,  lower  down  on 
this  coast  that  Mary  Kingsley,  that  great,  simple,  intrepid  woman, 
was  once  surprised  by  such  another  storm,  and  had  an  opportunity 
— one  few  of  us  have  courage  enough  to  envy  her — for  observing 
the  terror  it  inspires  in  the  least  timid  of  animals.  She  was 
scrambling  over  some  rocks  in  search  of  shelter,  while  at  one  moment 
the  terrific  flashes  of  lightning  searched  the  depths  of  the  forest, 
revealing  every  twig  and  stone  within  it,  and  at  another  she  was 
wrapped  in  murky  darkness.  Suddenly  she  found  herself  at  a 
distance  of  one  yard  from  a  magnificent  leopard,  her  head  being  on 
a  level  with  its  body.  It  lay  broadside  on  to  her,  its  paws  stretched 
out,  its  head  thrown  back,  its  eyes  closed  against  the  blinding  glare 
of  the  sky,  its  tail  lashing  the  ground,  while  it  expressed  rage  and 
terror  in  low  deep  growls. 

In  the  general  debacle  of  wild-beast  reputations — -have  I  not 
lately  seen  the  Bengal  tiger  described  as  a  timid  and  harmless 
animal,  goaded  to  crime  by  man's  oppression  ? — the  African  leopard 
still  fairly  maintains  its  character  for  ferocity.  Happily  its  sense 
of  smell  seems  less  acute  than  that  of  most  wild  animals.  Accordingly 
the  leopard  was  not  aware  of  Mary  Kingsley's  neighbourhood. 
She  dived  down  below  the  rock  and  crouched  there,  listening  to  the 
flip-flap  of  its  tail  and  its  low  fierce  growls.  Occasionally  she  peeped 
out  to  see  it  still  stretched  in  the  same  attitude  of  terror.  At 
length  in  the  interval  between  two  peeps  and  in  a  lull  of  the  storm 
it  disappeared  into  the  darkness,  probably  to  hide  itself  in  some 
deeper  recess  of  the  rocks. 

Africa  lurks  now  unseen  behind  that  lambent  horizon,  but  the 
sinister  spirit  of  her  swamps  seems  to  spread  broad  wings  and  hover 
far  out  over  the  ocean.  A  brooding  sunless  heat  has  encompassed 
us  since  we  reached  Cape  Verde.  There  we  not  only  felt  the  breath 
of  Africa  but  saw  her  so  near  that  even  the  most  shipbound  spirits 
of  our  company  were  aware  of  her.  A  two-peaked  hill  lifted  itself 
above  the  sea,  and  gradually  appeared  the  long,  low  strip  of  sandy 
coast,  at  the  end  of  which  it  rises  to  front  the  Atlantic  surge.  Cape 


636        PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

Verde  reaches  out  from  the  desert  part  of  Northern  Senegambia, 
a  miniature  Sahara  of  low  sand  dunes,  transformed  further  south 
into  flats  of  feverish  fertility.  A  thin  growth  of  palms  fringes  the 
Cape  along  the  sea,  a  straight  line  diminishing,  stumped  away  into 
dim  distant  coast.  There  is  a  thin  scattered  growth  of  vegetation 
on  the  hillside,  too — trees  of  some  sort,  and  doubtless  the  cactus, 
lover  of  barren  dusty  places  where  the  sun  beats.  A  lighthouse 
stands  up  above  the  sandstone  cliff,  and  there  are  two  or  three 
white  houses  with  red  roofs  on  the  hillside  behind  it.  The  light- 
house, the  scattered  houses  in  their  civilised  brightness,  their  intended 
gaiety,  strike  a  note  almost  of  terror  in  the  solitude  of  this  barren 
headland,  where  for  all  its  sandy  drought,  the  fever-mosquito 
swarms  in  the  rainy  season.  And  Frenchmen  are  living  there. 
Frenchmen  !  With  an  infinity  of  desert  and  jungle  behind  them 
and  an  infinity  of  ocean  before  !  It  is  an  ocean  that  commonly,  no 
doubt,  flashes  in  the  sunshine,  yet  even  then  it  is  an  uninhabited 
waste.  When  we  saw  it,  it  was  gloomily  purple,  dashing  in  white 
foam  over  the  dark  basaltic  reefs  that  crop  up  so  strangely  just 
outside  the  sand  and  sandstone  edge  of  the  continent,  and  sending 
snowy  breakers  up  the  distant  basalt  cliffs  of  Goree.  Our  ship  was 
the  only  moving  thing  upon  it,  and  one  imagined  with  what  eyes 
those  exiles  were  following  her  on  her  course.  She  was  not  for 
them  ;  yet,  as  she  forged  steadily  on  from  an  old  world-centre  to 
a  new,  she  must  have  caught  their  flying  sighs,  have  seemed  to  bring 
them  a  momentary  glimpse  of  civilisation.  One  cannot,  however, 
always  guess  other  people's  feelings  aright.  I  remember  once 
passing  an  island  ridge  of  rock  and  sand,  alone  in  the  wide  ocean, 
on  which  there  was  a  lighthouse  and  signalling  station.  With 
sympathetic  imagination  we  conceived  of  its  few  inhabitants 
watching  from  their  lonely  tower  or  continually  pacing  with  lifted 
binoculars  the  rocky  platform  from  which  they  were  most  likely  to 
perceive  approaching  ships — their  only  links  with  the  outer  world. 
Not  at  all.  Although  it  was  full  daylight  and  the  weather  clear, 
our  ship  failed  to  obtain  any  response  to  her  repeated  signals.  But 
then  these  were  Englishmen  ;  and  probably  the  other  side  of  the 
island  was  the  more  favourable  to  Golf. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  that  point  on  the  earth- embracing  Ocean  to 
this,  but  to  the  ship-world  all  points  are  the  same.  Passengers 
certainly  share  the  view  of  dough's  rather  peculiar  '  seaman.' 
To  them  the  sea  is  the  sea,  the  land  that  spot  '  far,  far  behind,' 
where  they  embarked,  and  that  other  point  '  far,  far  ahead  '  where 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE    SOUTHERN   CROSS.         637 

they  will  disembark.  It  is  so  difficult  to  realise  that  we  are  crossing 
in  commonplace  luxury,  criticising  the  dinner  and  playing  deck- 
croquet,  over  the  wild  adventurous  wakes  of  mediaeval  and  Eliza- 
bethan mariners.  They  in  their  little  vessels  crept  down  closer  to 
the  coast  of  that  Caliban  country,  saw  all  manner  of  strange  beasts 
come  down  at  evening  to  the  sea  to  bathe,  and  were — courageous 
hearts  ! — mightily  amused  to  see  those  roguish  fellows  the  elephants 
squirting  sea- water  over  the  others  with  their  trunks. 

But  while  the  far-off  lightning  has  been  sending  its  wireless 
messages  from  Africa,  the  Parish  Entertainment  has  progressed 
from  its  Concert  to  its  Dance  stage.  There  are  still  the  rows  of 
gravely  gazing  faces  against  the  sailcloth  and  the  sea,  and  the  grey 
horse — so  interested  a  spectator — has  put  his  whole  head  out  of 
his  box.  But  under  the  electric  flares  they  are  dancing  ;  the  young 
working-man  in  clean,  much- washed  blue  shirt,  the  young  school- 
masters and  the  rest  in  light  suits  and  stiff  collars,  the  young 
women  in  airy  blouses.  They  are  waltzing,  waltzing  slowly, 
reversing,  turning  again  endlessly,  in  the  dreamy  elegant  East-end 
waltz.  The  piano  has  struck  work,  but  a  young  man  with  a  pale, 
blond,  impassive  mechanic's  face,  is  playing  a  giant  concertina, 
which  I  believe  they  call  nowadays  an  accordion.  Sometimes  he 
turns  a  lack-lustre  eye  on  the  dancers,  but  for  the  most  part  he  leans 
forward  or  backward  with  drooped  lids,  caressing  his  instrument, 
turning  it  this  way  and  that  with  long  sallow  fingers.  So,  self- 
absorbed  as  a  Buddha,  but  sadder,  the  musician  plays,  and  gravely 
as  though  performing  some  religious  ceremony,  the  dancers  turn  and 
sway  on  the  narrow  deck,  under  the  electric  flares.  But  back  in 
the  penumbra  under  the  fo'c'sle-deck  things  are  going  more 
uproariously.  The  cooks — French,  Italian,  and  Portuguese — are 
dancing.  Over  there  in  their  white  caps  and  dresses  they  look 
burlesque,  like  a  party  of  French  circus  clowns,  and  the  dance  is 
burlesque,  too — a  clown  dance.  They  swing  round  in  a  wild 
Lancers  figure,  they  caper  clasped  in  each  other's  arms,  they  bandy 
about  from  one  to  the  other  a  solitary  man  in  evening  dress.  But 
the  audience  below  do  not  regard  them.  Grave,  as  though  hypno- 
tised, they  listen  to  the  man  with  the  concertina  and  follow  with 
their  eyes  the  slow  spin  of  the  ceremonial  dancers.  Only  the  grey 
horse,  who  maybe  has  friends  in  the  fo'c'sle,  sometimes  turns  his 
long  interested  nose  in  that  direction. 

Meanwhile,  dimly  visible,  the  dark  bows  of  the  ship  still  lift 
and  drop  monotonously,  forging  on  into  the  Southern  Cross. 


638 


ARCADIANS    ALL} 


THERE  are  no  Red  Indians  at  Slocum  Magna,  and  this  is  a  genuine 
pity.  Poachers  there  are  ;  outlaws  there  have  been,  if  impeccable 
tradition  can  still  address  the  serious  ;  robbers  there  ought  to  be, 
for  gulleys,  combes,  ravines,  and  impregnable  fastnesses  are  pro- 
vided by  Nature ;  from  the  cosmic  night  of  things,  masterless 
men  have  been  seen  upon  the  moor.  Indeed,  Muffin  herself — but 
that  is  part  of  the  story. 

Badgery  Water  begins  its  adventurous  course  in  the  next  field 
but  one  to  the  Parsonage.  Full  many  a  mile  it  flows  through  rock 
and  chasm,  across  furze  and  heather,  skirting  this  precipice  and 
scorning  that,  babbling  and  rioting  its  way  to  the  sea  with  a  con- 
tempt for  geography  that  is  almost  immoral.  When  the  wind 
descends  from  the  moor  and  comes  howling  along  the  water,  it  is 
as  if  the  disembodied  souls  of  all  who  have  not  been  virtuously 
given  were  holding  revel  like  the  witches  in  '  Macbeth.' 

To  complete  the  sylvan  charms  of  Slocum  Magna  only  one 
thing  is  really  necessary,  to  wit  a  nomadic  tribe  of  subtle  but 
absolutely  ruthless  savages.  Certainly  their  presence  on  the  moor 
and  down-along  the  water  would  have  completely  justified  Charley 
in  his  purchase  of  a  second-hand  revolver.  If  you  insist  on  pre- 
cision, it  was  not  exactly  a  purchase  ;  it  would  be  more  correct  to 
say  that  it  was  acquired  by  barter.  Three  flies,  some  tackle,  a 
double-spliced  cricket  bat  with  a  piece  out  of  the  side,  the  complete 
works  of  Shakespeare,  including  the  sonnets,  in  perfect  condition 
except  for  the  cover,  together  with  six  bull's-eye  peppermints  and 
a  mouth-organ,  had  been  accepted  in  exchange  by  one  John  Henry 
Wrixon,  a  form-fellow  at  Widdiford  Grammar  School. 

It  was  at  the  supper  table  that  Charley  brought  this  fearful 
engine  of  destruction  to  the  notice  of  the  Family.  It  made  a  great 
sensation,  which  was  increased  not  a  little  by  the  demeanour  of 
the  new  owner,  who  overdid  his  coolness  so  much  that  it  became 
uncanny.  His  eldest  sister  could  not  understand  why  he 
wanted  the  fell  weapon,  knew  he  was  foolish,  and  feared  he  was 
wrong ;  but  Goose  opened  her  preposterous  orbs  to  the  limit  and 
1  Copyright,  1910,  by  J.  C.  Snaith,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  639 

rolled  her  r's  in  the  most  thrilling  manner  ;  Muffin,  ever  practical 
of  mind,  immediately  offered  to  knit  the  proprietor  a  tie  of  blue 
and  yellow  with  a  narrow  stripe  of  magenta — the  registered  colours 
of  Widdif ord  Grammar  School  first  eleven — if  she  could  use  it  when 
she  wanted  to ;  Dearest  Papa  shook  his  head  and  rubbed  his 
spectacles,  his  immemorial  habit  when  philosophic  doubt  afflicted 
him  ;  Doggo  barked  furiously  ;  whilst  Milly,  ever  backward  for 
her  age — she  had  never  recovered  the  ground  she  had  lost  through 
having  the  scarlatina  twice  in  her  infancy — put  the  singularly  tactless 
question  whether  it  would  really  go  off  like  old  Ike's  fowling-piece. 

The  course  of  this  narrative  will  be  designed  to  show  that  some 
kind  of  prophetic  afflatus  must  have  descended  upon  Charley  when 
he  was  moved  to  make  this  superb  acquisition  to  his  armoury, 
hitherto  limited  to  three  catapults,  an  air-gun,  a  stick  with  a  sort 
of  a  spike  at  the  end,  a  broken  mole- trap,  and  a  pocket-knife  with- 
out a  decent  blade  in  it.  Yet  he  could  not  have  known  how 
events  were  shaping  themselves  ;  he  could  not  have  known  what 
the  near  future  held  in  store.  As  we  were  careful  to  state  at  the 
outset,  such  a  thing  as  a  Red  Indian  was  unknown  at  Slocum 
Magna,  and  according  to  the  best  oral  and  written  testimony  two 
hundred  years  had  passed  since  outlaws  and  their  kind  had  lived 
down-along  the  water.  But,  all  unsuspected  by  the  proud  pos- 
sessor of  John  Henry  Wrixon's  revolver  and  his  immensely  impressed 
female  relations,  events  were  moving  towards  an  unforeseen  yet 
intensely  dramatic  climax. 

Another  incident  occurred  about  this  time,  perhaps,  like  the 
lethal  weapon  itself,  of  a  significance  easy  to  exaggerate,  yet  when 
taken  in  conjunction  with  the  chain  of  events  that  was  being 
forged  around  the  family  of  Slocum  Magna,  unmistakably  symptom- 
atic of  destiny.  As  a  slight  token  of  esteem  and  affection,  Muffin 
was  presented  by  her  Bible  Class  with  the  '  Memoirs  of  Sherlock 
Holmes.' 

The  study  of  the  lives  of  eminent  people  is  allowed  to  be  a  sure 
basis  upon  which  to  raise  a  liberal  education.  To  do  Muffin  justice, 
if  she  did  not  actually  burn  the  midnight  oil  over  the  perusal  of  the 
biography  of  this  ornament  to  human  nature,  it  was  only  because 
no  power  on  earth  could  keep  her  awake  after  a  quarter  to  ten. 
But  none  can  deny  that  she  rose  with  the  lark  to  pursue  her  inquiries 
into  the  science  of  deduction. 

This  is  important,  since  Muffin  was  presently  to  display  a 
power  of  mind,  a  grasp  of  affairs,  a  faculty  of  making  two  and  two 


640  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

into  five,  and  five  and  five  into  twenty,  that  astonished  Dearest 
Papa  himself,  and  immensely  raised  her  status  in  the  Family. 
Book  knowledge  she  had  none,  but  her  familiarity  with  the 
fowls  of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  was  proverbial.  Her 
wealth  of  natural  lore,  however,  was  not  reckoned  much  in  refined 
circles,  since  she  shared  it  with  every  ragamuffin  in  the  village, 
each  of  whom  was  her  sworn  ally  and  coadjutor,  and  incidentally 
her  bond-slave.  Billy  Harris  had  offered  her  the  pick  of  his  rabbits 
on  more  than  one  occasion  ;  while  so  lately  as  the  week  before  last 
Joshua  Crick,  whose  widowed  mother  kept  the  Post  Office  and 
General  Store,  and  who  boasted  among  his  peers  '  that  he  had  not 
to  pay  for  his  sucks,'  had  presented  Miss  Muffin  with  his  best 
blood  alley  in  circumstances  of  solemn  but  aggressive  publicity. 

Still,  as  Polly  had  so  often  remarked  in  the  high-minded  and 
serious  manner  that  the  world  has  long  been  taught  to  associate 
with  the  eldest  daughter  of  a  clergyman,  what  did  it  profit  Muffin 
that  she  should  have  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  every  rock  and 
morass  and  furze-bush,  of  every  watercourse  and  fastness,  of  every 
bird,  beast  and  reptile,  of  every  herb  and  flower,  and  of  every  con- 
ceivable means  of  doing  violence  to  her  person  and  injury  to  her 
clothes  ?  What  did  it  profit  her  that  she  could  tell  the  difference 
between  a  water-wagtail  and  a  Jeremy  Diddler,  even  if  Goose 
certainly  could  not,  and  it  was  doubtful  whether  Milly  and  Dickie 
and  Charley  could  either,  when  one  came  to  consider  that  Dearest 
Papa  had  taken  a  first  in  classics  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
in  1862  ? 

We  do  not  think  it  will  be  necessary  for  the  judicious  reader  to 
make  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  methods  of  the  eminent  character 
referred  to  on  a  previous  page  in  order  to  find  out  that  Polly  herself 
is  a  bird  of  quite  another  feather.  Our  advice  to  any  sensible  and 
well-conducted  young  fellow  would  be  to  marry  her.  Quite  apart 
from  her  appearance — and,  of  course,  we  distrust  mere  beauty  on 
principle — she  has  a  firmness  of  character,  a  philosophic  breadth 
of  understanding,  and  as  light  a  hand  for  pastry  as  any  young  lady 
in  the  neighbourhood.  With  Dearest  Papa  she  shares  the  glory  of 
sustaining  a  private  library  for  her  personal  use.  It  is  small  but 
very  carefully  chosen.  It  consists  of  three  volumes  :  the  Bible, 
profusely  illustrated  on  wood  ;  Mrs.  Beeton's  '  Household  Manage- 
ment ' ;  and  '  Hints  on  Etiquette  by  a  Member  of  the  Aristocracy.' 
She  is  thus  in  the  happy  position  of  being  able  at  a  moment's  notice 
to  recite  the  ingenuous  but  romantic  story  of  Moses  in  the  bulrushes, 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  641 

to  grill  a  mutton  cutlet,  or  to  write  to  a  marquis.  This  latter 
accomplishment  is  not  so  irrelevant  as  at  first  it  may  appear,  because 
there  are  marquises  in  the  Family.  In  a  previous  work,1  which  in 
the  opinion  of  indulgent  friends  has  enhanced  the  public  stock  of 
harmless  pleasure,  the  author  has  sought  to  establish  this  interesting 
fact  with  becoming  clarity. 

Dearest  Papa  is  so  replete  with  ripe  scholarship  that  he  pays 
little  regard  to  his  meals.  If  a  Liberal  Government  ever  puts  a  tax 
on  the  midnight  oil,  he  will  have  to  take  to  candles,  because  he 
burns  it  in  such  enormous  quantities.  If  he  does,  woe  betide  his 
study  carpet !  There  is  no  clerk  in  holy  orders  in  the  diocese 
whose  trousers  are  quite  so  short  and  so  shabby  as  his,  whose 
wristbands  are  so  frayed,  and  whose  hose  is  darned  so  diligently. 
His  stipend  bears  no  relation  to  the  weight  of  his  learning  or  the 
length  of  his  family.  Let  us  hope  it  does  him  no  harm  in  the  sight 
of  his  Master.  Certainly  when  he  peers  over  his  spectacles  to  look 
at  the  world  he  displays  a  pair  of  eyes  of  extraordinary  humour 
and  benevolence.  If  life  itself  has  disappointed  him,  he  never 
confesses  it.  After  all,  is  it  not  part  of  the  accepted  order  of 
things  that  the  strength  of  good  men  should  be  less  than  their 
!  ambition  ?  Of  course,  he  knows  the  Fathers  by  heart ;  had  he 
I  only  possessed  more  organising  power,  his  annotated  edition  of 
the  '  Life  and  Writings  of  Saint  Augustine  '  must  have  brought 
I  him  preferment ;  as  it  is,  in  the  opinion  of  well-informed  people 
I  who  have  seen  the  MS.  of  the  first  volume,  his  exhaustive  study  of 
1 '  The  Influence  of  Christianity  upon  the  Early  Phoenicians '  is  quite 
likely  to  be  the  standard  work  upon  the  subject. 

Goose  is  the  beauty  of  the  family.     As  an  inevitable  consequence 

her  intellectual  endowment  is  considered  to  be  about  equal  to  that 

of  a  three-weeks-old  water  spaniel.     Some  observers  think  it  is 

rather  more,  others  rather  less.     On  whichever  side  the  difference 

es  it  is  hardly  likely  to  affect  the  feminist  movement  materially. 

he  is  about  as  good  and  genuine  as  it  is  possible  for  a  human 

reature  to  be,  and  this  makes  it  still  more  hopeless  for  her  to  rise 

o  anything  mentally.     Beauty,  goodness,  and  brains  are  a  triple 

ndowment  which  human  nature,  being  what  it  is,  will  never  be 

ble  to  sanction.     It  is  just  possible  for  you  to  be  allowed  two  of 

hese  attributes,  but  for  anyone  to  claim  all  three  is  like  being 

)lus  ten  at  golf.     Such  phenomena  there  may  be,  but  the  wise  take 

10  cognisance  of  their  existence. 

1  Arainlnta, 
VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  41 


642  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

In  another  place  Goose's  wonderful  physique,  her  azure  orbs, 
her  daffodil-coloured  mane,  her  vein  of  natural  idiosyncrasy,  the 
majestic  character  of  her  affections,  and  her  love  of  nourishment 
have  been  dealt  with  at  length.  The  remarkable  chain  of  events 
which  forms  this  narrative  was  forged  two  summers  before  Goose 
went  up  to  London  and  wrought  such  incredible  havoc  in  Mayfair. 
Indeed,  it  was  in  that  halcyon  period  when  Muffin's  mauve  was  in 
its  first  season. 

This  is  quite  providentially  in  accordance  with  the  fitness  of 
things,  since  Muffin  herself  is  the  indubitable  heroine  of  this  story. 
It  is  her  resource,  her  sagacity,  her  thorough-going  practicality, 
and  her  unparalleled  display  of  mental  power  that  have  made  it 
necessary  for  her  to  be  put  into  a  story  all  by  herself. 

If  we  analyse  this  engaging  situation  in  all  its  bearings  we  shall 
find,  when  all  is  said,  that  it  was  one  sole  and  piquant  factor  that 
determined  it.  What  do  you  suppose  it  was  ?  Why,  her  mauve, 
of  course.  What  else  could  it  be  ?  It  was  her  appearance  in 
Sunday  school  among  her  ragamuffins  in  that  distracting  garment 
that  fired  them  to  club  together  to  present  her  with  the  '  Memoirs 
of  Sherlock  Holmes.'  It  was  her  diligent  study  of  that  epoch- 
making  work  which  enabled  her,  when  occasion  called  upon  her,  to 
take  the  course  she  did,  and  made  her  deservedly  famous,  even  in  a 
quarter  where  fame  is  not  easy  to  acquire. 

It  befell  that  the  Family  was  engaged  at  dinner,  a  meal  which 
was  taken,  whatever  the  weather  and  whatever  the  quarter  the 
moon  had  entered,  at  one  o'clock  precisely  all  the  year  round. 
They  were  at  the  rice-pudding  stage,  and  Goose  was  in  the  act  of 
passing  her  plate  for  a  second  helping,  which  she  always  did  as  a 
matter  of  course,  when  the  sound  of  hoofs  was  heard  upon  the 
gravel  path  which  led  from  the  gate  to  the  open  front  door  of  the 
parsonage.  A  high-stepping  coach  horse  was  responsible  for  this 
equestrian  noise,  an  elderly  skewbald  with  an  almost  unbelievable 
dignity  of  bearing.  Upon  his  back,  framed  by  the  honeysuckle 
and  clematis,  not  to  mention  the  wistaria,  which  trailed  in  absurd 
profusion  around  the  porch,  was  no  less  a  person  than  John  Gladwin, 
the  factotum  of  the  Hall.  John  was  grave  and  John  was  rubicund, 
John  was  honestly  consequential.  John  had  a  perfect  right  to  be 
all  this,  for  was  he  not  butler  and  footman,  head  gardener,  stud 
groom,  major  domo,  and  general  adviser  and  chief  permanent; 
official  to  Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B.,  and  providence  in  ordinary  to| 
Mrs.  Ponsonby  and  Marcus  the  parrot  ?  Persons  there  were  who 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  643 

openly  said  that  the  scheme  of  things  would  have  been  in  better 
order  had  it  been  Colonel  Gladwin,  C.B.,  and  John  Ponsonby 
instead  of  Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B.,  and  John  Gladwin.  But,  after 
all,  what's  in  a  name  and  a  few  letters  before  or  after  it  ?  The 
individual  alone  it  is  who  matters  ;  and  with  half  a  glance  the 
world  could  see  that  John  Gladwin  was  an  individual  who  mattered 
exceedingly. 

'  Marnin  tuee,'  said  John  Gladwin,  lifting  his  hat  to  the  dinner- 
table  with  old-world  courtliness. 

The  first  thing  Polly  did  was  to  pour  out  a  mug  of  cider  which 
she  had  brewed  herself,  and  with  her  own  fair  hands  to  present  it 
to  John  the  rubicund. 

'  Good  health  tuee,  missy,'  said  John,  draining  the  mug,  after 
reproving  the  skewbald  with  great  severity  for  eating  the 
wistaria. 

Together  with  the  empty  mug  John  presented  a  letter.  It  was 
enclosed  in  one  of  those  fashionable  five-corner  shaped  envelopes 
which  can  only  be  obtained  at  great  centres  of  civilisation  like 
Bristol  and  Exeter,  and  in  a  very  chaste  female  character  was 
addressed  to  the  Misses  Perry,  the  Parsonage,  Slocum  Magna. 
With  worldly-wise  finger  Polly  broke  the  seal,  and  was  immediately 
advised  of  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Ponsonby's  request  for1;he  pleasure  of 
the  company  of  the  Misses  Perry  at  a  fete  champetre  to  be  held  at 
the  Hall,  Brownbridge,  on  Friday,  the  thirteenth  of  July,  between 
;he  hours  of  2.30  and  6  P.M.,  when  there  would  be  archery,  bowls, 
croquet,  lawn  tennis,  putting,  &c. 

'  Thank  Mrs.  Ponsonby  so  much,  John,'  said  Polly,  '  and  please 
;ell  her  that  we  will  reply  by  post.' 

John  touched  his  hat  solemnly,  backed  the  elderly  skewbald 
away  from  the  wistaria  and  very  nearly  on  to  a  bed  of  phlox, 
trampled  down  a  box  border,  but  finally  got  the  stately  quadruped 
through  the  gate  in  something  like  review  order. 

'  Does  feet  shampeter  mean  fireworks  ?  '  asked  Charley,  who 
lad'a  whole  holiday  from  Widdif ord  Grammar  School  in  commemora- 
ion  of  the  eighty-seventh  anniversary  of  the  Battle  of  Waterloo, 
which  all  the  world  knows  was  won  on  the  playing-fields  of  a 
sister  seminary.  '  If  it  does,  I  think  I  should  like  to  go.' 

Charley  did  not  lack  reproof  of  his  desperate  ignorance. 

*  I  feel  sure  there  will  be  ices,'  said  Goose  wistfully.  '  Perhaps 
strawberry  ones.' 

It  was  held  to  be  a  grave*question  whether  the  term  '  the  Misses 

41—2 


644  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

Perry  '  included  all  the  Miss  Perrys.  For  instance,  there  was  Milly. 
They  were  almost  afraid  she  was  a  little  too  immature  ;  the  ravages 
of  scarlatina  had  left  her  so  backward.  Again,  there  was  the  dire 
problem  of  her  clothes.  Her  wardrobe  contained  not  a  single 
article  which  by  any  flight  of  the  feminine  imagination  could  be 
deemed  worthy  of  a  garden  party  at  the  Hall.  Yet  it  would  be  a 
terrible  disappointment  to  Milly  if  she  couldn't  go.  Goose  was 
prepared  to  lend  her  own  party  frock,  a  lilac  print  that  was  two 
years  old — nay,  Muffin  actually  offered  her  mauve  rather  than 
Milly,  already  sufficiently  unfortunate,  should  suffer  a  pang. 
Together  they  would  stay  at  home  and  make  tea  for  Dearest  Papa. 
But  their  own  Amazonian  proportions  really  made  the  proposal 
ridiculous,  even  if  Milly's  own  sense  of  the  right  and  proper  had 
not  rendered  it  impracticable. 

The  problem  of  Milly  simply  gave  Polly  yet  another  oppor- 
tunity to  display  her  serene  good  sense.  She  turned  up  a 
back  number  of  the  '  Englishwoman's  Home  '  which  contained  a 
Dressmaking  Supplement,  which  in  the  first  instance  had  caused 
her  to  buy  it,  since  she  was  not  a  regular  subscriber  to  that  organ 
of  opinion  ;  she  took  a  pair  of  scissors  and  her  own  white  silk  skirt, 
cut  a  piece  off  the  top,  also  a  piece  off  the  bottom,  turned  it  upside 
down,  put  in  a  tuck  and  hemmed  it  with  a  double  stitch  ;  and  on 
the  Sunday  following  Milly  gave  it  a  trial  trip  in  the  vicarage  pew. 
On  the  Sunday  after,  with  a  second  tuck  and  a  second  row  of 
frilling,  she  gave  it  another.  It  was  then  pronounced  fit  for  the  great 
world,  and  Milly  was  perfectly  easy  in  her  mind  about  the  fete 
champetre. 

Howbeit,  if  people  will  be  so  foolhardy  as  to  arrange  a  fete 
champetre  for  Friday,  July  13,  what  can  they  expect  ?  Providence 
by  nature  is  humane,  but  even  it  is  not  to  be  tempted  beyond  a 
certain  point.  On  the  very  morning  prior  to  Friday  the  thirteenth, 
John  Gladwin  made  his  second  appearance  in  the  porch,  and  for 
the  second  time  the  elderly  skewbald  took  an  unpardonable  liberty 
with  the  wistaria  while  John  disclosed  a  piece  of  dire  intelligence 
to  the  Family.  During  the  small  hours  of  that  morning  robbers 
had  gained  access  to  the  Hall,  unbeknown  to  a  sleeping  soul,  had 
stolen  all  the  Colonel's  plate,  which  had  belonged  to  his  Great- 
Uncle  Mike,  who  had  rallied  the  Buffs  at  Albuera  ;  the  Colonel, 
upon  the  verge  of  apoplexy,  had  gone  to  Widdiford  to  report  the! 
matter  to  the  police  ;  Mrs.  Colonel  Ponsonby  had  taken  to  her 
bed  in  a  condition  of  great  prostration  ;  and  in  these  tragic  circum- 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  645 

stances  there  was  nothing  for  John  to  do  but  very  reluctantly  to 
take  the  extreme  course  of  putting  ofi  the  fete  champetre. 

Individual  members  of  the  Family  could  easily  have  lifted  up 
their  voices  and  have  wept  aloud.  Strawberry  ices  there  would 
not  be.  New  white  silk  skirts  were  a  delusion  and  a  mockery. 
But  one  and  all  were  dreadfully  concerned  for  the  Colonel's  plate, 
and  their  sympathy  for  him  in  his  loss,  which  John  Gladwin  was 
solemnly  charged  to  convey  to  Mrs.  Colonel  Ponsonby  the  moment 
she  emerged  from  her  condition  of  prostration,  was  expressed  in 
most  feeling  and  becoming  terms. 

'  It  is  a  dreadful  thing,'  said  Polly.  *  Please  give  our  love, 
John,  to  Mrs.  Ponsonby,  and  if  the  wine  cooler  and  the  presenta- 
tion coffee  service  would  be  the  slightest  use  to  her  we  shall  be 
delighted  to  lend  them.  And  we  all  hope  very  much  that  the 
robbers  will  be  captured.' 

John  drank  his  mug  of  cider,  and  went  forth  with  his  evil 
tidings  to  full  many  another  grieving  household  which  had  to 
mourn  the  rape  of  the  Colonel's  plate  and  the  postponement  of 
the  fete  champetre. 

The  news  was  a  dire  blow  to  the  Family,  but  it  was  sustained 
with  great  fortitude.  Polly's  good  sense  never  deserted  her  in  the 
gravest  crisis.  She  made  a  large  cake  with  almonds  in  it  for  tea, 
and  Goose  was  allowed  to  pick  the  strawberries  in  the  garden. 

What  follows  seems  almost  like  a  fairy  tale.  Each  incident  is 
sober  enough  in  itself,  yet  requires  to  be  related  with  tact  and 
responsibility.  All  that  came  to  pass  can  be  referred  to  a  perfectly 
natural  and  legitimate  cause,  yet  it  would  be  very  easy  to  suggest 
a  superhuman  agency.  Oddly  enough  it  was  Goose,  of  all  people, 
who  wove  the  first  link  in  the  chain.  She  had  an  idea  that  straw- 
berries were  sometimes  to  be  found  growing  wild  in  certain  places 
in  the  ravine.  Doubtless  inspired  by  the  four  choice  ones  she  had 
eaten  with  her  almond  cake,  she  set  off  immediately  after  tea,  all 
by  herself,  to  put  this  romantic  theory  to  the  proof.  Had  her 
theory  had  the  weight  to  convince  others,  she  would  have  been 
accompanied.  But  nobody  thought  there  was  much  in  it.  In 
consequence  she  went  alone  to  the  ravine.  She  returned  punctually 
at  supper  time,  not  with  wild  strawberries,  but  with  something 
rare  and  strange. 

If  proof  were  required  that  Goose's  parts  are  not  in  the  same 
plane  as  her  personal  appearance  and  her  natural  goodness,  her 
conduct  in  this  matter  would  furnish  it.  In  extenuation  it  may 


646  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

be  urged  that  her  bowl  of  bread  and  milk  was  waiting  for  her. 
She  sat  down  before  it  and  took  up  her  spoon  so  promptly  that 
she  completely  forgot  the  talisman  she  had  picked  up  in  the  ravine, 
which,  all  unknown  to  anybody,  reposed  in  her  pocket  in  the 
company  of  an  absurdly  small  handkerchief  with  a  blue  spotted 
border,  and  a  sort  of  a  purse  which  contained  a  threepenny  piece 
with  a  hole  in  it,  two  farthings,  a  foreign  postage  stamp,  and  a 
Queen  Caroline  thimble. 

It  was  not  until  she  had  reached  the  privacy  of  her  chamber 
that  she  turned  out  her  pockets,  and  there  was  the  talisman  dis- 
closed. Muffin  was  summoned  to  inspect  it. 

Even  the  most  experienced  reader  would  hardly  guess  what  it 
was  that  Goose  had  found  in  the  ravine.  So  let  it  be  said  at  once 
that  it  was  an  apostle  spoon.  Muffin  turned  it  about,  examining 
now  the  figure  of  Saint  Peter  on  the  front  and  now  the  hall-mark 
on  the  back.  But  so  easy  is  it  for  the  most  acute  and  practical 
intelligence  to  fail  at  first  to  realise  its  opportunities,  particularly 
when  it  is  getting  on  for  ten  o'clock  at  night,  that  beyond  admiring 
this  article  of  vertu,  as  all  persons  of  taste  must  admire  real 
silver,  she  said  very  little,  but  gave  Goose  a  hug  of  honest  affection 
and  within  five  minutes  was  sleeping  like  a  church. 

She  was  awake  with  the  lark,  however.  And  like  a  giantess 
she  was  refreshed.  The  first  thing  that  came  into  her  mind  was 
the  apostle  spoon.  Then  came  the  robbery  at  the  Hall.  And  there 
wide  open  on  her  dressing  table,  full  in  the  eye  of  the  morning, 
was  the  '  Memoirs  of  Sherlock  Holmes.'  If  only  we  addict  our- 
selves to  the  biographies  of  those  who  have  most  adorned  our 
species  there  are  few  situations  in  life  with  which  we  need  fear 
to  cope.  In  an  incredibly  brief  space  of  time,  considering  the 
slender  quality  of  the  data  that  had  been  vouchsafed  to  her, 
Muffin  had  evolved  a  theory  whose  dramatic  comprehensiveness 
would  have  been  an  honour  to  the  great  detective  himself.  The 
Colonel's  plate  was  buried  in  the  ravine. 

It  was  the  work  of  a  moment  to  go  next  door  and  pull  Goose 
out  of  her  cubicle.  Goose's  reception  of  the  theory  was  respectful 
and  duteous,  if  a  trifle  somnolent.  Half-past  seven  was  the  break- 
fast hour,  in  order  that  Charley  might  be  at  Widdiford  Grammar 
School  by  nine  o'clock.  Saturday  was  a  scrambled  egg  day,  if  the 
Buff  Orpingtons  were  acting  up  to  their  reputation ;  and  during 
the  discussion  of  this  delicacy  the  apostle  spoon  and  Muffin  s 
theory  were  laid  on  the  table  of  the  house. 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  647 

The  reception  of  the  theory  can  only  be  described  as  mixed. 
Charley  was  openly  scornful.  It  was  only  in  books,  said  he,  that 
robbers  buried  their  treasure,  and  even  there  nobody  was  ever  able 
to  find  it.  As  for  the  spoon,  Charley  expressed  his  firm  conviction 
that  it  was  not  silver  at  all,  but  merely  a  bit  of  pewter  that  had 
been  dropped  by  a  travelling  tinker.  Even  Dearest  Papa  smiled 
indulgently  behind  his  spectacles  and  seemed  vastly  amused  by 
Muffin's  dogmatic  air.  Polly  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  Muffin 
would  do  well  not  to  associate  so  much  with  the  village  on  week 
days,  and  that  she  really  ought  to  apply  herself  to  more  serious 
literature.  Alas  !  that  so  little  honour  should  accrue  to  a  prophetess 
in  the  family  circle. 

Muffin,  however,  like  the  grand  exemplar  in  whose  footsteps 
she  was  proposing  to  walk,  combined  with  a  robust  imagination 
the  capacity  for  action  of  an  infinitely  practical  nature. 
No  sooner  had  Charley  mounted  his  bicycle  and  as  usual  had 
gone  off  to  school  without  his  Latin  Grammar,  than  Muffin 
announced  her  determination  to  undertake  an  expedition  to  the 
ravine. 

Polly  demurred  a  little,  because  it  really  did  not  seem  right 
to  encourage  Muffin  in  her  wild  ideas.  Nevertheless,  she  was  pre- 
vailed upon  to  put  up  a  luncheon  of  spiced  bread,  cheese,  apples, 
and  a  bottle  of  gooseberry  wine ;  also  a  bottle  of  root  beer  for 
Joshua  Crick  because  of  a  plebeian  but  perfectly  honourable  pre- 
ference for  that  beverage,  and  also  because  the  wine  might  go  to 
his  head. 

The  personnel  of  the  expedition  was  chosen  with  great  care. 
There  was  not  a  wearer  of  patched  corduroys  in  the  neighbourhood 
who  would  not  have  felt  it  an  honour  to  bear  a  part  in  it.  What 
were  six  strokes  of  the  cane  for  playing  truant  in  comparison 
with  such  a  high  distinction  and  such  an  opportunity  for  the 
display  of  valour  in  the  field.  But  the  choice,  almost  as  it  were 
by  predestination,  fell  upon  Joshua  Crick. 

What  is  the  quality  that  marks  out  Mr.  A  for  great  place,  while 
Mr.  B,  almost  equally  worthy,  has  to  be  content  with  a  mere  seat 
in  the  Privy  Council  ?  What  is  it  that  commends  Mr.  C  in  the 
sight  of  his  Sovereign,  while  it  would  be  idle  to  describe  Mr.  D  as 
persona  gratissima  at  Windsor  ?  The  faculty  for  '  laying  it  on 
with  a  trowel '  cannot  wholly  explain  such  a  diversity  of  fortune. 
What  is  the  subtle  quality  that  distinguishes  a  man  above  his 
peers ;  that  makes  Thackeray  of  more  account  than  Dickens  in 


648  ARCADIANS    ALL. 

the  sum  of  things,  and  a  certain  Spaniard  with  only  one  hand  of 
more  account  than  the  pair  of  them  together  ? 

Why  Joshua  Crick  should  have  gained  such  advancement  it 
would  be  idle  to  conjecture.  His  nurture  was  that  of  his  contem- 
poraries :  Parish  School  and  Bible  Class.  His  place  in  class  at  the 
former  seat  of  learning  was  always  next  but  one  from  the  bottom. 
Birth,  deportment,  and  intelligence  did  not  appear  to  mark  him 
out  for  the  giddy  eminence  he  had  come  to  occupy.  It  is  true 
that  he  was  able  to  bring  some  family  influence  to  bear.  Even  in 
these  democratic  days  if  your  mother  keeps  the  Post  Office  and 
General  Store,  and  you  know  for  certain  which  of  the  farthing 
lucky  dips  has  the  halfpenny  in  it,  it  is  bound  to  be  a  point  in  your 
favour. 

Jealous  rivals  did  not  scruple  to  say  that  Joshua  Crick's  un- 
merited favour  in  the  eyes  of  the  great  lady  of  the  neighbourhood 
was  entirely  due  to  his  freckles.  Certainly  his  freckles  were  sur- 
prisingly profuse ;  and  although  his  jealous  rival  William  Harris 
referred  to  him  publicly  as  '  an  ugly  little  twoad,'  it  is  not  unlikely 
that  his  quaintly  mottled  countenance  became  a  merit  in  the  eyes 
of  a  capricious  fashionable  lady.  There  is  no  accounting  for  the 
Quality. 

Another  reason  for  Joshua's  high  advancement  may  have  been 
his  valour.  Like  the  celebrated  Biblical  hero  whose  name  he  bore, 
he  was  a  mighty  warrior.  As  became  a  descendant  of  Drake  and 
Hawkins  and  Raleigh  nothing  gave  him  such  pleasure  as  a  genuine 
'  scrap  '  with  one  rather  taller  and  stronger  than  himself.  The 
bullet-headed,  blunt-nosed  British  barque  delighted  to  engage 
with  some  tall,  swaggering,  canvas-spreading  Spanish  galleon. 
The  lesser  and  more  aggressive  craft  often  received  severe  and 
merited  chastisement,  but  it  never  gave  in.  It  was  after  a  signal 
and  sanguinary  encounter  with  one  beyond  his  years  that  the 
Source  of  All  Honour  conferred  the  order  of  merit  upon  her  stalwart 
minister. 

It  was  bestowed  in  the  form  of  a  knitted  comforter,  with  the 
initials  J.  C.  worked  upon  the  hem.  The  first  time  the  successful 
courtier  was  so  ill-advised  as  to  appear  in  it  in  public  he  was  set 
upon  by  his  jealous  rival  William  Harris  and  others  of  the  same 
school  of  politics  with  such  ferocity  that  he  was  nearly  strangled 
in  it.  Had  such  a  tragedy  occurred  it  would  not  have  been  the 
first  occasion  by  many  that  royal  favour  had  proved  fatal  to  the 
recipient. 


ARCADIANS  ALL.  649 

Just  as,  if  we  only  looked  closely  enough  we  might  find  points 
in  Mr.  A  that  would  solve  the  mystery  of  his  greatness,  so  there 
was  much  to  be  said  for  Joshua  Crick.  He  was  the  staunchest 
of  adherents,  his  fidelity  was  dog-like,  his  devotion  pathetic,  and, 
above  all,  he  was  the  soul  of  discretion.  There  was  the  historic 
episode  of  Miss  Muffin's  visit  of  inspection  to  that  famous  yet 
grotesque  work  of  nature  in  the  ravine,  the  ledge  of  rock  that 
was  called  the  Knubbly  Piece. 

He  handed  Miss  Muffin  up  to  that  eminence  in  order  that  she 
might  see  if  the  nest  of  young  owls  was  getting  on  all  right ;  and 
in  the  process  Miss  Muffin  tore  her  garments  so  severely  that  she 
couldn't  possibly  come  down  until  Joshua  had  fetched  a  needle 
and  cotton  post-haste.  And  Joshua  showed  such  tact  and  delicacy 
in  the  whole  affair,  never  taking  a  living  soul  into  his  confidence, 
and  exhibiting  neither  surprise  nor  discomfiture  at  Miss  Muffin's 
predicament,  and  handing  up  the  needle  and  cotton  with  an  air 
of  grave,  even  meticulous,  refinement  worthy  of  a  gentleman  on 
the  staff  of  the  '  Spectator,'  that  there  is  really  no  need  to  wonder 
that  he  was  marked  out  for  great  place. 

Joshua  Crick  had  charge  of  the  wheelbarrow  in  which  to  bring 
home  the  treasure.  Goose  carried  the  spade,  because  she  was 
docile  and  good  at  digging.  Muffin  was  in  command  of  the  com- 
missariat. The  fourth  and  final  unit  of  the  expedition  was  Doggo. 
The  inclusion  of  Doggo  came  perilously  near  to  a  stroke  of  genius. 

The  origin  of  Doggo  is  veiled  in  a  decent  obscurity.  He  is 
totally  unlike  any  other  member  of  the  canine  species  that  ever 
was  or  ever  will  be.  His  ears,  his  tail,  his  legs,  his  muzzle,  defy 
classification  into  any  known  race  or  tribe.  His  general  demeanour 
has  the  greatest  irresponsibility,  but  he  is  an  extraordinarily  able 
dog  for  all  that.  And  there  is  the  authority  of  Dearest  Papa  that 
he  is  a  cross  between  a  bloodhound  and  an  Irish  terrier. 

It  was  the  bloodhound  strain  that  won  him  his  place  in  the 
expedition.  Bloodhounds,  of  course,  are  mentioned  in  the  Memoirs. 
Every  piece  of  criminal  investigation  worthy  of  the  name  requires 
the  presence  of  a  bloodhound. 

It  was  really  too  much  to  expect  of  Goose  that  she  would  be 
able  to  remember  the  exact  place  in  the  ravine  in  which  she  had 
picked  up  the  apostle  spoon.  It  is  a  part  of  her  character  that 
she  can  never  remember  anything  except  her  meals,  and  to  this 
tradition  she  was  true.  She  might  have  picked  it  up  at  the  foot 
of  the  Knubbly  Piece,  but  she  wasn't  sure.  Or  it  might  be  by  the 


650  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

marge  of  Badgery  Water,  or  perhaps  in  the  Warren,  or  even  along 
by  the  Hog's  Back. 

Muffin  was  filled  with  scorn  by  such  obtuseness.  The  success 
of  the  whole  expedition  was  imperilled.  It  was  in  vain  that  they 
looked  for  footprints  ;  it  was  in  vain  that  Doggo  was  made  to 
sniff  the  apostle  spoon.  Goose's  mind  remained  a  perfect  blank 
upon  the  subject,  and  Doggo  seemed  entirely  to  forget  his  blood- 
hound cross. 

In  this  place  and  that  they  prospected ;  Muffin  and  Joshua 
working  feverishly,  Goose  doing  her  best.  But  the  hours  passed 
and  still  the  treasure  was  to  seek.  At  last  it  grew  clear  that  there 
was  only  one  thing  to  be  done.  That  was  to  sit  down  and  have 
something  to  eat.  It  was  an  axiom  in  the  Family  that  when  in  doubt 
upon  any  subject  you  should  sit  down  and  have  something  to  eat. 

It  was  during  the  not  unpleasant  process  of  deglutition  that 
Goose  had  a  genuine  inspiration.  She  almost  thought  she  remem- 
bered the  place.  She  actually  remembered  that  she  had  been  to 
look  for  wild  strawberries  down  by  the  Heron's  Ghyll.  It  might 
have  been  there  that  she  had  picked  up  the  magic  talisman. 

Joshua  was  bidden  finish  his  root  beer  and  Goose  her  second 
apple.  The  expedition  prepared  to  move  forward.  Doggo  having 
eaten  his  biscuit  was  given  another  sniff  of  the  apostle  spoon  and 
sent  on  ahead. 

Now  whose  was  the  glory  for  what  came  to  pass  is  hard  for  the 
veracious  historian  to  determine.  Joshua  Crick  always  declared 
it  was  Miss  Muffin  alone  who  did  it.  On  the  other  hand,  that 
competent  leader  persisted  in  ascribing  half  the  credit  to  Joshua 
himself,  and  half  to  Goose.  The  latter  irresponsible  felt  that  the 
entire  merit  belonged  to  Doggo,  because  he  certainly  went  forward 
with  his  ears  up.  Without  that  signal  act  of  canine  sagacity  they 
might  never  have  found  the  spot  where  the  bushes  were  trampled 
and  the  virgin  soil  had  been  disturbed. 

Had   you  searched  all   over  the  county  of   Devon   a   more  \ 
appropriate  place  for  buried  treasure  could  not  have  been  devised. , 
It  was  a  place  of  great  secrecy ;  it  was  amid  a  wild  and  tangled , 
grove  of  beech  trees.  Near  the  bole  of  the  very  one  in  which  Muffin 
had  seen  the  white  blackbird  in  the  winter  something  had  clearly 
happened  to  the  turf. 

'  Give  me  the  spade,'  said  Muffin. 

She  tucked  up  her  sleeves  to  the  elbow  and  cast  off  her  apology 
for  a  hat.  The  soil  began  to  yield  at  once  ;  it  was  very  loose.  Muffin 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  651 

turned  the  sods  steadily  and  with  precision  ;  Joshua  Crick  stood 
by  with  the  wheelbarrow ;  Goose's  eyes  were  as  round  as  moons, 
and  the  rolling  of  her  r's  would  have  thrilled  a  fellow  of  Balliol ; 
while  as  for  Doggo  there  is  the  unimpeachable  authority  of  three 
witnesses  that  he  violently  agitated  that  which  by  courtesy  was 
called  a  tail,  that  he  barked  furiously,  and  that  he  scratched  at 
the  earth. 

There  came  a  crow  of  exultation  from  Muffin.  The  spade  had 
struck  something — something  large  and  something  solid — some- 
thing in  a  bag.  Joshua  got  down  on  his  knees  and  proceeded  to 
scrape  away  the  soil  with  his  fingers.  Yes,  it  was  undoubtedly  a 
bag.  It  was  heavy  and  immovable,  and  the  mouth  was  tied  up. 

'  Joshua,'  said  Muffin,  '  I  really  think  you  had  better  fetch 
Police  Constable  Boultby.5 

Joshua  Crick  rose  from  his  knees.  In  his  blue  eyes,  which  had 
a  faint  tinge  of  green,  was  the  light  of  a  dangerous  exaltation. 

'  Iss,  Miss  Muffin,'  he  said  in  his  broadest  Doric, '  Oi  wull.' 

In  a  state  of  excitement  which  bordered  upon  unreason  Joshua 
started  to  run. 

'  Tell  Police  Constable  Boultby  to  bring  his  notebook  with  him,' 
called  Muffin  after  the  modern  Pheidippides. 

'  Iss,  Miss  Muffin,'  came  a  wild  shriek  from  the  messenger,  who 
was  already  out  of  sight, '  Oi  wull.' 

The  eyes  of  Goose  had  assumed  proportions  of  really  incredible 
magnitude. 

'  Isn't  it  wonderful  1  '  she  drawled,  with  slow  breathlessness, 
'  to  think  that  Doggo  should  have  brought  us  straight  here  after 
sniffing  the  spoon  ?  ' 

By  the  limited  means  at  the  command  of  the  veracious  historian 
it  is  impossible  to  do  justice  to  Muffin's  display  of  really  brilliant 
good  sense  in  this  epoch-making  hour.  She  had  read  the  Memoirs 
to  a  purpose.  Everything  that  the  law  in  its  austerest  manifesta- 
tion could  have  desired  to  be  done  in  the  circumstances  was  done  by 
Muffin.  Conversely,  all  that  the  law  in  its  austerest  manifestation 
could  have  desired  to  be  left  undone  was  left  undone  by  her.  Goose 
was  forbidden  to  touch  the  bag  and  Doggo  was  not  even  permitted 
to  go  near  it. 

The  time  seemed  interminable  between  the  departure  of  Joshua 
Crick  and  the  arrival  of  Police  Constable  Boultby  and  his  notebook. 
Happily  Doggo  was  able  to  beguile  the  period  of  waiting  with  a 
little  private  coursing,  while  Goose  ate  her  third  and  last  apple. 


652  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

Muffin  herself  was  legitimately  anxious  for  the  arrival  of  Police 
Constable  Boultby.  She  was  too  staunch  to  breathe  a  word  of 
her  fears  to  Goose  or  to  Doggo,  but  it  was  quite  likely  that  the 
robbers  were  close  at  hand.  At  any  moment  they  might  spring  out 
of  the  bushes  and  make  a  desperate  attempt  to  recover  the  treasure. 

Muffin  grasped  the  spade  firmly  and  assumed  an  attitude  of 
unconscious  defiance.  In  her  heart  she  hoped  devoutly  that  Doggo 
would  not  course  the  rabbits  too  far.  The  suspense  was  terrible ; 
every  time  a  leaf  stirred  in  the  wind  she  quite  expected  to  see  a 
robber  in  the  act  of  making  an  onslaught.  But  Muffin's  nature  was 
the  true  mettle.  Spade  in  hand  she  mounted  guard,  prepared, 
come  what  might,  to  do  her  duty. 

'  Goose,  darling  !  '  said  Muffin,  '  go  and  meet  Police  Constable 
Boultby.  Joshua  may  have  lost  the  way.' 

Under  the  stress  of  acute  emotion  it  is  possible  for  the  strongest 
to  falter  now  and  again.  If  the  truth  must  be  told  it  was  not 
in  the  least  likely  that  Joshua  would  lose  the  way.  It  was  known 
that  he  could  find  his  way  blindfold  at  midnight  anywhere  down- 
along  the  water  and  over  every  rood  of  the  ravine. 

But  hark  !  What  is  that  ?  It  is  the  sound  of  footsteps.  Is  it 
the  robbers  who  are  coming,  do  you  suppose  ?  No,  the  thought  is 
dismissed  almost  before  it  is  born.  There  is  something  about  those 
footsteps  that  belongs  only  to  the  footsteps  of  one. 

The  emanation  of  solid  British  shoe-leather  which  impinges  upon 
the  wide-stretched  senses  of  Muffin,  its  slow-moving,  methodical, 
cataclysmal,  seismological  crunchings,  are  the  immutable  manifesta- 
tion of  Police  Constable  Boultby.  It  is  Law  and  Order  in  excelsis, 
Law  embodied  and  Order  made  articulate.  The  Metropolitan 
Force  may  be  composed  of  true  men  ;  their  boots  may  be  of  the 
latest  Dreadnought  type,  and  they  may  harmonise  in  the  most 
admirable  manner  with  the  gait  that  has  been  evolved  in  the 
process  of  ages  by  that  highly  efficient  body  ;  but  for  really  spacious 
and  awe-compelling  consistency  of  tread  they  are  positively  pro- 
vincial in  comparison  with  Police  Constable  Boultby  of  the  Widdi- 
f ord  section  of  the  North  Devon  Constabulary. 

'  Whoy,  'tis  Miss  Muffin,  I  dew  declare,'  said  Police  Constable 
Boultby,  removing  his  helmet  and  mopping  his  head  with  a  red 
handkerchief  of  a  very  voluminous  character. 

Miss  Muffin  was  known  familiarly  by  name  to  all  people  of 
standing  within  a  ten-mile  radius. 

It  was  the  work  of  a  moment  for  Police  Constable  Boultby 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  653 

cut  open  the  mouth  of  the  bag  with  an  official  pocket-knife.  Another 
moment  of  tense  emotion  followed. 

'  Whoy,  I  dew  declare,'  said  Police  Constable  Boultby. 

The  representative  of  law  and  order,  hie  et  ubique,  drew  forth  a 
silver  candlestick  from  the  bag.  In  awe  they  crowded  round,  and 
Doggo  furnished  additional  evidence  of  his  sagacity  by  wagging 
his  so-called  tail  and  by  barking  furiously. 

Without  further  inquiry  as  to  its  contents  the  bag  was  lifted 
out  of  the  hole  by  the  stalwart  exertions  of  Police  Constable  Boultby 
and  well-timed  assistance  from  Muffin  and  Joshua  Crick.  Goose, 
as  was  only  natural,  was  too  bewildered  to  do  anything. 

Providence  being  in  an  expansive  mood  there  was  just  one  glass 
left  of  the  gooseberry  wine.  Muffin  poured  it  out  and  bestowed  it 
upon  Police  Constable  Boultby,  who  drank  it  solemnly.  Then  the 
treasure  was  hoisted  aboard  the  wheelbarrow,  and  thereupon  with 
great  majesty  the  Law  moved  forward  to  convey  it  to  the  Hall. 

Joshua  Crick  accompanied  the  wheelbarrow,  to  lend  the  Law  a 
hand  up  the  steep  places  ;  also,  incidentally,  to  lend  verisimilitude 
to  an  otherwise  bald  and  unconvincing  narrative.  The  ladies 
received  a  most  cordial  invitation  to  accompany  the  procession. 
They  would  doubtless  have  done  so,  but  Muffin  consulted  her  gun- 
metal  watch,  which  she  wore  on  her  left  wrist  with  a  great  air  of 
fashion,  and  found  that  it  was  so  near  to  tea  time  that  very  reluc- 
tantly they  must  decline  the  honour. 

In  great  triumph  they  bore  back  the  tale.    Muffin's  breathless 

t  explicit  statement  of  the  facts,  a  little  vitiated,  it  is  true,  by 
Goose's  proverbial  muddleheadedness,  was  received  with  general 
ncredulity. 

'  Wait !  '  said  Muffin  with  the  trenchant  composure  of  achieve- 
ment ;  '  wait  until  you  have  seen  Police  Constable  Boultby.' 

'  Had  he  got  his  notebook  with  him  ?  '  inquired  Charley,  it  is 
to  be  feared  in  a  spirit  of  levity. 

'  Why,  of  course  he  had,'  said  Muffin. 

'  It  will  be  all  right  then  if  he  had  his  notebook  with  him.' 
Charley  winked  dissolutely  at  Tissaphernes  the  Persian,  most  superb 
of  his  sex,  most  benign  of  his  race,  who  was  dozing  on  the  moire 
antique  with  his  smoke-grey  tail  curled  round  his  forepaws. 

Let  it  be  said,  however,  that  Dearest  Papa,  as  became  the  spirit 
of  wisdom  incarnate,  was  not  so  incredulous  as  his  eldest  daughter 
felt  that  he  ought  to  be.  There  could  be  no  doubt  that  Muffin  told 
her  story  with  great  circumstance.  Besides,  she  enjoyed  perennial 


654  ARCADIANS   ALL. 

favour  at  court.  Had  it  been  Goose,  of  course,  such  a  wonderful 
narrative  could  only  have  been  accepted  as  the  romance  of  history, 
but  Muffin  was  of  a  vastly  different  complexion.  The  most  searching 
cross-examination  could  not  shake  her.  In  every  particular  her 
statement  stood  concise,  four-square,  lucid  and  responsible,  notwith- 
standing that  upon  every  vital  point  it  was  directly  at  variance  with 
the  statement  of  Goose,  which  was  a  tissue  of  thoroughly  well- 
meaning  but  wholly  comprehensive  contradiction. 

'  If  it  hadn't  been  for  Doggo  we  should  never  have  found  it,' 
said  Goose,  '  and  1  feel  sure  that  it  was  jewellery.' 

'  Silly  cuckoos  !  '  said  Charley  in  the  Olympian  manner  that  was 
affected  by  the  members  of  Widdif ord  Grammar  School  first  eleven. 

'  Wait  until  you  have  seen  Police  Constable  Boultby,'  said 
Muffin,  with  magnificent  finality,  as  she  took  an  enormous  bite  out 
of  a  solid  chunk  of  home-made  bread  and  butter. 

Charley  was  riding  for  a  fall,  however,  and  at  a  quarter  to 
eleven  on  the  following  morning  Providence  was  able  to  arrange 
that  little  matter  for  him  with  truly  dramatic  completeness.  Then 
it  was  that  an  outline  unmistakably  warlike,  habited  in  white  duck 
trousers,  a  Harris-tweed  shooting  coat  with  leather  buttons,  a  green 
Tyrolese  hat,  a  pair  of  brogued  shoes  superbly  tooled,  not  to  mention 
a  pair  of  Leander  socks  and  a  Zingari  necktie,  converged  upon  the 
Parsonage  grass  plot.  If  the  gentle,  diligent,  and  courteous  reader 
has  not  already  guessed  that  this  regalia  enhanced  the  martial  form 
of  Colonel  Ponsonby,  G.B.,  this  guileless  narrative  has  been  com- 
posed in  vain. 

Dearest  Papa  was  seated  in  his  study,  round  which  the  wistaria 
clustered  jealously.  The  windows  were  wide  open,  since  the  British 
climate  was  getting  a  bit  above  itself.  As  the  morrow  was  the 
Sabbath  day,  the  reverend  gentleman  was  earnestly  occupied  in 
drawing  up  the  heads  of  an  entirely  new  and  original  sermon. 

Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B.,  stood  upon  no  ceremony,  but  thrust 
his  tawny  frontispiece,  a  bizarre  arrangement  in  white  and  purple, 
through  the  nearest  window,  directly  on  to  the  sacerdotal  blotting 
pad. 

'  How  are  you,  Rector  ?  '    The  gallant  warrior  followed  the  good  j 
old  method  of  laying  the  stress  upon  the  second  monosyllable  rather 
than  upon  the  third.     '  Sorry  to  interrupt.' 

'  Come  in,  Ponsonby,'  responded  the  universally  respected  author  I 
of  '  The  Influence  of  Christianity  upon  the  Early  Phoenicians.' 
With  admirable  presence  of  mind  he  removed  his  spectacles  from 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  655 

{ Plotinus  on  the  Beautiful '  and  adjusted  them  in  honour  of  his 
distinguished  visitor. 

It  was  not  at  once  that  the  white  duck  trousers  could  be 
accommodated  in  the  sanctum  of  the  right  worthy  divine. 
Sixteen  volumes  by  dead  authors,  not  to  mention  a  concordance 
and  divers  manuscript  folios  by  a  living  one,  had  to  be  placed  on 
the  floor  by  the  united  efforts  of  the  Church  and  the  almost 
equally  honourable  profession  of  Arms  before  the  only  available 
chair  was  ready  for  active  service. 

The  gallant  warrior  cleared  his  throat  with  benignant  ferocity. 

'  Those  people  of  yours,  Eector '    Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B., 

mopped  his  visage  with  considerable  truculence.  '  'Pon  my  word, 
much  indebted — much  indebted.  Clever  as  blazes  !  I  have  come 
to  thank  'em  personally.' 

'  Ponsonby,  you  don't  mean  to  say !  '  said  the  Perpetual 

Curate  of  St.  Euthanasius,  with  a  gentle  incredulity. 

'  Oh,  yes,  I  do,'  said  the  gallant  warrior  with  the  asperity  of  one 
who  has  a  natural  abhorrence  of  anything  in  the  nature  of  contra- 
diction. '  Constable  Boultby  assures  me  it  is  due  to  'em  entirely. 
That  gal,  what's  her  name — no,  I  don't  mean  the  one  that  is  by  way 
of  being  a  fool,  although,  mind  you,  /  never  thought  so — you  know, 
;hat  rag,  tag  and  bobtail  scapegrace ?  ' 

'  Ha,  the  Eagamuffin,  I  presume,'  said  the  Perpetual  Curate  of 
3t.  Euthanasius. 

1  Yes,  by  Jove  !  Found  every  blessed  spoon.  Belonged,  don't 
you  know,  to  my  Great-Uncle  Mike  who  rallied  the  Buffs  at  Albuera. 
Wouldn't  have  lost  that  plate,  by  Gad  !  for  the  price  of  a  Dread- 
nought. Presented  by  George  the  Third  and  that  sort  of  thing. 
Constable  Boultby  says  that  the  one  who  is  by  way  of  being  a  bit 
of  a  fathead — although,  mind  you,  7  don't  agree — had  a  finger  in 
the  pie.  Where  are  they,  Rector  ?  It  is  my  intention  to  thank 
em  personally.' 

The  gallant  warrior  puffed  out  his  cheeks  with  plethoric 
imperiousness,  and  glared  horribly  at '  Plotinus  on  the  Beautiful.' 

'  I  will  fetch  them,  Ponsonby,  if  you  really  desire  their  presence, 
and  also  a  glass  of  wine.' 

The  Perpetual  Curate  of  St.  Euthanasius  performed  a  carpet- 
slippered  shuffle  out  of  the  room,  and  returned  anon  with  a  decanter 
of  '63  port — a  Christmas  present  from  the  well-stocked  Hall  cellar — 
two  wine-glasses  on  a  tray,  and  two  stalwart  representatives  of  the 
female  sex  in  the  seventh  heaven  of  beatitude. 


656  ARCADIANS   ALL, 

The  inhabitant  of  the  white  duck  trousers  rose  with  an  air  of 
contained  fury.  He  shook  each  stalwart  fiercely  by  the  hand. 

'  I'm  infernally  obliged,'  he  said.  '  Constable  Boultby  's  told 
me  all  about  it.  Smart  as  daylight,  both  of  you.  But  I  always 
said  your  brains  were  much  better  than  people  thought.  The  wife 
hopes  you'll  go  up  to  tea.' 

It  is  not  in  our  young  ladies  to  suffer  any  form  of  social 
embarrassment.  With  complete  friendliness  and  simplicity  they 
beamed  upon  the  gallant  warrior. 

'  Did  Police  Constable  Boultby  show  you  his  notebook  ?  ' 
inquired  Muffin. 

'  I  don't  know  about  his  notebook,'  said  the  gallant  warrior, 
'  but  he  showed  me  every  silver  spoon,  and  he  says  you  young  ladies 
found  'em,  and  I'm  here  to  thank  you,  and ' — here  the  gallant 
warrior  paused,  doubtless  from  motives  of  delicacy — '  if  there's 
anything  you'd  like  I'll  be  obliged  if  you'll  give  it  a  name.' 

Muffin  looked  at  Goose  and  Goose  looked  at  Muffin.  There 
were  a  thousand  and  one  things  they  might  be  said  academically 
to  covet,  but  having  been  specifically  invited  to  make  a  choice, 
it  was  by  no  means  so  easy  as  it  ought  to  have  been. 

'  Anything,'  said  the  Colonel.  '  You  have  only  to  give  it  a  name. 
I  was  thinking  myself  that  perhaps  a  motor  car,  a  small  one, 
y'  know } 

'  My  dear  Ponsonby  !  '  The  Perpetual  Curate  of  St.  Eutha- 
nasius  betrayed  a  suspicion  of  anxiety. 

'  Or  perhaps  one  of  those  new-fangled  barrel-organ  arrangements 
— pianolas,  I  believe  they  call  'em.  Perhaps  you  might  like  that  ?  ' 

'  But,  Ponsonby !  '  The  Perpetual  Curate  was  beginning  to 
perspire. 

Again  Muffin  looked  at  Goose  and  Goose  looked  at  Muffin. 

'  Oh,  thank  you  so  much,  dear  Colonel  Ponsonby,'  they  chimed 
together. 

*  But,  Ponsonby  ! '  murmured  the  Perpetual  Curate. 

'  Or  if  you  can  think  of  something  else  and  something  better/ 
said  the  gallant  warrior. 

Here  it  was  that  Goose  had  her  great  inspiration.  That  she  of 
all  people  should  have  indulged  in  such  a  luxury  is  truly  remarkable. 
But  quite  irresponsibly  and  without  any  sort  of  premeditation  the 
enormous  orbs  grew  round  and  wide,  and  in  her  most  ludicrous 
drawl  she  enunciated  the  interesting  fact  that  St.  Euthanasius 
might  like  a  new  organ. 


ARCADIANS   ALL.  657 

Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B.,  dealt  himself  a  hearty  blow  on  the  knee. 
(This  is  not  meant  for  poetry,  although  it  may  read  as  such.) 

'  Then,  by  Gad  !  '  exclaimed  the  gallant  warrior,  '  I'm  hanged  if 
St.  Euthanasius  shan't  have  a  new  organ  !  ' 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that,  as  became  a  gentleman  and 
an  officer  on  retired  pay,  Colonel  Ponsonby,  C.B.,  proved  quite  the 
equal  of  his  word.  Mrs.  Colonel  Ponsonby  thought  that  seven 
hundred  pounds  was  a  lot  of  money,  but  her  gallant  spouse  declared 
that  he  did  not  grudge  a  penny,  and  wished  it  had  been  double. 
Rather  than  be  shorn  of  the  plate  that  had  belonged  to  his  Great- 
Uncle  Mike  who  had  rallied  the  Buffs  at  Albuera  he  would  have 
voted  Radical ! 

Sceptics  there  will  always  be  in  the  world,  however.  Some  may 
think  that  the  Colonel  used  a  mere  figure  of  speech  in  making  that 
assertion.  But  if  any  there  are  who  doubt  the  responsibility  of  this 
present  historian,  the  best  thing  they  can  do  is  to  make  a  pil- 
grimage to  Slocum  Magna,  North  Devon,  and  see  St.  Euthanasius's 
new  organ  for  themselves.  In  our  humble  judgment  it  will  repay  a 
journey.  The  key  of  the  church  is  always  to  be  had  at  the  Par- 
sonage ;  and  if  any  female  member  of  the  Family  is  at  home  it  is 
a  hundred  to  one  that  she  herself  will  show  the  inquiring  stranger 
over  the  sacred  edifice.  Yes,  St.  Euthanasius's  new  organ  will 
repay  a  journey  ! 

In  spite  of   the  unparalleled  exertions    of   Police   Constable 
Boultby  and  other  distinguished  members  of  the  Widdiford  section 
of  the  North  Devon  Constabulary,  the  robbers  were  never  taken. 
Yet  to  show  what  a  halcyon  world  it  is  that  we  inhabit,   and 
how  everything    invariably   happens    for  the   best    if  only  our 
lilosophy  is  ripe  enough  to  have  it  so,  Goose  was  very  glad, 
because,'   proclaimed  that  idealist,   '  if  the  robbers  had  been 
ptured,  she  felt  sure  they  would  have  had  to  go  to  prison.' 

J.  C.  SNAITH. 


VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  42 


658 


OLD  AGE  PENSIONS    UNDER    THE  ACT  OF  1908. 

AT  the  end  of  1909  the  number  of  Old  Age  Pensions  being  granted 
under  the  Act  was  692,740,  and  the  amount  being  paid  per  week 
£166,975.  The  expenditure  for  a  year  at  this  rate  would  be  over 
8J  millions,  and  the  average  amount  paid  to  each  pensioner  some- 
thing over  4s.  9d.  a  week. 

These  are  the  figures  of  the  matter.  Is  it  possible  to  put  life 
into  them,  to  form  some  idea  of  what  they  really  mean  when 
translated  from  money  into  money's  worth  ?  It  is  clear  that  the 
Act  has  occasioned  a  very  extensive  '  re-distribution  of  wealth ' ; 
how  far  has  it  succeeded  in  making  a  corresponding  addition  to 
human  happiness  and  well-being  ?  No  complete  answer  to  this 
question  can  ever  be  given  ;  the  persons  affected  are  too  many  and 
too  various  to  admit  of  that ;  but  already  certain  points  can  be 
fairly  well  established. 

In  the  first  place,  to  begin  with  the  happiest  side  of  the  question,  i 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  experience  confirms  what  everyone 
must  have  foreseen,  i.e.  that  the  pensions  have  brought  joy  and 
comfort  to  a  very  large  number  of  dear  old  people.    Whatever 
criticisms  are  made,  all  whom  I  have  consulted  are  agreed  on  this 
point.    Perhaps  the  happiest  account  of  all  comes  from  the  Northern 
Highlands,  whence  a  correspondent  writes  :   '  I  have  not  come 
across  a  single  case  in  which  the  money  was  being  squandered  or 
put  to  an  improper  and  unworthy  use.    Invariably  there  is  aj 
spirit  of  cheerfulness  and  an  air  of  comfort  in  the  homes  which  one 
does  not  find  in  the  homes  of  the  paupers.     This  may  be  due 
however,  not  to  any  inherent  virtue  in  the  pensions  but  to  thei 
being  more  liberal  than  the  out-relief  allowances,  to  their  bein 
assured  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  to  the  recipients  having  m< 
grit  in  them  than  the  paupers  have.  ...  I  have  also  invariably) 
found  a  deep  and  sincere  feeling  of  gratitude  on  the  part  of  thq 
pensioners  who  frequently  attribute  their  pensions  to  the  mercifu 
interposition  of  Providence  rather  than  to  the  generosity  of  an 
particular  political  party.'    Surely  there  could  hardly  be  a  bette 
spirit  in  which  to  accept  the  gift.     If  political  parties  would  al 
forgo  their  claims  to  gratitude  in  favour  of  Providence  our  trus 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 659 

in  the  wisdom  and  disinterestedness  of  our  legislators  might  be 
complete. 

From  a  semi-urban  district  I  hear :  '  So  far  as  our  branch  of 
the  Civic  Guild  goes  the  experience  is  satisfactory.  One  old 
woman  turned  over  quite  a  new  leaf  in  her  pride  and  joy.  Several 
cases  of  great  hardship  were  eased  ;  our  district  nurse  told  me  of 
several  cases  where  the  grannies  were  rejoicing  in  having  their  own 
bit  to  spend  instead  of  feeling  that  their  food  was  taken  from  the 
children.' 

From  a  rural  district  in  the  Eastern  Counties  comes  the  follow- 

I  ing  account :  '  Just  about  here,  I  must  say,  they  seem  to  have  had 

the  desired  results.    I  think  the  relations  make  a  great  effort  to 

subsidise  the  pension,  as  they  feel  it  would  be  such  a  waste  to  let 

I  the  old  parent  go  to  the  workhouse,  when  he  or  she  is  entitled  to 

5s.  from  the  Government !     But  they  have  in  these  rural  places 

let  them  go  in,  or  have  a  wretched  2.9.  from  the  guardians  very 

I  freely  hitherto ;  in  the  case  of  out-relief  the  old  things  feel  they 

|have  one  foot  in  the  workhouse,  I  think,  but  with  a  pension  quite 

isafe  outside.    Also,  of  course,  they  love  to  feel  that  they  are  not 

i"  beholden  "  to  any  one  for  at  any  rate  the  amount  of  the  pension.' 

From  another  rural  district  in  a  more  prosperous  part  of  the 

icountry  :  '  I  cannot  deny  that  it  has  been  a  great  comfort  to  some 

|dear  old  people ;  but  it  has  certainly  planted  a  good  deal  of  dis- 

ontent  and  ill-feeling.' 

A  doctor  of  great  experience  in  working  London  writes  :  '  The 
)ensions  are  undoubtedly  a  very  great  and   real  help  to  many 
worthy  old  people  who  have  had  no  chance  of  saving;  but  the 
Bill  was  passed  in  such  a  hurry  and  put  into  force  without  allowing 
ime  for  discrimination.    The  officers  were  new  to  the  work,  so 
hat  the  bulk  of  the  pensions  having  to  be  decided  upon  at  once 
lere  was  no  time  for  thorough  and  proper  inquiries  to  be  made, 
nd  the  pensions  have  been  grossly  abused.' 

The  last  two  reports  bring  us  to  a  less  happy  side  of  the  ques- 
on.  I  think  that  few  people,  whatever  they  may  have  thought  of 
le  wisdom  or  justice  of  the  Act,  can  have  anticipated  that  it 
ould  have  caused  any  considerable  amount  of  '  discontent  and 
ll-feeling,'  and  yet  even  the  slight  amount  of  experience  I  have 
>een  able  to  bring  together  reveals  so  much  as  to  be  a  serious 
em  on  the  other  side  of  the  account.  It  is  due  to  all  sorts  of 
auses.  One  of  the  most  important  is  the  extent  to  which  volun- 
ary  charity  has  been  checked  or  diverted  into  other  channels. 

42—2 


060  OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 

This  happens  mainly,  perhaps,  in  the  towns  ;  but  very  many  old 
people  have  been  bitterly  disappointed  to  find  that  when  they 
have  received  the  eagerly  anticipated  pension  their  position  has 
been  little,  often  not  at  all,  improved.  It  simply  means  that  they 
derive  their  income  from  another  source.  To  illustrate  this  point 
I  may  quote  the  case  of  one  old  lady  known  to  me  whose  income 
was  derived  mainly  from  an  endowed  charity.  She  is  over  eighty- 
four,  and  had  been  receiving  her  pension  for  so  long  that  she  had 
come  to  regard  it  as  inalienable,  whereas  it  is  really  a  periodical 
grant.  Her  disappointment  when  she  found  that  it  would  be 
reduced  and  that  she  would  receive  only  Is.  more  in  consequence 
of  the  national  pension  was  grievous.  '  She  doesn't  seem  able  to 
get  over  it,'  said  her  daughter,  '  she  frets  about  it  all  day,  and  talks 
about  it  in  her  sleep.'  And  yet  she  had  always  been  one  of  the 
most  contented  and  uncomplaining  of  old  ladies.  But  she  had 
counted  so  much  on  having  a  few  extra  shillings  to  handle,  more 
especially  on  being  able  to  expatiate  a  little  in  underclothing. 

In  other  cases  the  pension  has  merely  replaced  the  gifts  of 
private  donors,  who  have  therefore  drawn  the  State  pension  as 
much  as  if  they  had  signed  the  receipt  for  it.  Nor  was  it  always 
easy  to  avoid  this.  Mrs.  A.  is  an  old  lady  receiving  an  allowance! 
from  several  sources,  including  B.  and  C.  When  the  pension  comesj 
in  she  has  5s.  a  week  over  and  above  what  is  strictly  necessary,  and 
B.  and  C.  can  each  reduce  his  gift  by  2s.  6d.  a  week.  C.  has  no 
desire  to,  would  like  the  old  lady  to  benefit  by  the  whole  pension,  but 
finds  that  if  he  continues  B.  will  reduce  his  contribution  by  the  fulil 
amount  of  5s.  Sooner  than  endow  B.,  C.  consents  to  benefit  to  thti 
extent  of  2s.  6d.  from  the  State,  and  the  old  lady  is  where  she  was 

Take  another  case.    Mrs.  D.  has  had  an  allowance  for  many 
years  from  a  private  donor,  who  again  was  anxious  to  continue! 
But  she  knew  that  Mrs.  D.  had  impecunious  friends  and  relation1 
who  would  refrain  from  infringing  on  her  necessaries,  but  woul<< 
not  hesitate   to   appropriate   anything   extra.     In   this   case  th 
difficulty  was  met  by  making  a  little  trust  fund  of  the  privati 
allowance  upon  which  the  old  lady  could  draw  for  anything  sh 
wanted ;  but  it  would  not  often  be  easy  to  arrange  this.    At  firs' 
I  wondered  whether  these  were  exceptional  cases  which  I  ha, 
happened  to  come  across  ;  but  further  inquiries  showed  that  simuV 
cases  were  common,  especially  in  places  where  the  old  people  wei 
already  well  cared  for.     In  one  list  of  nine  pensioners  sent  to  rr: 
from  a  provincial  town  only  one  pensioner  benefited  to  the  fu 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908.  661 

extent  of  the  pension  granted,  two  benefited  partially,  and  six  were 
in  no  wise  affected  except  as  to  the  source  from  which  their  income 
came.  The  real  beneficiaries  were  private  donors  and  relations. 
In  a  list  from  another  town  most  of  the  pensioners  had  benefited, 
but  in  four  cases  the  Church  had  stopped  help,  and  in  one  the 
Church,  two  sons,  and  a  private  donor  all  stopped,  with  the  result 
that  the  pensioner's  income  was  only  raised  from  5s.  6d.  to  6s. 

Some  clue  to  the  extent  to  which  other  persons  than  the  pen- 

Isioners  have  benefited  is  given  by  the  expenditure  of  the  London 

Charity  Organisation  Society  under  this  head.     In  the  year  1907-8 

ja  sum  of  £20,688  was  paid  through  the  Society  in  pensions  to  old 

(people  ;  in  1908-9  it  fell  to  £16,100.     As  this  money  is  collected 

(from  private  donors,  relations,  and  endowed  charities,  the  State 

(pensions  represent  an  annual  allowance  to  these  parties  of  £4588. 

The   action  taken    by  the  endowed  charities  has    varied  in 

different  places.     One  of  the  principal  endowments  in  London 

aims  at  a  maximum  income  for  its  pensioners  of  10s.,  and  has 

(been  enabled  by  the  State  pensions  to  withdraw  about  £2000  a 

year.     It  is  said  to  be  now  contemplating  some  other  way  of 

spending  its  income.     In  one  cathedral  town  the  two  principal 

pharities  continue  their  pensions  as  before,  with  the  result  that  in 

some  cases  they  give  10s.  and  the  State  only  3s.     From  another  I 

[lear  :  '  In  the  G.  Hospital,  where  the  inmates  received  a  weekly 

allowance  of  Is.  Qd.  in  addition  to  maintenance  and  nursing,  this 

allowance  has  been  withdrawn  to  enable  them  to  receive  the  full 

benefit  of  the  State  pension.     At  present  the  Trustees  have  not 

aecided  whether  the  balance  shall  be  used  to  improve  the  living  of 

le  inmates,  or  to  make  provision  to  receive  a  greater  number. 

i  D.'s  Hospital,  where  the  inmates  formerly  received  a  weekly 

lowance  of  5s.,  the  allowances  have  been  equalised  to  8s.  all 

•und  by  deducting  from  those  who  may  be  eligible  for  a  full 

snsion  to  supplement  the  allowance  of  those  who  are  ineligible 

et  owing  to  age.     An  endowed  charity  which    grants  weekly 

ensions  of  5s.  to  freemen,  their  widows  and  children,  has  made 

3  alteration  in  its  rules  ;  pensioners  may  receive  benefits  from 

oth  sources.'     In  another  provincial  town  the    trustees  of  an 

ndowed  charity  considered  the  matter  of   reducing  their  allow- 

nces,  but  did  not  do  so  because  they  had  no  power  to  increase 

he  number  of  their  pensioners. 

Charities  supported  by  subscriptions  have  also  benefited  by 
he  diminution  of  the  claims  upon  them.     From  a  large  provincial 


662  OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF   1908. 

town  I  hear  :  '  The  following  societies  withdraw  their  allowances 
when  the  Old  Age  Pension  is  received — Aged  Women's  Society, 
Aged  Men's  Home,  Aged  Christians'  Friend  Society,  and,  I  believe, 
the  Gr.  Female  Benevolent.'  In  some  cases  the  pensions  actually 
serve  as  a  subsidy  to  the  funds  of  a  home  or  shelter,  the  inmates 
handing  them  over  to  the  authorities  as  they  receive  them. 

Many  cases  have  been  brought  to  my  notice  in  which  sons 
and  daughters  have  withdrawn  their  help  after  the  pension  was 
granted,  and  when  it  comes  to  be  realised  that  free  maintenance  up 
to  the  value  of  13s.  a  week  by  children  (or  any  one)  disqualifies  for 
a  pension  it  is  inevitable  that  many  more  will  abstain  from  helping. 

Church  funds  must  have  benefited  considerably.  '  Church 
discontinued '  is  a  frequent  entry  in  the  reports  before  me.  '  For 
many  years  coals  have  been  given  to  the  old  people  in  winter.  This 
year  it  was  stopped '  is  said  of  one  parish,  and  is  no  doubt  true  of 
others. 

But  in  the  case  of  Church  and  other  voluntary  charities  it  is  | 
probable  that  the  change  merely  means  a  transference  of  the  help 
given  from  the  very  old  people  to  others  not  quite  so  old ;  and  to 
the  extent  that  this  is  so  the  Government  scheme  has  really  covered 
a  larger  area  than  was  intended.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said  with 
the  same  confidence  of  private  donors  or  relations,  whose  interest 
would  naturally  be  of  a  more  personal  character. 

Another  class  which  has  undoubtedly  profited  contains  many 
employers.     It  would  be  interesting  if  one  could  ascertain  how 
many  of  these  have  actually  withdrawn  their  help  to  their  olc 
servants  ;  probably  not  all  who  in  their  dislike  of  the  Act  threatened 
to  do  so.     But  all  I  have  to  rely  upon  is  a  few  pieces  of  informatior 
picked   up   here   and   there.     From   one   correspondent  I  hear 
"  Under  the  C.  Works  Pension  scheme  no  difference  has  been  mad-i 
with  regard  to  the  pensions  granted  ;  but  where  previously  a  gran1 
had  been  made  from  the  C.  Trust  to  supplement  the  WorkeK 
Pension,  this  has  been  withdrawn  wholly  or  in  part  to  allow  th 
State  pension  to  operate  in  full.'     One  large  firm,  at  least,  no' 
grants  its  pensions  only  till  the  age  of  seventy ;  another  '  kep 
an  old  employee  waiting  for  his  pension  until  he  had  received  thi 
O.A.P.  and  then  gave  him  5s.  a  week  less  than  they  would  havj 
done.'     Others  have  dropped  them  altogether.     I  hear  also  ( 
farmers  who  have  reduced  the  wages  of  their  old  men  from  8s. 
week  to  4s.  a  week,  and  defend  their  action  on  the  ground  tht! 
1  we  have  to  pay.'    In  one  case  (but  this  was  Ireland)  the  ol, 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908.668 

men  in  a  large  business  petitioned  their  employer  to  reduce  their 
wages  to  105.  in  order  that  they  might  be  qualified  for  the  full 
pension.  If  their  request  was  granted  I  fancy  they  would  be 
liable  to  prosecution  for  depriving  themselves  of  income. 

One  way  in  which  the  Act  greatly  needs  to  be  supplemented  is 

by  some  system  of  almoners  or  visitors  to  watch  over  the  interests 

of  the  old  people,  and  to  report  when  they  are  really  suffering  from 

neglect,  or  misusage  by  themselves  or  others.     They  are,  many  of 

them,  very  helpless,  and  we  have  to  reckon  with  the  fact  that  the 

pension  may  be  a  temptation  as  well  as  a  boon.     One  correspondent 

writes  :  '  Personally  I  have  come  across  a  fair  number  of  cases  this 

I  winter  in  which  the  old  man  or  woman  was  being  kept  by  the 

family  for  the  sake  of  the  5s.  and  was  in  great  discomfort.  ...  In 

several  cases  the  pensioner  was  drinking  a  large  part  of  the  money. 

I  think  a  much  higher  standard  of  sobriety,  cleanliness,  &c. — at 

1  least  from  the  moment  the  pension  starts — should  be  demanded.' 

|  The  following  cases  illustrate  these  points  : 

Miss  A.  (a  weaver)  had  always  earned  good  money  in  the  past 
but  spent  it  all  on  relatives,  specially  on  a  married  sister  with  a 
I  delicate  husband.  She  now  lives  with  the  orphan  daughter  of  these. 
|  There  are  four  young  children  and  much  illness.  The  father's 
ncome  is  reported  at  27s.  Miss  A.  is  the  slave  of  the  family. 
When  visited  six  months  after  receiving  the  pension  we  scarcely 
recognised  her.  She  is  haggard,  worn,  bare-footed.' 

'  An  old  man  absolutely  helpless  and  whose  wife  would  not  help 
n  the  slightest  degree  beyond  washing  for  him.  He  is  now  being 
much  better  cared  for  in  the  hospital  than  one  nurse  could  manage 
even  in  two  visits  a  day,  though  a  little  attention  between  times 
uld  have  made  the  difference.  The  woman  refused  to  let  her 
husband  go,  because  she  would  lose  his  pension  money.' 

'  An  old  woman  keeps  a  small  sweet  shop,  and  formerly  a  house 
of  bad  fame.     The  pension  prevented  her  going  to  the  workhouse 
nd  being  well  looked  after.      The  house  is  filthy,  and  daughter  of 
well-known  bad  character  lives  with  her.' 

'  The  married  daughter  goes  to  her  mother's  on  the  pension 
day  and  helps  her  to  drink  part  of  it.  The  old  woman  would  not 
;ake  drink  but  for  the  daughter.' 

It  would  be  a  great  boon  if  in  some  of  these  cases  the  pension 
could  be  paid  in  kind.     It  would  then  be  safe  from  the  depredations 
f  drinking  friends,  and,  still  more  important,  would  not  be  a  tempta- 
tion to  the  old  people  themselves.    I  have  heard  of  several  cases 


664  OLD   AGE    PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 

where  the  old  people  were  being  fed  and  clothed  by  children  whose 
experience  had  taught  them  that  they  were  not  to  be  trusted  with 
money,  and  where  the  pension  has  led  to  constant  drunkenness. 

Another  point  of  view — it  is  that  of  the  canny  Scot — is  repre- 
sented by  the  following  : '  In  some  families  the  old  people  of  seventy 
and  upwards  receive  much  greater  attention  than  formerly  because 
they  are  now  a  source  of  income,  and  it  is  desirable  that  their  lives 
be  prolonged.' 

A  good  deal  has  been  said  about  *  hard  cases,'  generally  with 

reference  to  persons  who  have  been  disqualified  by  the  receipt  of 

Poor  Law  relief.     But  there  are  other  cases  which  will  not  be 

affected  by  the  removal  of  that  disqualification.     For  instance,  it 

seems  hard  that  the  widow  of  an  alien,  though  she  may  never  have 

been  out  of  England,  should  be  disqualified.     Possibly  some  future 

international  agreement  may  get  over  this  and  similar  difficulties. 

I  understand  that  under  the  French  pension  scheme  at  present 

under  consideration  aliens  will  be  qualified  if  belonging  to  a  country 

which  reciprocates.     Another  hard  case  was  that  of  the  man  who 

had  been  absent  from  the  country  for  more  than  the  specified  time, 

but  had  sent  money  home  for  the  support  of  his  family  during  the 

whole  of  his  absence.     An  unexpected  hardship  arises  out  of  the 

fact  that  the  money  value  of  services  rendered  has  to  be  taken 

into  account  in  estimating  the  income  of  a  claimant.     Hence  it 

has  happened  that  in  almshouses  those  who  are  well  get  the  pension, 

while  those  who  are  ill  and  have  the  services  of  an  attendant  do 

not.     Yet  those  who  are  ill  can  hardly  be  said  to  require  it  less. 

One  case  I  have  heard  of  which  seems  peculiarly  hard.     The 

claimant,  who  stated  in  her  claim  that  her  name  was  Mary,  produced 

as  evidence  of   her  age  a  certificate  of   baptism   in  the  name  of 

Elizabeth.     She  explained  that  when  she  first  entered  domestic 

service  her  employer  called  her  Mary  and  that  she  had  used  that 

name  ever  since.     It  is  such  a  likely  thing  to  have  happened,  and 

yet  it  is  clear  that  a  certificate  made  out  in  another  name  cannot 

be  accepted  as  proof  of  identity.     In  cases  where  a  man  has  per-1 

sistently  refused  to  work  he  is  disqualified,  and  rightly,  but  it 

tells  hardly  upon  the  wife  or  sisters  who  have  maintained  him  and! 

will  have  to  continue  to  do  so.     Unless,  indeed,  they  can  harden; 

their  hearts  and  let  the  offender  go  to  the  workhouse.     In  most1 

cases  it  is  to  be  feared  that  they  will  struggle  on  until  their  own 

pension  falls  due,  and  let  him  share  the  benefit  of  that. 

On  the  whole  it  seems  probable  that  really  hard  cases  have  been; 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908.  665 

few.  Certainly  most  of  the  committees  have  inclined  to  leniency 
where  there  was  room  for  doubt.  The  following  instance,  which 
came  before  the  House  of  Commons,  shows  perhaps  more  sympathy 
than  discretion.  An  old  man  applied  for  a  pension,  and  his  appli- 
cation was  endorsed  by  several  justices  of  the  peace,  a  county 
councillor,  a  bank  manager,  and  the  parish  priest.  The  Committee 
granted  the  pension ;  the  pension  officer  appealed  to  the  Local 
Government  Board  against  it  and  was  upheld  in  his  appeal.  Again 
the  Committee  granted  it,  and  again  the  pension  officer  appealed, 
with  the  same  result.  Then  a  member  asked  in  Parliament  that 
instructions  should  be  given  to  allow  the  pension,  and  elicited  the 
statement  that  the  old  man  was  a  notorious  drunkard,  having  been 
convicted  and  fined  for  this  offence  seventeen  times  during  the  past 
five  years.  This  was  in  Ireland,  and  the  humours  of  Old  Age 
Pensions  in  Ireland  would  fill  a  book.  But  the  book  will  have  to  be 
written  by  an  Irishman. 

Has  there  been  much  fraud  in  connexion  with  the  Pensions  ? 
It  is  difficult  to  answer  ;  some  of  the  deceptions  practised  or 
attempted  are  so  petty  that  they  seem  hardly  worthy  of  the  name  of 
fraud.  If,  e.g.,  a  claimant  has  no  definite  proof  of  age,  we  can 
hardly  expect  that  she  will  not  put  it  as  high  as  is  necessary  without 
very  much  regard  to  probability.  It  is  a  definite  step  further  in 
deceit  when  dates  on  the  marriage  certificate  or  insurance  policy  are 
found  to  have  been  tampered  with  ;  and  yet  sometimes  this  may 
really  have  been  done  in  the  interests  of  truth.  For  the  past 
transgressions  of  the  old  people  are  finding  them  out,  and  many  who 
stated  their  age  too  low  at  the  time  of  marriage  or  insurance  are 
regretting  it  now  that  they  have  no  other  proof  of  age  to  adduce. 
The  years  which  seemed  so  superfluous  then  are  now  a  valuable 
asset,  but  difficult  to  realise.  Very  often  the  Pensions  Committees 
are  reduced,  in  the  absence  of  evidence,  to  the  unsatisfactory  method 
of  estimating  the  age  of  pensioners  by  their  appearance. 

The  difficulty  of  establishing  age  will  disappear  as  soon  as  the 
official  registration  of  births  begins  to  take  effect  for  those  over 
seventy  ;  but  a  more  serious  difficulty,  and  one  giving  rise  to  more 
fraud,  is  that  of  determining  the  means  of  claimants.  Not  infre- 
quently it  has  been  made  clear  that  old  people  have  made  over  their 
business  to  a  son  or  daughter  with  a  view  to  becoming  eligible  for  a 
pension  ;  now  and  again  account  books  have  been  falsified,  or,  in  the 
absence  of  books,  the  profits  of  a  business  have  been  grossly  under- 
stated. It  is,  of  course,  only  in  exceptional  cases  and  by  the 


666     OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 

strictest  investigation  that  it  is  possible  to  prove  such  understate- 
ments, and  there  is  no  doubt  that  many  persons  draw  the  pension 
for  whom  it  was  never  intended.  For  instance,  a  husband  and  wife 
with  a  business  as  builders  and  decorators,  who  always  employ 
labour  in  the  spring,  both  receive  the  pension  :  '  The  husband 
always  smoking  cigars.' 

Cases  are  fairly  common  in  which  the  claimants  prove  to  have 
considerable  savings,  sometimes  as  much  as  £1000,  but  as  only  the 
income  actually  derived  from  these  is  counted  they  are  eligible  for 
the  pensions.  In  many  cases  the  savings  would  suffice  to  buy  an 
ample  annuity,  and  it  is  a  question  whether  they  should  not  be 
estimated  on  that  basis.  The  following  extract  from  the  Keport  of 
the  Comptroller  and  General  Auditor  is  interesting  in  this  con- 
nexion :  '  A  favourite  method  of  dealing  with  savings,  especially  in 
Ireland,  appears  to  be  to  place  them  on  deposit  at  a  local  bank,  and 
cases  have  come  under  notice  in  which  claimants  have  had  sums 
varying  from  £200  to  £600  so  placed.  ...  An  instance  may  be 
quoted  of  a  claimant  who  had  a  fixed  income  of  £20  16s.  per  annum, 
plus  £600  on  deposit  at  1J  per  cent.,  making  his  total  income 
£29  16s.,  who  was  granted  a  pension  of  2s.  a  week.  An  increase  of 
1  per  cent,  in  the  rate  of  interest  allowed  on  his  deposit  would  render 
him  ineligible  for  pension.  Moreover,  the  placing  of  money  on 
deposit  at  so  low  a  rate  of  interest  as  1  per  cent,  or  1|  per  cent, 
scarcely  seems  to  fulfil  the  intention  of  the  Act  that  property  should 
be  invested  or  profitably  used,  or  that,  failing  this,  the  interest 
'  which  might  be  expected  to  be  derived  from  it '  should  be  calculated 
as  income.' 

Fraud  of  the  worst  kind  would  be  made  impossible  by  better 
supervision.  As  I  write  a  case  is  reported  in  the  morning  paper  of  a 
woman  who  continued  to  draw  her  mother-in-law's  pension  after  the 
old  lady  had  died.  Six  months'  hard  labour  was  perhaps  not  too 
severe  a  penalty  for  her,  but  there  are  other  cases  of  fraud  in  which 
prevention  would  be  so  easy  that  punishment  seems  almost  (not 
quite)  unfair.  For  instance,  it  would  hardly  be  possible  for  an  old 
man  to  draw  pension  and  poor  relief  at  the  same  time,  if  the  officials 
were  in  proper  communication  with  one  another,  and  the  old  man 
who  got  three  months'  hard  labour  for  what  must  have  seemed  to 
him  a  venial  offence  met  with  rather  severe  treatment.  Is  it  fair  to 
hold  out  such  temptations  to  very  old,  uneducated,  and  necessitous 
persons  (it  must  be  remembered  that  in  London  the  pension  is 
not  enough  to  live  on  by  itself),  and  not  take  simple  precautions 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF   1908.    667 

against  their  yielding  ?  All  that  is  needed  is  an  interchange  of  lists 
between  Believing  Officer  and^  Pension  Officer,  andjio  case  of 
duplication  could  arise. 

Perhaps  the  most  difficult  and  unsatisfactory  part  of  the  Pen- 
sions Committees'  work  has  lain  in  the  estimation  of  the  resources 
of  claimants  just  on  the  border  line.  Many  of  the  little  trades  by 
which  old  people  earn  their  living  are  such  that  it  is  difficult  even  for 
themselves  to  form  a  fair  estimate  of  average  earnings.  The  old 
woman  who  keeps  a  little  shop  hardly  ever  knows  what  she  makes 
by  it ;  she  lives  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  there  is  no  evidence  for  the 
Committee  to  go  upon  unless  the  mere  fact  that  she  is  alive  is  proof 
that  she  earns  a  living.  Few  claimants  are  in  the  position  of  the 
cabman  who  stated  that  he  had  no  income  and  no  other  means  of 
subsistence.  The  cobbler,  the  hawker,  the  man  who  runs  errands 
or  does  odd  jobs,  are  problems  which  the  most  experienced  pension 
officer  finds  it  difficult  to  deal  with.  Even  the  old  lady  who  lets 
lodgings  is  often  unable  to  make  a  convincing  statement  of  profit 
and  loss.  Many  of  the  claimants  also  are  finding  it  increasingly 
hard  to  earn  at  all,  and  it  is  a  question  whether  they  might  not  all 
be  justified  in  ceasing  to  work  after  receiving  the  pension.  The 
following  case  is  quoted  by  the  Comptroller  and  Audi  tor- General : 
"  A  claimant,  aged  seventy-five,  who  at  the  date  of  his  application 
was  earning  15s.  a  week,  stated  on  his  claim  that  he  intended  to 
stop  work  when  he  received  a  pension.  The  Committee  disallowed 
his  claim  on  the  ground  of  his  then  means  being  in  excess  of  £31 10s. 
per  annum.  The  claimant  accordingly  stopped  work  and  lodged  a 
fresh  claim.  As  there  was  no  question  of  dismissal  or  ill-health,  the 
Committee  inquired  of  the  Central  Authority  whether  claimant  was 
debarred  under  section  4  (3)  of  the  Act.  The  Central  Authority  held 
that  such  cessation  of  work  did  not  amount  to  the  claimant's 
depriving  himself  directly  or  indirectly  of  any  income  in  the  sense  of 
the  section  referred  to.  As,  however,  there  were  many  cases  of  a 
like  nature,  the  point  was  referred  for  the  opinion  of  the  Lord 
Advocate,  who  endorsed  the  decision  arrived  at  by  the  Central 
Authority.  The  claimant  was  thereupon  awarded  pension  at  the 
full  rate.' 

Difficulties  multiply  when  the  claimants  are  maintained  partly 
by  the  kindness  of  friends  and  relations.  The  law  officers  of  the 
Crown  have  advised  that  the  Act  requires  voluntary  allowances  in 
money  and  the  value  of  free  board  or  lodging  or  other  benefits 
regularly  received  to  be  taken  into  consideration  ;  and  this  means 


668    OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 

that  endless  questions  arise  as  to  the  value  of  dinners  given  by  this 
son,  and  an  occasional  Is.  given  by  that,  of  the  lodging  provided  in 
one  daughter's  house,  and  the  services  rendered  by  another,  all  of 
which  have  to  be  reported  by  the  Pension  officer  who  does  his  duty, 
and  taken  into  consideration  by  the  Committee.  It  is  inevitable 
that  a  large  amount  of  friction  and  delay  should  arise  under  such 
conditions,  and  this  has  been  increased  by  the  system  of  references 
and  appeals  from  sub-committees  to  local  committees,  and  from 
committees  and  applicants  and  officers  to  the  Local  Government 
Board,  involving  fresh  inquiries  and  reports  and  often  special  in- 
vestigations by  the  Local  Government  Board's  inspectors.  In  the 
first  three  months  of  the  Act  there  were  over  10,000  appeals  to  the 
Local  Government  Board  for  England  alone  ;  and  though  they  will 
get  fewer  in  proportion  as  precedents  are  established  and  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Act  are  better  understood,  yet  they  can  never  become 
a  negligible  quantity. 

There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  surmise  and  forecasting  as  to  the 
effect  which  the  pensions  would  have  upon  Poor  Law  expenditure  ; 
and  a  very  general  impression  has  prevailed  that  the  rates  would 
gain  greatly  at  the  expense  of  the  taxes.  In  some  places,  especially 
in  the  country,  this  has  proved  true  already.  The  most  striking 
instance  I  have  heard  of  is  from  my  correspondent  in  the  Highlands  : 
'  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  pensions  are  having  a  considerable 
effect  on  the  work  of  the  Poor  Law — the  chief  being  that  the  old 
people  are  not  now  corning  on  the  rates.  This  refers  not  only  to 
persons  over  seventy,  but  also  to  persons  of,  say,  from  sixty  and 
upwards  who  are  evidently  making  an  endeavour  to  keep  off  the 
rates  in  the  hope  of  getting  a  pension  later.  For  example,  in  one 
parish  that  I  visited  recently,  I  found  that,  during  the  two  or  three 
years  previous  to  the  pensions,  there  had  been  an  average  of  thirty 
applications  from  persons  of  sixty  years  and  over,  but  for  1909  there 
was  not  a  single  application  from  such  persons.  Pauperism  in  the 
Highlands  is  therefore  bound  to  decline  very  considerably  within 
the  next  few  years,  even  although  the  pauper  disqualification  be  not 
removed,  and,  ultimately,  in  some  parishes,  I  estimate  that  it  will 
be  reduced  by  about  50  or  60  per  cent.'  It  seems  fairly  certain  now 
that  the  disqualification  will  be  definitely  removed,  but  though  this 
will  relieve  the  rates  of  all  out-door  paupers  over  seventy,  it  will 
also  have  the  effect  of  ceasing  to  relieve  them  of  those  under  seventy, 
and  the  saving  may  prove  considerably  less  than  was  anticipated. 
On  the  whole  the  evidence  is  at  present  too  conflicting  to  allow  of 


OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908.    669 

any  definite  conclusion.  From  one  London  Union  1  hear  that '  the 
Act  has  made  a  most  perceptible  difference  in  the  numbers  dealt 
with  under  the  Poor  Law,  in  fact  that  applications  from  persons  of 
seventy  are  nil,  and  that  they  always  advise  people  near  that  age  to 
make  every  effort  to  keep  off  the  Poor  Law,  and  that  they  generally 
manage  to  do  so.'  From  rural  unions  again  I  hear  of  decrease  in 
out-door  relief,  though  not  so  marked  as  in  the  Highlands.  On  the 
other  hand;  in  some  places  there  has  been  a  large  increase.  At 
Bridgend  the  inspector  referred  recently  to  the  '  alarming  increase 
in  out-relief  ' ;  at  Chorlton  the  recipients  of  out-relief  increased  last 
year  from  3723  to  4622  ;  at  Bristol  the  out-relief,  which  was  £745 
per  week  a  year  ago,  has  increased  to  £790.  Probably  the  explana- 
tion given  at  Bristol  applies  partly  in  other  places  also  :  '  The 
Clerk  said  it  was  in  large  measure  due  to  the  granting  of  Old  Age 
Pensions,  because  the  scale  of  out-relief  had  been  considerably 
increased.  Last  year  to  those  deprived  of  Old  Age  Pensions  the 
Board  gave  practically  as  much  in  out-relief  as  they  would  have 
received  if  they  had  had  a  pension.'  Many  Boards  anticipate  a 
large  decrease  in  out-relief  when  the  pauper  disqualification  is 
removed,  and  all  the  old  people  over  seventy  are  transferred  to  the 
pension  lists.  Others  anticipate  that  with  the  motive  to  thrift 
removed  there  will  be  a  large  increase  in  the  number  of  those  who 
apply  for  Poor  Relief  before  seventy.  One  thing  seems  clear,  that 
the  distinction  between  Poor  Relief  and  Pension,  which  is  already 
becoming  blurred  by  the  increasing  amount  of  the  former,  will  prac- 
tically disappear  when  the  recipients  take  the  one  up  to  the  age  of 
seventy,  and  the  other  afterwards.  The  inquiry  under  the  Poor 
Law  is  seldom  any  more '  inquisitorial '  in  the  case  of  old  people  than 
that  under  the  Pensions  Act.  Already  one  very  experienced  corre- 
spondent writes  that  '  the  alacrity  in  applying  for  pensions  which 
are  really  a  form  of  outdoor  relief  has  had  the  effect  of  removing 
any  sort  of  distaste  to  Poor  Law  relief,  excepting  in  so  far  as  it  is 
less  liberal  in  amount.' 

This  distinction  between  Pensions  and  Poor  Law  is  still  further 
obliterated  by  the  necessity  which  many  of  the  pensioners  are  under 
to  seek  refuge  in  the  workhouse.  In  Bradford,  between  January  1 
and  September  8,  1909,  twenty- three  pensioners  were  admitted  to 
the  workhouse.  In  Bristol '  a  great  number  of  Old  Age  Pensioners 
had  to  be  transferred  to  the  workhouse  because  of  their  inability  to 
provide  for  themselves  outside.'  A  return  is  being  prepared  by  the 
Local  Government  Board  showing  how  many  of  the  present  inmates 


670    OLD   AGE   PENSIONS   UNDER   THE   ACT   OF    1908. 

of  workhouses  will  be  able  to  avail  themselves  of  the  pensions  ;  it 
is  probable  that  the  proportion  will  not  be  large.  At  West  Derby, 
out  of  773  persons  over  seventy,  the  medical  officers  have  certified 
that  511  are  not  mentally  and  physically  capable  of  taking  care  of 
themselves.  At  Bristol,  out  of  672  as  many  as  493  are  incapable  of 
taking  care  of  themselves.  In  country  Unions,  where  practically  all 
the  old  people  who  apply  for  it  receive  out-relief,  there  will  prove 
to  be  still  fewer  in  the  workhouses  who  will  be  enabled  by  the 
pension  to  live  outside.  Even  of  those  certified  by  the  medical 
officer  to  be  fit  there  will  be  many,  especially  amongst  the  old  men, 
who  will  not  willingly  take  up  the  burden  of  housekeeping  again. 
It  is,  in  short,  abundantly  clear  that  pensions  alone  will  never  be 
sufficient  provision  for  the  aged  poor.  A  large  increase  in  the 
number  of  almshouses  would  go  some  way  to  meet  the  difficulty,  but 
they  would  have  to  be  almshouses  in  which  attendance  and  nursing 
was  provided.  The  most  practical  suggestion  is  that  of  the 
Majority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Commission  for  small  homes  for 
the  aged,  to  be  established  by  the  Public  Assistance  Authority 
wherever  they  were  needed,  in  which  the  inmates  would  receive  the 
necessary  care  and  attention. 

What  is  the  conclusion  of  it  all  ?  That  the  pensions  have  been 
a  great  blessing  to  many,  no  doubt ;  but  that  they  have  not  been  an 
unmixed  blessing.  I  have  not  raised  the  question  here  of  the  effect 
on  the  wage-earners  of  increased  taxation,  but  a  complete  profit 
and  loss  account  could  not  neglect  that.  One  fact  has  been  very 
forcibly  impressed  upon  me,  and  that  is,  that  nearly  every  difficulty 
in  administration  and  most  occasions  of  discontent  on  the  part 
of  the  claimants  would  disappear  at  once  if  a  system  of  contributory 
pensions  or  insurance  could  be  introduced.  There  would  then  be 
no  need  of  investigation  into  the  resources  of  claimants  ;  no  probing 
into  the  relations  between  parents  and  children.  There  would  be 
no  temptation  to  petty  fraud  ;  and  none  of  the  delay  and  friction  of 
appeals.  Everyone  for  whom  the  premiums  had  been  duly  paid 
would  enter  into  his  pension  at  the  appointed  date  without  the  need 
for  any  further  qualification.  It  may  be  that  it  is  not  possible  or 
desirable  to  go  back  upon  the  policy  of  free  pensions  after  seventy  ; 
but  some  provision  is  greatly  needed  for  those  who  become  in- 
capacitated before  that  age.  It  might  perhaps  be  arranged  that 
insurance  up  to  the  age  of  seventy  should  carry  with  it  the  right  to 
an  unconditional  pension  after  seventy. 

HELEN  BOSANQUET. 


671 


JAN  KOMPANI  KEE  JAI.1 

Can  that  be  an  old,  forgotten  tomb  ? 
Is  it  there  that  the  colonel  's  sleeping  ? 

To  reconstruct  is  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  those 
whom  the  past  interests.  It  is  hard  to  reconstruct  when  the  cir- 
cumstances and  surroundings  are  different.  It  is  easy  when  the 
climate  and  surroundings  and  the  seasons  are  the  same.  You  can 
reconstruct  in  Hampton  Court  and  even  Kensington  Gardens, 
but  it  is  hard  to  sit  on  the  knifeboard  of  a  'bus  that  will  drop  you 
at  the  Stores  and  build  for  yourself  the  winter's  scene  as  King 
Charles,  whom  some  call  the  Martyr,  stepped  on  to  the  scaffold 
from  the  window  in  Whitehall.  In  the  quiet  grounds  of  Chelsea 
Hospital,  whose  atmosphere  deadens  the  hum  of  London,  you  may 
even  look  for  the  Duke  of  York  or  Arthur  Wellesley  himself  coming 
round  the  corridor,  but  Wapping  Old  Stairs  and  the  Pirate  dock 
do  not  lend  themselves  to  an  old  scene. 

In  India,  the  East  that  changes  so  slowly,  and  where,  off  the 
main  line  and  haunts  of  the  Babu,  a  thousand  years  are  but  as 
yesterday,  it  is  possible  so  to  reproduce  circumstances  and  atmo- 
sphere that  the  rest  is  easy.  Up  on  the  frontier  the  Ghilzai  comes 
out  of  the  passes  with  his  ox  and  his  ass  and  his  camel  and  every- 
thing that  is  his,  as  the  Israelites  came  out  of  Egypt,  and  in  the 
Punjab  the  villager,  maybe  the  carpenter,  puts  his  wife  and  infant 
on  to  a  ragged  pony  and  drives  them  much  as  we  believe  happened 
in  that  exodus  before  the  fury  of  Herod. 

Hard  by  Lahore  are  the  Shalimar  Gardens,  avenue  and  terrace 
and  canal  and  scolloped  fountain,  where  in  the  still  quiet  of  the 
evening  it  is  possible  to  imagine  the  great  Moguls,  Jehangir  or 
Shah  Jehan,  or  the  '  Light  of  the  Palace '  herself  sitting  on  the 
marble  seats  among  the  fountains.  The  same  soft  wind  in  the 
trees  and  the  same  green  parrots  on  the  summer  houses.  Even 
Tommy  Moore  himself  could  see  it,  though  he  had  never  been  there, 
and  wrote  of  the  sister  Shalimar  in  the  Kashmir  valley,  built  for 
the  same  Mogul.  Under  the  trees  in  the  inner  garden  the  Light  of 
the  Palace  and  her  girls,  bought  in  the  Samarkand  slave  markets, 

1  '  Power  and  might  to  John  Company.'     The  old  cry  of  the  Indian  streets. 


672  JAN    KOMPANI    KEE   JAI. 

raped  from  the  sack  of  Rajput  cities,  or  stolen  from  Kashmir ; 
in  the  outer  gardens  Persian  and  Tartar  nobles  awaiting  audience ; 
Without,  all  the  swordsmen  of  the  East  that  ride  in  the  train  of  a 
ruling  power.  It  is  all  to  be  seen  and  felt  without  effort,  because 
no  advertisements  of  Blue  and  Mustard  spoil  the  connexion. 

In  the  soft  breezes  among  the  fountains  one  looks  for  '  The  pale 
fair  hand  beside  the  Shalimar,'  and  can  picture  wholly  the  romance. 

Now  and  again,  too,  you  may  get  in  its  full  intensity  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  Mutiny,  and  all  its  weird  associations,  so  inexpressibly 
dreary  to  many  who  went  through  that  eventful  year,  so  romantic 
to  those  who  can  feel  the  history  of  the  British  in  the  East.  Nowhere 
does  this  feeling  perhaps  strike  one  more  than  in  Lahore  Canton- 
ment in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  hot  weather.  The  hot  haze  and 
the  peasoup  glare  have  settled  on  the  land,  and  the  army  is  resting 
from  its  labours,  only  concerned  with  how  to  gasp  through  the 
next  five  months,  the  very  time  taken  to  test  the  Huzoors  to  the 
utmost,  half  a  century  ago. 

It  was  in  the  middle  of  May  of  a  recent  summer  that  I 
had  thrown  myself  in  a  long  chair  in  the  Artillery  Mess  at 
Mian  Mir,  just  as  I  had  marched  back  from  church  parade, 
tired  and  dusty,  for  though  barely  nine  the  sun  was  shining 
as  if  it  were  past  high  twelve.  The  church  parade  had  been 
as  they  have  been  every  Sunday  for  the  last  hundred  years 
in  the  East.  The  troops  in  their  white  uniforms,  the  punkahs 
slowly  swinging,  and  the  dust  whirling  in  little  devils  outside.  As 
they  had  filed  in,  a  man  had  fallen  from  heat-stroke,  his  rifle 
clattering  on  the  flags,  and  his  comrades  had  filed  on  unconcerned, 
a  true  image  of  the  imperturbable  garrison  that  rings  the  world  and  \ 
hardly  changes,  the  men  of  Minden  and  those  from  Mohmand.  j 
The  brief  service  had  finished,  there  had  been  one  Psalm,  '  By  the  i 
Waters  of  Babylon,'  and  all  the  congregation  had  looked  wistful,  ! 
and  to  the  '  Old  Hundredth  '  and  the  National  Anthem  the  troops 
had  filed  away,  past  the  cholera  monument,  and  the  pink  oleanders, 
and  the  dusty  tamarisks,  to  sleep  out  the  day  as  best  they  could, 
for  already  the  outer  air  burnt  like  the  breath  of  a  smelting  fire. 
None  but  the  rarest  energy  can  exert  itself  in  a  Punjab  May  and 
June  without  some  moral  stimulus  that  is  lacking  in  the  daily 
routine.  The  fining  pot  for  silver  and  the  furnace  for  gold ;  and 
gold  it  is  that  retains  its  energy  without  unusual  stimulant. 

Away  to  their  barracks  that  Sir  Charles  Napier  designed  in 
bygone  years  had  tramped  my  artillerymen,  and  into  the  mess  for 
breakfast  had  turned  I.  Who  knows  where  the  dust  was  born  ? — 


JAN    KOMPANI    KEE   JAI.  673 

it  pirouetted  down  the  road  widdershins,  and  the  mess  was  cool  and 
restful.  The  Artillery  Mess  at  Mian  Mir  is  one  famous  in  history. 
The  site  of  the  Duchess  of  Richmond's  ball  no  man  knows  with 
certainty,  but  here  in  Mian  Mir,  which  men  now  call  Lahore  Can- 
tonment, was  a  ballroom  of  undoubted  historic  past.  On  May  10, 
1857,  the  great  Mutiny  had  blazed  out  prematurely  at  Meerut, 
and  the  famous  broken  message  from  the  signaller  at  Delhi  had 
filtered  through  to  the  Punjab.  Here  and  there  had  men  realised 
what  it  was  to  mean,  but  the  majority  had  but  turned  as  it  were 
in  their  sleep.  Fortunately  for  the  Punjab,  there  were  at  its 
capital  men  of  action,  Robert  Montgomery,  the  Commissioner, 
and  Julian  Corbett,  the  Brigadier.  All  the  12th,  however, 
they  had  been  in  conclave,  and  late  in  the  afternoon  had  only 
decided  on  the  trivial  measure  of  taking  the  percussion  caps  away 
from  the  native  troops.  As  the  Brigadier  had  driven  back  through 
the  five  glaring  miles  that  separate  the  city  and  its  cantonment, 
strength  and  determination  had  descended  on  him.  Close  on 
forty  years  had  he  served  the  Company  and  kept  his  youth  more 
than  had  most  in  those  days.  He  hardened  his  heart  and  he 
whistled  an  air  as  he  stepped  from  his  carriage,  ana!  then  and  there 
sent  word  to  the  good  Montgomery  that  he  would  go  the  '  whole 
hog,'  and  take  away  not  only  the  percussion  caps  but  the  arms  of 
I  the  native  troops  in  garrison.  Montgomery  had  warmly  approved, 
and  all  was  secretly  in  train.  Late  that  evening  orders  had  gone 
out  for  a  general  parade  the  next  morning  at  five,  and  with  one 
accord  the  army  had  fallen  to  and  groused,  because  that  very  night 
there  was  to  be  a  ball  at  the  Artillery  messhouse  as  a  farewell  to  the 
Blst  Foot,  who  were  leaving.  There  had  been  a  thunderstorm, 
|and  to  the  eager  the  night  promised  to  admit  of  dancing.  Now 
ery  subaltern  had  a  fine  grouse,  a  very  fine  grouse  had  he. 
31ankety,  blankety,  blank !  '  said  the  major  '  fancy,  what 
loughtlessness !  a  general  parade  after  a  dance,  what  was  the 
rvice  coming  to  ?  What  did  a  proclamation  from  the  Governor- 
eneral  matter !  that  could  wait.  What  did  trouble  among  a  lot 
slack  regiments  at  Meerut  matter  ? '  and  so  on  and  so  forth  after 
ie  manner  of  the  English  when  something  pleases  them  not. 
Lnd  at  ten  that  evening  the  messhouse  was  full  and  a  blaze  of 
liform,  and  there  were  chairs  and  lanterns  and  carpets  in  the 
arden,  and  the  dancers  danced  and  chattered  till  far  into  the 
orning.  And  the  Brigadier  danced,  too,  like  the  stout  heart 
i  was,  with  his  thoughts  on  the  powder  mine,  and  parried  his. 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  167,  N.S.  43 


674  JAN    KOMPANI    KEE   JAI. 

partners  who  talked  of  the  rumours  from  Meerut,  and  who  felt 
'  vastly  alarmed,'  as  well  they  might,  poor  dears,  till  the  last  extra 
died  away,  and  men  saw  their  ladies  home  and  changed  their  coats 
and  buckled  on  their  swords  to  hurry  to  this  senseless  parade  at 
the  break  of  day.  A  secret  soon  enough  ceases  to  be  such,  but 
perforce  the  officers  commanding  the  81st  and  the  Bengal  Horse 
Artillery  had  been  warned.  The  Brigadier,  in  his  knowledge  of 
the  feelings  of  the  Sepoy  officer  for  his  corps,  and  of  his  wonderful 
wholly  praiseworthy  yet  lamentable  belief  in  his  men,  had  decided 
to  say  nothing  to  the  commandants  of  the  native  regiments  till 
the  last  moment.  In  this,  too,  he  had  shown  some  wisdom  in  that 
a  most  chance  remark  by  them  might  have  let  out  what  was  forward. 

Shortly  after  five  A.M.  the  Brigadier  rode  on  to  the  ground  to 
find  his  troops  in  waiting,  drawn  up  on  the  Maidan  facing  what 
is  now  the  railway  station.  Save  Mr.  Montgomery  and  a  small 
following  in  the  distance,  there  were  no  spectators.  The  dance 
had  kept  the  ladies  fast  in  bed.  The  troops  were  drawn  up  in  line 
of  columns,  the  81st  Foot  and  two  weak  troops  of  Horse  Artillery 
on  the  right,  then  the  16th  Grenadiers,  one  of  General  Nott's 
'  beautiful  regiments,'  the  26th  Light  Infantry,  a  corps  that  had 
done  well  under  Pollock  and  been  made  Light  Infantry  by  Lord 
Ellenborough,  the  49th  Native  Infantry,  and  on  the  left  the  8th 
Cavalry.  Earlier  in  the  morning  a  company  of  the  81st  had  been 
hurried  off  in  native  pony  carts  down  the  main  turnpike  to  Amritsar, 
seven  and  twenty  miles  away,  to  secure  the  fortress  of  Govindgudr, 
that  the  Sikhs  had  built  to  the  plans  of  a  French  engineer,  and 
which  was  garrisoned  by  native  troops.  Three  companies,  too,  of 
the  81st  Queen's  were  marching  at  the  same  time,  as  fast  as  the  hot 
night  would  let  them,  to  take  over  the  Lahore  fort  and  palace  from 
the  wing  of  the  26th  Native  Infantry  that  was  holding  it. 

On  the  parade-ground  at  Mian  Mir  the  remnant  of  the  81st 
and  the  European  Artillery  did  not  exceed  250  souls,  and  the 
white  faces  seemed  lost  in  the  sea  of  brown.  Nothing  daunted, 
however,  the  Brigadier  began  proceedings.  At  the  head  of  each 
regiment  was  read  the  Governor-General's  proclamation  directing 
the  disbandment  of  the  mutinous  34th  at  Barrackpur.  Thit 
was  the  regiment  from  which  one  Mangal  Pande,  a  Brahmin  o 
the  Brahmins,  had  shot  the  adjutant  some  weeks  before  th 
Meerut  outbreak,  and  the  whole  of  his  regimental  quarterguard  ha( 
looked  on  while  he  did  it,  and  allowed  him  to  call  on  his  corps  t< 
rise.  It  may  also  be  remembered  how  Sir  John  Bennet  Hearsey 
long  known  as  the  hero  of  Seetabuldie,  and  then  an  old  man,  wh( 


JAN   KOMPANI    KEE  JAI.  675 

was  commanding  the  Division,  had  come  across  the  scene  with  his 
two  sons  in  his  evening  ride.      Seeing  open  mutiny  stalking  un- 
daunted while  the  world  wavered,  he  had  ridden  straight  at  the 
madman  saying  '  Damn  his  musket '  when  they  warned  him  it  was 
loaded,  whereon  Mangal  Pande  shot  himself  and  was  hanged  later 
for  his  pains,  as  also  the  native  officer  of  the  guard.    The  resulting 
inquiry  had  ended  in  the  disbandment  of    the  tainted  regiment 
for  which  the  order  was  now  being  read  aloud.     When  the  pro- 
clamation had  ended,  a  movement  was  ordered  that  seemed  but 
part  of  the  day's  manoeuvres.     The  various  troops  wheeled  and 
re- wheeled  till  as  the  new  alignment  was  complete  it  had  come  about 
that  the  native  troops  faced  the  81st  as  part  of  three  sides  of  a 
hollow  square,  and  behind  the  81st  the  guns  were  formed.     Then 
the  adjutant  of  the  26th,  Lieutenant  Mocatta,  stepped  forward  and 
read  in  the  vernacular  a  brief  order  to  the  effect  that,  when  so  many 
regiments  had  been  led  into  trouble,  it  was  considered  wiser  that 
such  distinguished    regiments  as  those  at    Mian  Mir  should  be 
placed  beyond  temptation   by  the  deposit  of  their  arms.     Orders 
were  immediately  given  to  '  Pile  Arms,'  and  at  the  same  moment 
the  81st  fell  back  to  reveal  a  long  line  of  guns  in  action  with  the 
portfires  burning  in  the  gunners'  hands.    And  as  the  81st  fell  back, 
the  voice  of  their  Colonel,  Renny,  was  heard,  '  81st  Load  !  '     The 
Sepoys  hesitated  for  a  minute,  but  they  at  once  realised  that  the 
balance  of  argument  lay  with  the  guns.     Sullenly  but  quietly  they 
piled  their  arms  and  the  cavalry  unbuckled  their  sabres,  and  then 
falling  back  into  their  ranks  were  marched  off  to  the  lines,  while 
the  81st  collected  their  arms  in  carts  that  were  waiting  for  the 
purpose.     Away  at  the  fort  on  the  far  side  of  Lahore  the  wing  of 
the  26th  had  also  given  up  their  arms,  and  later  in  the  day  came  the 
news  that  the  company  of  the  81st  and  a  small  number  of  European 
artillery  had  secured  the  great  fortress  at  Amritsar  in  the  heart 
of  the  Sikh  community.     It  was  with  full  and  thankful  hearts  that 
Brigadier  Corbett  and  Mr.  Montgomery  rode  home  from  as  good  a 
day's  work  as  had  ever  been  done  in  the  East.     At  the  great  capital 
of  the  Sikhs,  full  of  the  disbanded  soldiery  and  the  disappointed 
placemen  of  the  Khalsa,  the  English  had  shown  such  vigour  that 
the  whole  countryside  wondered  and   applauded,  and  the   whole 
Punjab  stiffened.      The  great  central   cantonment  with   its  large 
force  of  Hindustani  troops  was  now  safe  for  the  moment  at  any 
rate,  and  there  was  a  standing  example  of  the  merits  of  decision. 
How  the  disarmed  troops  remained  quietly  at  their  duties  till  one 

43—2 


676  JAN    KOMPANI    KEE   JAI. 

of  them,  the  26th,  obtaining  arms  by  stealth  from  the  hidden 
armouries  of  the  city,  rose  two  months  later  to  murder  their  specially 
beloved  commandant  and  then  bolt  for  Hindustan,  or  perhaps  the 
magnet  at  Delhi,  is  another  story.  They  were  annihilated  within  a 
few  hours  by  local  levies.  Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that  it 
was  observed  by  those  who  watched  the  play  of  the  sidelights  that 
no  regiment  seemed  bent  on  mutiny  as  a  mass.  When  the  hour 
of  dissolution  came,  the  ringleaders  almost  invariably  arranged 
for  the  best  beloved  officers  to  be  first  murdered.  In  every  regiment 
certain  officers  hold  the  whole  corps  in  the  palms  of  their  hands. 
Their  voice  would  almost  to  a  certainty  keep  the  sheep  within  the 
fold.  Therefore  it  usually  happened  that  they  were  the  first  to 
fall,  which  accounts  for  the  apparent  anomaly  of  the  prompt 
murder  of  popular  officers,  and  which  shows  too  that  the  men 
who  were  handling  that  stricken  crowd  of  wind-driven  soldiery 
knew  something  of  their  business. 

It  was  thus,  then,  that  the  morn  of  May  13,  1857,  had  dawned 
after  the  ball  in  the  very  messhouse  I  was  now  sitting  in,  and  for 
that  dance  perhaps  the  trophies  of  Sikh  arms  on  the  walls  were 
first  erected.  There  was  the  same  rhythm  in  the  sweep  of  the 
punkah,  the  same  musical  drowsy  drone  from  the  Persian  wheel  at 
the  well,  and  the  same  call  of  the  brain-fever  bird  in  the  tamarisk 
in  the  garden.  Idly  I  turned  to  the  writing-table  in  the  anteroom, 
the  inkstand  even  ministering  to  my  mood,  for  it  bore  the  inscription 
*  Presented  to  the  Artillery  Officers  of  the  Lahore  Division,  by  Major 
Warner,  IV th  Troop  of  Horse  Artillery.'  Pre-Mutiny  again,  a  relic 
of  the  Bengal  Horse  Artillery,  whose  inheritors  we  were.  On  the 
table  were  some  old  books  carelessly  left  lying  from  the  library  in 
the  next  room.  One  was  a  copy  of  Lady  Sale's  Journal  of  the 
captivity  in  Afghanistan,  a  popular  enough  book  in  its  day,  remind- 
ing us  that  in  the  Forties  the  overweening  British  had  taken  ladies 
and  babies  and  nurses  and  pianos  over  the  passes  to  Kabul,  and 
opened  a  cantonment  with  bandstand  and  sky-races  in  the  heart 
of  Afghanistan.  I  took  it  up  and  from  its  pages  fluttered  an  old 
letter,  faded  and  yellow,  and  written  in  that  prim  pointed  hand 
which  was  almost  universal  among  ladies  of  the  generation  that  is 
gone.  It  was  a  simple  enough  letter,  written  or  half-written  to  a 
lady  elsewhere,  but  it  supplied  just  that  small  particle  of  colour 
that  was  needed  to  stir  the  dry  bones  of  Kaye  and  Malleson.  And 
this  was  how  it  ran  : — 

Dearest  Mervinia, — We  are  very  anxious  to  hear  what  has  happened  to  you 
at  Ferozepore  since  the  dreadful  news  from  Meerut ;    and  I  must  tell  you  of  all 


JAN    KOMPANI   KEE   JAI.  677 

that  has  happened  here.  All  the  Sepoys  have  been  disarmed  by  the  Brigadier, 
and  some  of  the  officers  are  wild  about  it.  It  happened  yesterday.  There  was  a 
dance  on  the  Wednesday  night,  given  by  the  station  to  the  81st,  who  are  marching 
to  Dagshai.  The  Artillery  lent  us  their  messhouse,  for  they  have  the  only  decent 
floor.  There  had  been  a  thunderstorm  and  it  was  quite  cool.  I  wore  my  blue 
dress — the  one  that  you  always  admire,  and  Jessie  had  on  her  white  muslin  ;  and 
Mrs.  Thackeray  chaperoned  us,  for  Mother  was  not  well.  It  was  a  lovely  dance, 
dear  Mer,  though  the  gentlemen  all  came  grumbling  because  the  Brigadier  had 
ordered  a  parade  for  the  next  morning.  However,  that  did  not  matter,  for  Jessie 
and  I  had  all  our  best  partners,  and  we  did  not  sit  out  once.  I  do  like  men  with 
whiskers  !  don't  you  ?  Of  course,  no  one  knew  what  was  going  to  happen.  We 
all  thought  the  parade  was  to  hear  Lord  Canning's  proclamation  read,  disbanding 
that  34th  Native  Infantry,  the  one  that  let  that  horrid  Mangal  Pandy  shoot  its 
Adjutant.  I  heard  all  about  that  from  Mary  Hearsey.  I  was  staying  with  her 
at  Sialkot  last  Christmas.  Her  father,  you  know,  rode  the  man  down.  '  Le  beau 
g&n&ral  anglais  '  they  called  him  in  Paris  when  they  were  coming  out  overland. 
Such  a  fine  old  gentleman,  dear.  All  your  favourite  partners  were  there,  except 
poor  Archie  Calvert,  whose  brother  in  the  3rd  Light  Cavalry  was  killed  at  Meerut 
on  the  llth.  They  all  danced  with  me,  but  no  one  danced  so  well  as  your  friend 
Alfred  Light,  in  the  Artillery  ;  you  remember  him  at  Meerut  last  year.  I  wonder 
if  he  is  safe.  He  was  in  Major  Tombs'  troop,  and  wrote  those  verses  I  liked  so 
much  in  my  album.  Mr.  Marley,  in  the  Grenadiers,  asked  particularly  after  you, 
and  said  you  danced  vastly  well.  He  would  sit  out  with  that  horrid  Mrs.  O'Gorman 
who  used  to  simper  '  The  Captain  with  his  whiskers  '  at  the  General's  drums  last 
year.  I  stayed  till  the  end,  and  the  officers  escorted  us  all  home.  We  ladies  were 
surprised  to  find  a  picquet  of  the  artillery  on  the  Mall  outside,  and  as  we  passed 
the  church  we  saw  a  half  company  of  the  81st  dozing  in  their  cloaks  on  the  grass. 
The  Brigadier,  who  is  an  old  dear  and  my  special  friend,  said  to  me  '  Don't  get 
up  early  after  your  late  dance  ' ;  but  Captain  Denne,  the  Adjutant  of  the  Artillery, 
who  often  takes  me  riding,  and  who  says  I  understand  more  about  things  than  any 
woman  he  knows,  said  to  me  '  Get  up  at  five  and  have  your  horse  saddled,  and 
come  to  the  edge  of  your  compound  ;  you  can  see  the  parade  from  there.'  And 
then  he  said  again  '  Be  sure  and  have  your  horse  saddled.'  I  thought  it  all  funny, 
but  Captain  Denne's  quiet  way  always  makes  one  do  what  he  says,  and  so,  as  it 
was  four  o'clock  when  I  got  to  my  room  and  quite  cool,  I  just  got  into  my  white 
habit,  and  lay  down  in  a  long  chair  till  I  was  woken  up  by  the  rumble  of  the  guns 
moving  up  to  the  parade-ground.  It  looked  just  an  ordinary  parade,  and  I  saw 
Mr.  Montgomery  on  that  grey  Arab  of  his  in  the  distance.  Suddenly  I  saw  all 
the  guns  unhooked  and  all  the  Sepoys  putting  their  arms  on  the  ground.  Then 
Captain  Olpherts'  troop  suddenly  limbered  up  and  galloped  forward  and  came 
into  action  right  among  the  heaps  of  arms,  and  I  could  see  the  gunners  ramming 
home  their  shot.  In  a  few  minutes  the  native  Sepoys  marched  off,  and  presently 
the  26th  passed  down  the  road  without  their  muskets,  and  two  or  three  of  the 
British  officers  had  no  swords  either.  Major  Spencer,  at  their  head,  looked  on  so 
sad  and  yet  so  fierce,  but  he  had  his  sword.  .  .  . 

And  here  the  old  letter  broke  off.  I  had  heard  of  D.  Olpherts 
taking  his  guns  forward  at  the  gallop  in  among  the  piles  of  arms. 
An  old  station-master  at  Lucknow  had  told  me  of  it,  and  how  it 

s  not  ordered  but  he  did  it  on  his  own,  because  the  Grenadiers 
were  murmuring  as  they  reformed.  The  station-master  had  been 
I  his  trumpeter.  You  won't  find  the  story  in  any  history. 


678  JAN    KOMPANI    KEE   JAI. 

D.  Olpherts  was  brother  to  William, '  Hell-fire  Jack,'  a  familiar  figure 
at  the  '  Senior '  till  a  few  years  ago,  when  he  too  followed  the  great 
army  of  John  Company.  The  letter  had  evidently  never  gone  to 
'  dearest  Mer,'  at  Ferozepore,  and  had  lain  for  fifty  years  and  more 
in  Lady  Sale's  story.  Someone  had  been  pulling  out  the  old  books 
in  the  library,  and  half-a-dozen  more  lay  on  the  table — most  of 
them  about  India  and  with  '  Smith  &  Elder '  on  the  title-page. 
'  The  Life  of  Colonel  James  Skinner,'  '  The  Chaplain's  Narrative  of 
the  Siege  of  Delhi,' '  How  I  Escaped  from  the  Great  Revolt,'  and  the 
like.  Some  too  of  the  earlier  period,  narratives  of  the  Sikh  wars, 
and  the  Gwalior  Campaign ;  one  had  '  Presented  to  the  Artillery 
Book- Club  Lahore  Division,'  and  then  again  the  name  '  D.  Olpherts, 
Artillery,'  on  the  fly-leaf. 

Then  outside  a  voice  behind  the  jillmills  said  '  Olpherts  Sahib 
ka  Ghora  tayar  hai,'  and  so  I  got  up  and  put  on  my  brass  helmet 
with  its  horse-hair  plume,  heavy  but  not  hot,  for  the  shiny  brass 
breaks  up  the  sun's  rays,  and  mounted.  The  troop  must  have 
moved  off,  for  I  could  see  the  last  gun  going  down  the  road  with  the 
two  gun-buckets  swinging  under  the  axle.  That  infernal  bearer 
of  mine  must  have  let  me  sleep  again  after  bringing  my  tea,  for  I 
dressed  the  moment  I  got  home  from  the  dance.  However,  I  got 
up  on  the  Arab  and  cantered  after  the  troop,  and  we  swung  on  to 
the  parade-ground  at  a  trot,  after  being  blocked  by  the  Grenadiers, 
who  were  across  the  road  in  column  of  route.  Denne  and  Warner 
came  up  just  then.  Warner  said  '  You  had  better  load  with  case, 
Johnnie,  and  I'll  try  shot ;  it's  a  better  egg  than  shrapnel  if  they 
break.'  .  .  .  '  Master's  breakfast  long  time  ready.' 

.  .  .  Heavens,  where  was  I  ?  .  .  .  and  the  brass  helmet  changed 
to'a  white  one,  and  I  saw  breakfast  on  the  table.  The  same  old  mess, 
and  with  poor  Neisham's  carbine  on  the  mantelpiece,  a  Free  State 
one,  that  he  always  carried,  and  had  had  on  him  when  killed  fighting 
two  guns  of  the  38th  battery  at  Tweefontein  where  Lord  Methuen 
and  the  guns  were  taken  by  Delarey.  Same  old  mess,  same  old 
artillery,  new  guns  but  not  new  men,  for  the  mould  is  a  set  one. 
Same  old  hot  weather,  same  dust  storm,  and  same  hot-weather 
bird,  and  perhaps  the  same  cloud  on  the  horizon,  for  some  say 
the  English,  like  the  Bourbons,  forget  nothing  and  learn  nothing, 
and  others  that  the  prow  is  still  of  beaten  steel.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  Mian  Mir  Artillery  Messhouse  in  early  May  will  lead  you 
straight  to  the  old  trail,  less  happily,  the  Wandering  Jew  with  his 
cholera  track  behind  him. 

G.  F.  MACMUNN. 


679 


THE    ABBEY    MEADOWS. 
BY   SIB  JAMES  YOXALL,  M.P. 

THE  half-hour  gives  warning,  hesitates,  detaches  itself  with  a 
musical  sigh,  and  tumbles  into  the  past. 

You  glance  up  from  your  desk  at  the  complacent  countenance 
of  the  clock.  '  Half-past  nine  only  ?  '  you  say  to  yourself.  '  Still 
forty  minutes  before  I  need  catch  that  confounded  train  !  '  You 
are  writing  at  something,  with  all  the  zest  of  a  new  conception  ;  you 
do  not  yet  know  what  a  tedious  nominy  it  will  turn  out  to  be,  this 
screed  of  yours  about  moral  dynamics,  the  polaric  relations  between 
duty  and  action,  how  the  one  begets  the  other,  and  then  is  in  turn 
begot.  You  long  to  keep  writing  all  morning,  but  an  under- 
consciousness  frets  you  of  the  duty  and  action  to  catch  the 
ten-fifteen.  Now,  when  you  try  to  catch  your  train  of  thought 
again,  it  has  gone  on  :  you  hark  back  a  paragraph  or  two, 
scowling  at  the  officious  mentor  on  the  mantel  meanwhile. 

The  timepiece  does  not  frown,  however  ;  it  beams  with  all  the 
self-satisfaction  and  ticks  with  all  the  cognisant  industry  which 
clocks  and  clocks  alone  can  show.  You  have  often  noticed  the 
odious  self-complacency  of  clocks  and  chronometers,  how  conscious 
of  correctitude  they  are,  even  when  they  are  slow  ?  Their  inane 
round  faces  never  wear  the  least  look  of  humility  ;  one  could  well 
understand  an  irritable,  impetuous  fellow  jumping  up  and  smashing 
his  clock. 

Such  a  merciless  censor  too — such  a  cold,  sardonic,  exact 
inspector  of  weights  and  measures  in  our  dilatory  dealings  with 
Time.  No  allowance  made  for  anything  !  no  emotion,  whatever 
befalls  ;  a  clock  is  a  douanier  on  the  frontier  of  dream.  The  sun- 
dial you  bought  in  the  Marylebone  Road  is  much  more  human  ;  it 
only  3°gs  your  elbow  now  and  then  and  at  last,  when  it  feels  it 
really  must,  during  hours  of  aerial  gold.  '  A  sun-dial,'  you  say  to 
yourself,  '  is  time  in  a  garden.  A  sun-dial  is  green  silence.  It  lets 
the  sweet  day  glide.' 

Twit  wit,  twit  wit !     A  little  bit  of  wit  and  no  rest ! 

A  yellow-hammer  is  chirping  that  at  you,  in  at  your  very  window, 


680  THE   ABBEY   MEADOWS. 

and  perkily  jerking  its  feathers  in  gestures  of  contempt  for  your 
quill. 

Twit  wit — a  lot  o'  little  work  and — aren't  you  coming  out  ? 

'  I  am  that !  '  say  you,  moral  dynamics  notwithstanding  ;  and 
out  you  go  into  the  fragrant  freshness,  the  amber  and  emerald 
lights,  and  the  crystalline  hush  of  a  '  wet,  bird-haunted  English 
lawn.'  This  year  is  so  late  in  flowering  that  your  garden  still  lies 
enlapped  in  Spring.  The  seasons  have  moved  on  languidly  this 
year — as  why  should  they  not,  if  they  choose  ?  Who  was  the 
false  gardener  made  the  first  floral  clock  ?  It  was  like  his  imperti- 
nence, don't  you  think  ? 

So  it  is  still  the  virginal  morning  of  seasons  this  morning,  though 
going  by  clocks  and  almanacs  it  ought  to  be  nearly  the  year's 
noon.  Avast  all  almanacs,  however  —  the  times  and  seasons 
merge  so  graciously  into  one  another  if  we  only  let  them  alone. 
Time  is  a  delicious  abstraction,  till  we  make  it  concrete.  You  once 
knew  a  man  who  found  out  that,  going  by  registers  and  calendars, 
he  must  have  been  born  two  years  later  than  he  had  supposed. 
Do  you  think  he  was  any  the  younger  for  that  ? 

'  And  grass  merges  into  hay,'  you  told  yourself  shamefacedly ; 
for  the  grass  is  inches  high,  and  you  really  must  wake  your  lawn- 
mower  out  of  its  winter  sleep  to-morrow  !  '  The  grass  of  the  field,' 
you  quoted  from  St.  Matthew,  '  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is 
cast  into  the  oven.'  To-day  is,  is  it,  0  sainted  Judean  douanier  ? 
It  is  not !  Even  while  one  says  it  is,  a  part  of  to-day  has  fallen 
into  yesterday.  To-day  never  is  ;  it  only  was. 

'  Rum  thing,  Time,'  you  went  on,  in  your  irreverent  colloquial 
way.  *  It  never  begins  or  ends,  except  for  oneself.  One's  to- 
morrow is  swiftly  to-day,  and  then  yesterday  immediately  ;  soon 
comes  the  swish  of  the  great  scythe  through  our  ankles  ;  we  are 
cut  down.  And  then  the  oven,  and  the  handful  of  grey  dust  shut 
in  an  urn  of  brass.' 

'  Do  our  days  all  die  with  us,  or  before  us  ?  '  you  mused  on. 
What  about  times  one  intensely  remembers — hours  in  the  Abbey 
Meadows,  for  instance — they  are  not  actually  dead  ?  You  were  now 
in  the  middle  of  the  lawn,  and  there,  with  ivy  fondling  it  already, 
stands  the  copy  of  an  antique  pillar-dial,  which  cost  you  three 
pounds  five  in  the  Marylebone  Road.  The  brass  dial  seemed  to 
smile  at  you,  a  thing  which  clocks  and  watches  never  do  ;  sunshine 
flashed  from  it  like  the  white  gleam  from  between  your  lady's  parted 


THE   ABBEY   MEADOWS.  681 

lips.  '  Smile  always,  old  fellow,'  you  said  to  the  dial.  '  But  don't 
grin — a  skull  does  that.' 

For  your  eyes  were  now  on  the  inscription  and  legend.  Your 
dial 's  a  punster.  '  My  name  is  dial,'  it  begins, 

My  name  is  die-all, 
Thy  name  is  mort-all. 

Unkind  of  the  sunny  fellow,  that !  As  if  we  did  not  know  !  Then 
you  read  on  the  plinth  Induce  animum  sapientem,  and  the  gnomon 
made  a  hazard  at  five  minutes  to  ten.  One  can't  be  always  wise- 
minded,  however.  You  stood  there  musing,  of  days  which  can  never 
die  while  memory  holds  her  seat.  Noll,  and  the  secret,  in  the  long 
golden  evenings  of  your  bella  epoca  !  Suddenly  you  stood  in  the 
Abbey  Meadows  again,  on  the  very  frontier  of  dream. 

If  you  went  down  Easemore  Lane  you  came  to  the  first  Abbey 
Meadow,  that  pasture  of  glee — if  you  pushed  through  a  gap  in  a 
hedge,  that  is,  or  bestrode  a  gate  which  bore  a  notice  warning  you 
not  to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  Then,  if  you  dared  pass  a  tethered 
bull,  not  generally  known  to  be  picketed,  you  might  crouch  along 
the  hedge-side  of  a  clover  field  or  two,  and  presently  be  at  large  in 
Elysium  itself. 

A  watercourse  too  wide  to  be  called  a  brook,  yet  a  little  too 

narrow  to  be  considered  a  river,  wound  shiningly  along  the  further 

verge  of  those  champs  Elysees  and  helped  to  make  them  a  realm  of 

gold.     This  stream  had  a  name  which  you  now  know  to  be  of  Celtic 

origin  ;  the  Broad  Waters  it  was  called,  which  you  used  to  think  a 

ledskin,  a  Cooperian  kind  of  name.     As  you  scampered  down  the 

nconsiderable  convex  of  the  clover-fields  you  could  see  the  Broad 

Waters  gleaming  and  tempting  intolerably ;  you  unbuttoned  collar 

ind  waistcoat  as  you  ran,  and  into  that  alluring  fluid  you  pitched 

yourself  as  soon  as  ever  you  could  peel. 

There  were  hours  before  you — hours.  Evening  sunshine  lasted 
onger  then  than  it  does  now.  And  the  dip  was  only  one  part  of 
four  pleasures.  When  you  had  dived  and  swum  and  floated  to 
rour  heart's  content ;  when  you  had  larked  on  the  bank,  sun-dried 
yourself,  and  dressed — why,  then,  the  evening  still  being  golden, 
nd  nobody  near  you  but  Noll,  your  chum,  you  went  unostentatiously 
over  a  stile  and  across  the  second  Abbey  Meadow,  stealing  with 
Redskin  furtiveness  and  indirectness  towards  the  old  stone  coffin  in 
the  moat. 


682  THE   ABBEY   MEADOWS. 

Because — to  confess  a  cherished  and  perilous  secret  at  last — in 
that  uncanny  coffer  you  concealed  a  treasure  which  you  dared 
not  leave  in  your  box  at  school.  No,  not  cake,  nor  toffee,  nothing 
eatable,  but  '  something  to  read,'  something  to  read  again  and 
again.  And  this  something  to  read  being  something  illicit  also, 
the  old  stone  coffin  was  the  safest  as  well  as  the  most  imaginative 
treasury  you  could  find.  Hardly  a  schoolboy  but  Noll  and  yourself 
would  venture  near  that  golgotha ;  everybody  knew  it  to  be 
bewitched.  You  yourself  were  careful  to  quit  it  before  the  red  sun 
lost  his  clutch  on  the  hill.  For  the  place  was  haunted.  In  times 
of  flood,  when  the  moat  filled  up,  that  coffin  had  been  known  to 
sail !  Poachers  and  gamekeepers  at  night  had  seen  that  heavy 
old  trough  go  bumping  along  the  moat  like  a  drunkenly-steered 
barge  on  a  canal.  Sarcophagus,  moat,  mounds — every  bit  of  the 
second  Abbey  Meadow  would  scare  you  in  the  dusk  ;  dead  priests 
were  sleeping  the  clock  of  time  round  under  those  mounds. 

As  Noll  and  you  stole  forward,  Redskin  file,  you  were  therefore 
pretty  sure  that  your  cache — Redskin  again — would  not  have  been 
robbed.  For  first  the  curious  or  larcenous  must  dare  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  stone  coffin,  and  then  the  interior  of  the  coffin 
itself.  A  hamper-lid  lay  inside  it,  upon  a  pile  of  pieces  of  tile  that 
once  had  decorated  a  chancel  floor.  To-day  you  would  give  pounds 
for  those  fragments  of  tesselated  encaustic,  monk-made — if  you 
could  come  upon  them.  Forty  years  ago  they  were  merely  a  part 
of  the  game.  There  were  mystic  Greek  characters  on  one  of  them, 
you  remember,  and  on  another  a  coat  of  arms  which  you  now  know 
to  have  belonged  to  Eleanor  of  Castile.  Roughly  you  cast  them 
aside,  however,  uncovering  your  cache  ;  and  then  you  came  to  a 
tin  box,  quarto  in  size  and  shape,  the  which,  being  opened,  to  the 
breaking  of  finger-nails,  revealed  an  untidy  brown  paper  package ; 
the  which,  being  unstringed,  gave  your  illicit  treasure  to  the  light 
of  sunset.  There  in  the  coffin  of  a  sainted  abbot  lay  the  Adventures 
of  Jack  Sheppard  and  Blueskin,  Dick  Turpin  and  good  Black 
Bess! 

Nowadays  Noll  is  the  well-known  Canon  Olipher,  and  a  mighty 
preacher  before  the  Lord.  No  sand-glass  stands  on  his  pulpit- 
ledge.  Hour  glasses  are  as  much  abandoned  as  clepsydrae. 
Even  the  last  three-minute  glass  has  been  dislodged  from  the 
Clerk's  Table  in  the  House  of  Commons  now,  electricity  replacing 
the  golden  sands.  Does  the  eloquent  Canon  ever  remember  those 
hidden  penny  numbers,  you  wonder  ? — that  fruit  defendu,  so 


THE   ABBEY   MEADOWS.  683 

delicious  to  taste  and  re-taste  ?  There  on  the  weathered  edges  of 
the  coffin  the  pair  of  you  would  sit,  encharmed  within  the  golden 
evening,  reading  aloud  to  each  other  one's  favourite  bits  of  burglary 
or  the  '  high-toby  lay.'  Oliver  was  fonder  of  Blueskin,  and  you 
|  of  Tom  King,  you  remember ;  but  Oliver  was  better  than  you  at 
slate-pencil  pictures  of  Black  Bess  soaring  over  a  turnpike  gate. 
And  neither  of  you  ever  thought  how  improper  for  such  ungodly 
lections  was  the  green  spot  where  you  revelled  in  crime. 

Right,  left,  and  round  the  corner  ran  the  moat,  and  within  the 
vast  parallelogram  which  it  outlined  a  fair  Abbey  of  the  fourteenth 
century  once  stood.  Cistercians  there  had  created  sacristy  and 
j  cloister,  hospitium  and  chapter-house,  chapel,  refectory,  and  library 
innocent  of  such  Newgate  chronicles  as  gladdened  your  perverse 
i young  hearts.  There  where  you  thieved  vicariously 

The  Reader  had  droned  from  the  pulpit 

Like  the  murmur  of  many  bees 
The  legend  of  good  St.  Guthlac, 

And  St.  Basil's  homilies. 

i  There  the  boys  of  the  Abbey  school  had  been  thrashed  by  the 
Master  of  the  Novices,  for  bathing  in  the  Broad  Waters.  There 

Sin  the  scriptorium  the  deft  fingers  of  Gargantuan  monks  had 
wrought  in  gold-leaf,  ultramarine,  and  vermeil,  embroidering 
vellum  with  reed-pens  and  sparrow- quills.  There  lauds  and  primes 
and  complines  had  been  said  or  sung,  until  the  Dissolution  befell. 

Potential  or  actual  Blueskins  and  Turpins  there  may  have 
been  among  the  monks,  and  rare  high  jinks  in  the  Abbey  ;  but 
;  is  not  very  likely — the  Cistercian  Order  was  simple  and  severe. 
Yet  in  1539  it  pleased  the  King's  most  Excellent  Majesty  and  the 
ligh  Court  of  Parliament  to  ordain  that  '  the  possessions  of  such 
.ouses  shall  be  converted  to  better  uses,  to  the  pleasure  of  Almighty 
G-od  and  the  honour  and  profit  of  the  realm.'  So  that  the 
monks  of  Bordesley  Abbey  must  go  forth  into  a  wicked  world 
again,  carrying  with  them  their  abbot,  John  Day.  And  note  you 
;his :  among  them  was  one  Roger  Shakespere  himself !  Did  he 
eturn  to  Stratford,  you  wonder,  now  ?  Stratf ord-on-Avon  was  only 
sixteen  miles  away. 

Last  time  you  went  to  the  Abbey  Meadows  you  went  alone  ; 
Noll  would  be  preaching  somewhere  that  Sunday  evening,  no 
doubt.  You  had  not  shirked  your  '  prep.'  or  postponed  it.  You 
had  no  '  prep.'  to  do  ;  you  were  miserably  mature  and  grown  up. 
Nor  did  you  dive  into  the  Broad  Waters — they  had  narrowed, 


684  THE   ABBEY   MEADOWS. 

apparently — nor  dare  the  progeny  of  the  tethered  bull,  nor  leap 
the  forbidden  gate.  Staidly  you  walked  where  Abbot  Day  and 
Frere  Roger  used  to  pace  in  their  fastings,  and  your  heart  was 
sad  for  thinking  of  irreparable  times.  The  moat  was  quite  empty ; 
the  stone  coffin  had  been  sent  to  prison  in  a  museum,  and  every 
atom  of  your  cache  had  disappeared.  But  the  hours  are  kind  to 
those  who  muse,  and  when  you  sat  you  down  upon  a  mound  to 
day-dream  this  vision  came  to  you. 

The  form  of  a  stout  man,  clad  in  a  white  woollen  robe,  a  dark 
scapular  and  hood,  and  sandals,  stood  before  you;  when  you  dared 
to  ask  him  who  he  was,  '  Pulvis  et  umbra?  said  he.  But  being  , 
pressed  to  confess  his  conventual  name,  he  gave  it  as  Frere  Roger. 
'  Roger  ShaJcespere  ?  '  you  cried.  He  nodded,  and  you  rose  from 
the  mound,  saluting  him  as  cousin  to  the  wisest  of  the  great. 

The  twilight  had  wilted  away  into  darkness,  and  night,  moon- 
lit night,  was  suddenly  come.  Around  you  the  Abbey  had  risen 
again,  a  magical  emanation.  The  smaller  quadrangle  enclosed  I 
you.  '  See,  hospes,'  Frere  Roger  said,  '  we  stand  in  the  east  alley 
of  the  cloister ;  through  the  arches  you  view  the  cloister-garth, 
and  the  crosses  which  mark  our  last  beds.  But  here  is  our  dormi- 
tory while  we  sleep  alive.'  He  opened  a  door  in  the  cloister  wall, 
and  you  saw  the  pale  sub-prior  asleep.  At  his  head  the  keys  of 
the  Abbey  depended,  under  a  cresset  which  swung  from  a  beam. 
Sixteen  other  monks  lay  there,  each  on  his  mattress,  clad  in 
monastic  dress  and  the  hood  drawn  over  his  face.  But  you  could 
see  their  lips,  and  one  of  them  murmured  the  Confiteor  even  while 
he  slept. 

Then  suddenly  you  stood  in  the  Chapel.  A  white  figure,  lit  by 
the  lantern  he  carried,  was  kneeling  on  the  encaustic  floor  before 
the  high  altar — the  sacristan,  he.  For  he  drew  down  and  trimmed 
the  ever-burning  lamp  ;  and  then  he  stole  to  a  great  pier  of  ribbed 
stone,  unhooked  a  cord,  and  began  to  ring  a  slow  bell. 

'  Now  every  eye  is  opening,'  Roger  Shakespere  said,  '  and 
every  right  hand,  like  mine — yea,  and  thine — now  marketh  upon 
the  forehead  and  the  breast  the  sign  of  the  holy  rood.  So  !  In 
nomine  Patris  et  Filii  et  Spiritus  Sancti.  The  moon  shines  silverly 
— thou  wilt  see  the  brethren  enter  for  prayers.'  Through  the' 
arched  doorway  you  saw  the  east  alley  of  the  cloister  stretch  long 
and  chequered,  pied  with  the  bands  of  moonlight  and  the  bars  of 
shade.  Two  by  two  the  monks  approached,  white,  black-hooded 
figures,  marching  in  double  file,  the  stones  in  the  middle  of  the 


THE   ABBEY    MEADOWS.  685 

cloister  pavement  being  left  to  the  Abbot  to  tread.  Their  heads 
were  bended  ;  each  saw  but  the  bare  heels  and  skirt  of  the  one 
before  him  ;  their  hands  were  rolled  within  their  sleeves.  You 
thought  they  yawned,  and  some  seemed  somnambulistic  ;  when 
they  knelt  they  most  of  them  nodded  off  into  a  kind  of  sleep. 
'  They  are  now  to  chant  the  Paternoster,'  Frere  Roger  said  ;  '  also 
the  Ave  and  the  Credo.  My  stall  must  not  be  empty.  Vale  !  ' 
And  the  grand-uncle  of  William  Shakespeare  was  gone. 

Those  monastic  years  have  gone.  Forty  years  of  yours  have 
Igone,  and,  thanks  be,  you  have  not  held  up  a  coach  or  burgled  a 
imansion  yet.  Many  other  things  have  gone,  borne  off  on  the  stream 
jof  Time ;  perhaps  the  best  things  are  gone  ;  but  the  pleasures  of 
iremembrance  remain.  And  those  pleasures  so  deprave  you  that 
[you  wish  you  were  twelve  years  old  in  the  Abbey  Meadows  again, 
and  perched  on  the  borders  of  an  old  stone  coffin,  to  be  reading, 
laughing,  and  reading  anew  of  Sheppard  and  Claude  Duval.  .  .  . 

You  opened  your  mental  eyes,  with  a  stare.  You  were  in  your 
garden,  and  the  sun-dial  was  making  a  shot  at  five-and-twenty 
Jsast  ten  !  Your  train  would  have  gone  ten  minutes  ago — you 
must  catch  the  next !  So  you  hurried  indoors,  the  yellow-hammer 
protesting  in  vain. 

You  glanced  at  the  clock  ;  it  gave  you  no  welcome ;  it  ticked 
•eproachfully,  as  who  should  say  '  7  kept  steadily  at  work,  you 
)erceive.  I've  no  half-hours  to  waste  in  that  barbaric  green  place 
fou  call  the  garden  !  Look  at  your  pen  and  paper  lying  idle,  though 

t's  not  their  fault.   They  can't  be  expected  to  work  if  you ' 

'  Go  to  Chronos  !  '  you  said — '  or  to  Chronicus,  or  whoever  it 
s,  you  prating  old  bore  !  '  The  reply  was  one  haughty  cold  blow 
n  the  bell. 

The  bell  responded,  as  patiently  as  ever ;  you  heard  the  half 
ten  ten  detach  itself  tremblingly,  sigh  gently,  and  sink  into 
le  gulf  of  the  past.  You  know  the  hollow-booming  splash  of  the 
ucket  at  the  bottom  of  a  well  ?  And  what  dark  water  that  of 
ime  is,  how  furtive  and  chill !  The  bucket  arises  again  ;  the  pre- 
pitated  half-hour  can  never  emerge.  '  Make  me  to  know  mine 
nd,  and  the  measure  of  my  days,  what  it  is.' 

'  Ten  thirty-five,'  you  said  to  yourself,  pouncing  upon  gloves 
nd  umbrella  and  topper.  It  is  but  three  minutes  from  your  gate 
o  the  railway  station — that  is  why  you  miss  so  many  trains.  We 
re  thrifty  of  the  wrong  minutes,  miserly  of  the  by-and-by.  You 


686  THE    ABBEY    MEADOWS. 

pass  an  old  milestone  en  route.  It  is  dumb,  it  no  longer  tells  the 
distance  to  Charing  Cross  ;  Time's  tooth,  the  weather,  has  gnawed 
it  into  blankness.  But  who  needs  milestones  handy  to  a  railway 
station  or  a  garage  ?  Railway  stations  are  milestones  nowadays ; 
they  mark  our  distances  and  time-table  our  hours. 

I  fancy  that  time  and  space  are  one,  the  same  entity  ;  a  stride 
is  a  second,  a  mile  is  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  We  multiply  time  and 
space  when  we  ride,  drive,  rail,  tram,  motor,  or  fly.  Once  I  used 
to  think  that  time  was  stored  up  in  clocks,  just  as  tea  was  in  tins 
at  the  grocer's  ;  to  wind  a  clock  up  was  to  refill  it  with  time  ;  I  doi 
not  know  that  mathematicians  or  metaphysicians  have  gone  much, 
nearer  the  truth  than  that,  even  yet.  For  time  must  be  stored 
somewhere.  Perhaps  the  half-hours  which  have  detached  them- 
selves from  the  melting  mass  of  the  Future  are  stored  in  the  '  back 
of  beyond.' 

The  train  was  tardy,  so  you  caught  it,  and  you  distinctly  saw 
the  station  clock  reprove  it  for  being  late.  In  the  evening  you 
caught  another,  home,  and  woke  your  pen  and  paper  from  their! 
rest.  By  now  your  tedious  screed  and  nominy  on  Moral  Dynamics 
has  gone  into  the  waste-paper  basket,  unfinished.  Is  anything) 
ever  finished  ?  Not  an  author,  not  an  artist,  but  would  deny  thatj 
any  piece  of  work  is  ever  completed.  We  reach  to  arbitrary  cessa- 
tions and  apparent  endings  only.  And  Time  never  finishes;  iti* 
always  running  past  us  ;  time  only  seems  to  die.  An  old  Irish- 
woman, enjoying  her  Bank  Holiday  in  a  cemetery,  saw  ANNC 
DOMINI  on  a  stone.  '  Anna  Dominey  !  '  she  exclaimed.  '  Begoi 
then,  is  ould  Anna  gone  ?  Sure  an'  I  knew  her  well  when  hei 
was  cook  to  the  Lhord  Mayor  av  Dublin.'  There  were  certairj 
years  of  Our  Lord  which  you  knew  particularly  well ;  into  wha-; 
waste-paper  basket  have  they  been  cast  ? 

So  now  another  day  has  gone  beyond  the  bourne,  that  darli 
Broad  Water,  into  those  mounded  meadows  where  past  dayii 
await  resurrection  maybe ;  I  have  been  writing  this  since  dinner 
and  again  I  hear  the  hesitation,  the  detachment,  the  chiming 
wail,  and  the  fall  of  the  half  after  ten  into  the  past.  Thank  goods 
ness,  no  train  to  bed  to  catch  ;  and  the  train  of  to-morrow  is  rushing 
towards  me.  In  the  dark  station  of  sleep  I  will  wait  for  tha 
express. 


687 


PRINCE  RUPERT  ON   THE   SEA. 

1  There  walks  no  wind  'neath  Heaven 
Nor  wave  that  shall  restore 
The  old  careening  riot 
And  the  clamorous  crowded  shore. 
The  fountain  in  the  desert, 
The  cistern  in  the  waste, 
The  bread  we  ate  in  secret, 
The  cup  we  spilled  in  haste  ! ' — The  Song  of  Diego  Valdez. 

RUPERT  the  Cavalier  is  a  familiar  figure  to  all  the  world.     There 

can  be  few  who  have  not  dreamed  in   colourless  hours  of   the 

dashing  boy  who,  hurrying  to  England  to  help  his  uncle  in  his 

need,  found  himself  almost  the  one  soldier  of  experience  in  that 

fantastic,  jaunty  army  of  silk  and  tatters  ;  the  boy  who  swept 

through  England  like  a   brilliant  flame,  until   Puritan  mothers 

hushed  their  children  with  the  threat  of  Devil  Rupert.     One  has 

but  to  close  one's  eyes  to  see  him,  '  very  sparkish  as  always  upon 

the  day  of  battle,  in  his  red  montrero,'  with  his  bright  tossed  curls 

and  long  white  sword,  rousing  his  reckless,  undisciplined  cavalry 

to  one  of  those  whirlwind  charges  that  will  ever  be  associated  with 

his  fame.     Throughout  all  the  war  no  troops  could  ever  withstand 

those  daredevil  hurtlings  of  horse,  and  yet — it  was  seldom  enough 

that  they  decided  a  battle.     As  at  Marston  Moor,  so  at  Naseby, 

Rupert  crashed  like  a  storm  upon  the  opposing  wing,  swept  it 

>efore  him  in  red  ruin,  and  returned  with  a  weary  handful  to  find 

he  battle  lost.     And  so  one  has  other  pictures  of  Rupert  besides 

lis  successes,  one  sees  him  spurring  his  jaded  horse  over  that  high 

ence  into  the  beanfield  after  Cromwell  had  turned  the  brief  triumph 

)f  Naseby  into  a  shameful  rout ;  one  sees  him  riding  slowly  through 

he  gates  of  surrendered  Bristol,  very  gay  in  scarlet  and  silver 

ace,  but  with  an  ache  in  his  heart  that  he  remembered  till  his 

ieath.    And  in  all  those  familiar  pictures  he  is  true  to  the  character 

i  a  valiant,  honourable  gentleman,  failing  in  judgment  often 

nough,  yielding  not  seldom  to  temper  and  arrogant  ambition, 

but  ever  setting  far  before  his  own  interests  the  cause  of  his 

wife-swayed,  vacillating,  supremely  well-intentioned  king.     With 

Ormonde  and  Montrose,  Rupert,  despite  all  the  tattle  of  historians 


688  PRINCE    RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

and  the  passing  of  chilling  years,  is  still  typical  of  the  best  of  that 
gallant  chivalry  that  squandered  itself  for  the  royal  cause.  These 
things  need  no  retelling,  but  there  is  perhaps  a  chapter  in  his  life 
far  less  well  known. 

It  would  appear  that  the  gods  distribute  the  romance  of  life 
with  most  unequal  hands.  To  ninety-nine  folk  in  the  world  they 
dole  out  drab-hued,  uneventful  lives  ;  to  the  hundredth  they  fling 
a  pageant  of  crowded  years.  And  such  an  one,  for  his  happiness 
or  his  woe,  was  Rupert  the  Palatine.  It  was  his  lot  to  raise  high 
the  gleaming  cup  of  adventure,  to  drain  to  the  very  dregs  its 
sparkling  wine,  and  one  may  only  guess  whether  or  no  that  wine 
was  bitter  on  his  lips.  Often  enough  at  the  last,  one  fancies,  it 
was  as  gall,  but  at  least  the  cup  was  drained.  Those  arduous 
years  of  hazard  in  England  would  have  provided  for  most  men 
memories  to  suffice  for  the  rest  of  their  peaceful  days,  but  with 
their  ending  Rupert's  real  knight-errantry  did  but  begin.  For 
when  the  strange,  pitiful  game  had  been  played  at  last  to  a  finish, 
when  the  hopes  of  the  loyal  party  had  flickered  out  once  for  all, 
when  the  king  had  bidden  the  remnant  of  his  servants  look  to 
themselves  and  strive  no  more  for  him,  then  it  was  that  the  old 
Viking  spirit  awoke  in  Rupert  and  drove  him  from  palaces  out  to 
the  spaces  that  are  ruled  by  the  wild  winds  of  God.  And  it  is  of 
those  days  that  I  propose  to  tell,  of  the  days  when  the  sea  called 
to  Rupert  and  he  hearkened  to  her  keening  cry. 

For  two  years  the  Prince  had  found  refuge  in  France  since  the 
day  when  the  English  Parliament  had  not  unjoyfully  granted  to 
Maurice  and  himself  passes  with  which  to  quit  the  country.    He 
had  been  received  by  the  French  with  an  adulation  that  might  ! 
well  have  turned  an  even  older  head,  for  the  story  of  his  brilliant  ' 
daring,  his  loyalty,  and  his  defeats  had  made  him  the  romantic  ! 
hero  of  all  Europe.     Mazarin  had  offered  him  any  command  he 
chose  in  the  French  army,  and  at  the  head  of  the  exiled  English 
he  had  taken  part  in  a  campaign  against  the  Spaniards.     There 
can  be  no  question  but  that  a  career  of  glittering  promise  was 
within  his  grasp,  but — well,  Rupert's  faith  and  affection  were  of 
the  rare,  odd  and,  no  doubt,  ridiculous  type  that,  once  given,  do 
not  lightly  change.     He  had  fought  with  small  enough  thanks  for  , 
his  Stuart  uncle  and  cousins,  and  he  had  an  inexplicable  hankering 
to  serve  them  once  again.     And  so,  at  a  word  from  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  he  flung  his  French  prospects  to  the  winds. 

It  appeared  that  a  certain  reaction  had  taken  place  in  England. 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  689 

Many  folk  who  had  fought  staunchly  enough  against  the  king, 
found  themselves,  after  the  curious  English  fashion,  in  sympathy 
with  Charles  Stuart,  now  that  he  was  beaten  and  down.  They 
had  grave  doubts  as  to  whether  the  Millennium  was  really  coming, 
in  spite  of  the  preaching  of  many  fluently  incoherent,  straight- 
haired  prophets.  At  the  least,  a  portion  of  the  fleet  revolted  from 
the  Parliament,  and  came  over  to  Holland  to  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
strongly  inclined  to  be  well  pleased  with  itself  and  to  stand  out 
for  its  rights  and  dignities  in  all  things.  And  at  Helvoetsluys 
those  ships  were  met  by  Kupert,  and  their  crews  learned  certain 
lessons  at  his  hands. 

In  his  short  life — for  he  was  now  only  twenty-nine — he  had 
been  set  many  tasks  of  exacting  difficulty  ;  he  had  been  required 
to  shape  an  army  out  of  valiant  gentlemen,  who  flatly  declined 
I  to  accept  all  orders,  and  wastrel  servants  and  pages,  who  conceived 
'  constant  drunkenness  to  be  the  hall-mark  of  a  soldier  ;  he  had 
I  endeavoured  to  serve  a  king  whose  views  were  moulded  by  his 
wife  and  by  the  last  favourite  with  whom  he  chanced  to  speak  ; 
and  he  had  struggled  for  years  against  puerile  jealousies  and  heart- 
I  breaking  intrigues.     But  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  work 
i  before  him  now  was  not  the  hardest  to  which  he  had  set  his  hand. 
|  The  provisions  of  the  fleet  were  scanty,  the  ships  were  rotten,  the 
|  loyalty  of  the  officers  was  doubtful,  the  sailors  were  mutinous  and 
clamouring  for  pay.     There  was  no  money,  no  money  at  all,  even 
to  provide  the  common  necessities  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  his 
wandering  court,  and  as  usual  that  wayward  Prince's  advisers  were 
at  each  other's  throats.     Nor  was  this  all.     The  Earl  of  Warwick 
with  a  parliamentary  fleet  had  followed  the  mutineers  into  Hel- 
voetsluys, and  the  squadrons  lay  within  a  musket-shot  of  each 
ther,  like  insecurely  muzzled  dogs,  unable  to  fight  because  within 
neutral  port.     But  affrays  upon  shore  between  the  sailors  were 
requent,  and  Rupert's  unpaid  and  dissatisfied  men  were  daily 
nticed  to  desertion. 

These  difficulties  and  Rupert's  handling  of  them  are  of  interest, 
that  they  afford  clear  proof  of  the  growth  and  moulding  of  his 
haracter.  The  Prince  was  no  longer  the  wild,  headlong  boy  who 
ad  raved  when  fools  crossed  him  wantonly,  who  had  acted  ever 
ipon  the  moment's  impulse.  Rupert,  it  is  undoubted,  was 
earning  to  know  and  fear  himself,  and  with  the  knowledge  was 
earning  to  rule  others.  He  had  won  at  last  to  the  partial  mastery 
f  his  flaming  temper.  He  was  not  yet  the  somewhat  cold, 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  167,  N.S.  44 


690  PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

sardonic,  disappointed  man  that  he  afterwards  became,  but  he 
had  lost  some  of  his  dreams,  some  of  his  bright-hued  illusions. 
And  for  the  rest,  he  had  always  had  the  effortless  Stuart  charm 
to  draw  men's  hearts  towards  him.  It  is  most  easy  to  believe  that 
he  was  generous  and  lovable  as  one  looks  at  the  portraits  of  his 
younger  days.  With  his  huge  stature,  with  his  clean-cut,  hawk- 
like face,  his  dark,  brilliant  eyes,  his  long  graceful  curls,  with  the 
glamour  of  his  gay,  unfailing  courage  and  knightly  deeds,  he  must 
have  been  a  leader  whom  men  were  blithe  indeed  to  follow. 

And  soon  enough  he  did  win  even  these  grumblers  ;  soon  enough 
there  was  to  come  a  day  when,  in  the  very  teeth  of  chilly  death, 
the  men  who  had  once  risen  upon  him  with  curses  were  to  prefer 
his  life  to  their  own.  But  at  first  there  was  trouble  and  to  spare. 
There  was  open  mutiny  in  his  fleet  at  Helvoetsluys,  beginning 
'  with  a  complaint  upon  victuals.'  Within  two  days  the  Prince 
had  himself  to  walk  the  deck  of  the  Antelope,  '  to  see  his  com- 
mands obeyed.'  The  men  rose  against  him  with  oaths  and 
clamouring,  but  Rupert — swung  up  the  ringleader  in  his  arms,  and 
made  to  hurl  him  into  the  sea.  And  there  seems  to  have  been 
something  in  the  fineness  of  his  utter  courage  that  cowed  the  rest 
to  submission.  Also  he  put  a  stop  to  the  desertions  to  the  Earl 
of  Warwick's  squadron,  by  manning  the  Convertine  with  his 
most  loyal  men,  and  laying  her  with  loaded  guns  athwart  the  rest 
of  his  fleet.  Later,  since  mutiny  was  inevitable  unless  the  men 
were  paid,  he  sent  out  his  frigates  after  prizes.  From  his  point  of 
view  such  privateering  was  entirely  legitimate.  He  only  proposed 
to  capture  merchantmen  belonging  to  Roundhead  owners,  and  the 
need  was  very  great.  The  Prince  of  Wales  was  not  far  short  of 
actual  starvation,  and  the  men  must  be  paid.  It  is  true  that  one 
reads  of  '  a  Dutch  craft  worth  10,OOOL'  being  sent  to  the  young  , 
King  next  year  for  '  travel  money  '  to  take  him  to  Ireland,  but— 
mistakes  will  always  be  made  at  times  ! 

The  Prince  of  Wales  acknowledged  that  but  for  his  cousin's  > 
industry  and  skill  there  would  have  been  no  fleet  at  all.    Rupert 
seems  to  have  done  everything.     It  was  he  who  sold  the  prizes, , 
who  became  laboriously  expert  in  the  prices  of  sugar,  tobacco, 
indigo,    &c.     He   attended   to   his   own   commissariat,   procuring, 
shirts  and  other  apparel  for  his  men   and   dispensing   with   the 
cheating  commissioners.     Rupert  through  all  his  life  spent  his 
whole  heart  and  strength  upon  anything  to  which  he  put  his  hand. 
And  let  it  be  remembered,  when  his  '  piracy '  is  condemned,  that 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  691 

he  asked  and  gained  nothing  for  himself,  that  every  farthing  of 
his  winnings  went  to  his  spendthrift  cousins,  and  to  the  main- 
tenance of  his  fleet.  To  me  there  is  something  not  wanting  in 
fineness  about  even  these  groping  mercantile  experiences  of  a 
young  prince  trained  only  to  war  and  pleasure. 

A  letter  came  at  this  time  from  the  King  in  his  prison  upon  the 

Isle  of  Wight,  begging  Rupert,  one  of  the  very  few  who  had  never 

failed  him  despite  his  insincerities,  to  bring  a  ship  of  war  for 

his  escape.     Rupert,  sorely  against  his  will,  was  dissuaded  from 

attempting  the  task  in  person,  and  the  commander  whom  he  sent 

accomplished   nothing.     And   with   that   failure   the  King's  last 

|  chance  of  life  was  wasted.    Montrose  was  in  Holland  at  this  time, 

|  very  eager  that  the  Palatine  should  sail  with  him  upon  a  venture 

to  Scotland,  and  one  wonders  what  those  two  knight-errants,  akin 

as  they  were  in  daring  and  chivalry,  might  have  accomplished 

I  had  the  project   taken   shape.      But    the    Scotch    were    grimly 

prejudiced  against  Kupert,  and  he  parted  from  the  Marquis,  never 

to  meet  him  again.     The  one  was  to  find  a  death  of  high  honour 

upon  the  gallows,  the  other  was  to  play  his  part  through  stormy 

heartbreaking  years. 

It  was  in  January  1649  that  Rupert  sailed  for  Ireland,  where 
the  Marquis  of  Ormonde  still  held  out  for  the  King.     It  had  been 
necessary  to  scrape  together  money  from  Lord  Craven  and  from 
the  pawning  of  the  Queen  of  Bohemia's  jewels,  but  the  fleet  had 
een  equipped  at  last.    With  him  as  Vice- Admiral  sailed  Prince 
Maurice,  in  whose  character  only  two  qualities  seem  to  be  dis- 
ernible  across  the  haze  of  the  years,  a  dauntless  courage,  and  a 
ove  and  loyalty  for  Rupert  that  never  wavered  through  his  short, 
npeaceful  life.   The  voyage  was  not  uneventful.   Rupert  had  seven 
hips  and  a  prize  in  his  squadron,  which  had  been  joined  tempo- 
arily  by  three  Dutch  craft,  and  off  Dover  they  sighted  a  parlia- 
aentary  fleet  of  superior  force.     The  captains  counselled  flight, 
>ut  Rupert — well,  in  daring,  at  least,  he  was  the  same  Rupert  of 
he  English  wars  !     He  led  his  ships,  as  though  for  all  the  world 
hey  had  been  a  forlorn  of  horse,  straight  at  that  hostile  fleet,  and 
t  retired  beneath  the  forts  of  Dover.    Rupert  went  his  way  in 
riumph  to  Kinsale. 

It  was  there  that  he  first  heard,  with  real  rage  and  grief,  as  one 
nay  believe,  of  the  King's  execution.  But  at  least  the  shock  of 
hose  tidings  did  nothing  to  weaken  his  sword  arm.  In  Kinsale 
ie  stayed  for  months,  swooping  forth  at  intervals  to  the  Bristol 

44—2 


692  PRINCE    RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

Channel,  with  such  success  that  '  the  harbour  was  stored  with 
prizes.'  Upon  the  fruits  of  his  privateering  alone  the  young  King's 
court  subsisted  for  three  years,  and  it  may  be  of  interest  to  quote, 
from  his  Majesty's  commission  to  Kupert,  the  fashion  in  which  the 
prizes  were  divided.  The  King  was  allowed  one-fifteenth  of  the 
whole,  his  admiral  one-tenth,  and  the  remainder  was  divided  into 
three  parts.  One  of  these  went  to  the  owners  of  such  ships  as 
were  sent  out  at  their  respective  costs,  one  other  to  the  victuallers, 
and  the  third  was  divided  among  the  crews  in  due  proportion.  For 
the  rest, '  in  case  we  fight,  then  all  the  pillage  between  decks  belongs 
to  the  company  that  enters  ;  if  we  enter  and  fight  not,  then  the 
pillage  to  be  brought  to  the  mainmast  and  prized.  Likewise, 
where  a  ship  is  fought  withal  and  entered  by  force,  then  the  best 
gun  belongs  to  the  captain,  and  what  belongs  to  the  (defeated) 
captain  taken  in  his  cabin  ;  to  the  gunner,  the  second  gun  ;  to  the 
master,  the  best  cable  and  anchor  ;  to  the  boatswain,  the  kedge 
and  hawser  ;  the  master's  mates'  mates,  the  mainsail ;  the  surgeon, 
the  surgeon's  chest ;  the  carpenter,  the  carpenter's  tools  ;  the  cook, 
the  kettle  ;  the  gunner's  mates,  the  loose  powder  ;  the  trumpeter, 
the  mizen  ;  the  drummer,  the  drum  ;  the  hatches  to  be  spiked  down 
of  all  prizes  upon  entering.'  (Which  precaution  was,  no  doubt, 
most  necessary.)  '  Common  men  to  have  two  shares  ...  a  boy, 
half  a  share.  Perhaps  ten  shares  out  of  every  prize  to  be  reserved 
for  wounded  men.' 

Kupert's  frigate  the  Charles  was  taken  by  two  Parliament 
ships  after  a  stubborn  fight,  and  when  the  winter  came  Rupert 
himself  was  blockaded  in  Kinsale  Harbour,  with  a  hostile  fleet 
outside  and  the  forts  treacherous  behind  him.  Cromwell  himself 
was  storming  southwards  through  Ireland,  leaving  in  his  track 
only  death  and  crushed  submission,  and  it  was  emphatically  time 
for  Rupert  to  be  gone.  Luckily  a  north-east  gale  dispersed  the 
enemy,  and  the  Prince  slipped  away  for  Portugal  with  seven  ships. 
With  the  forces  that  were  out  against  him  it  had  been  madness, 
even  for  him,  to  venture  longer  within  English  waters. 

He  reached  the  Tagus  in  triumph,  having  taken  at  least  four 
rich  prizes  upon  the  voyage,  and  was  invited  to  Lisbon  by  the  King 
of  Portugal.  Here  he  and  Maurice  were  magnificently  entertained,; 
but  within  a  few  days  there  came  a  jarring  interruption  to  the 
festivities.  A  certain  Robert  Blake,  not  unknown  to  fame,  arrived 
with  a  Parliament  fleet  and  an  ambassador  from  the  States  oi 
England,  demanding  either  the  surrender  of  the  Princes'  persons/ 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  693 

or  that  they  should  at  once  be  sent  out  to  sea,  into  the  jaws  of  the 
aforesaid  Robert  Blake.  The  Portuguese  temporised,  having 
promised  to  make  good  the  law  of  nations  to  Rupert,  which  would 
provide  him  with  three  days'  start  of  his  enemies.  There  followed 
attempts  by  the  English  to  kidnap  Rupert  as  he  hunted  on  shore, 
and  certain  retaliations  on  the  part  of  the  Prince.  At  the  last 
Blake  captured  the  Brazilian  fleet,  and  the  harassed  King  of  Portugal 
entreated  Rupert  to  attempt  its  rescue.  The  Prince  nothing  loath 
put  forth,  but  Blake  evaded  him  in  the  mist  and  drew  away  with 
his  prizes  towards  Gales.  The  road  was  now  clear,  and  Rupert, 
having  disposed  of  his  plunder  for  40,OOOL,  the  bulk  of  which  he 
forwarded  to  the  young  King,  acceded  to  the  agonised  Portuguese 
hints  and  left  the  Tagus. 

He  cruised  for  a  while  upon  the  Spanish  coast,  burning  with  a 
fireship  the  vessel  of  the  regicide  Captain  Morley  at  Malaga,  and 
destroying  three  English  ships  at  Montril  under  the  guns  of  the 
Spanish  forts.  Then,  after  taking  several  prizes,  he  set  a  course 
for  Tunis,  but  most  of  his  captains  ignored  his  orders  and  entered 
Cartagena.  There  Blake  came  upon  them,  and  they  were  forced 
to  run  their  ships  on  shore  and  set  them  on  fire.  Rupert  and 
Maurice  had  sailed  from  Tunis  for  Toulon,  but  were  separated  in  a 
gale,  and  the  younger  Prince  reached  the  French  port  alone  with 
his  prizes,  fearing  the  worst  about  his  brother.  After  several  days 
Rupert  arrived  in  safety,  and  the  meeting  between  the  two  is  said 
to  have  been  rapturous.  On  shore  they  were  royally  entertained 
by  the  French  admiral,  and  in  due  course  Rupert's  captains  arrived, 
somewhat  chapfallen,  and  each  accusing  the  other.  One  of  them 
fled  to  escape  punishment,  and  Rupert  contented  himself  with 
severely  reprimanding  the  rest.  He  here  received  renewed  offers 
of  important  employment  in  France,  but  declined  to  abandon 
Maurice  and  the  wild  work  that  he  had  taken  in  hand.  He  sold 
his  prizes,  and  then,  having  purchased  one  craft  and  being  joined 
by  another,  he  sailed  with  five  ships  for  the  Barbary  coast. 

From  that  hour,  perhaps,  the  most  desperate  chapter  of  his 
strange  life  begins.  The  Portuguese  ports  were  definitely  closed 
to  him,  Spain  had  declared  for  the  Commonwealth,  '  and,'  as  his 
chronicler  has  it,  '  now  we  plough  the  sea  for  a  subsistence,  and 
being  destitute  of  a  port,  we  take  the  confines  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea  for  our  harbour  ;  poverty  and  despair  being  companions,  and 
revenge  our  guide.'  These  be  gloomy  words  indeed,  but  somehow 
I  do  not  fancy  that  Rupert  himself  was  greatly  cast  down.  His 


694  PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

spirits  had  the  good  knack  of  rising  to  meet  adversity.  The  more 
countries  that  declared  against  his  King,  the  more  prizes  were 
legally  his  for  the  taking  !  Any  English  ship  that  refused  to 
acknowledge  his  own  commission  as  Lord  High  Admiral  of  England 
was  a  fish  for  his  wide-swept  net.  And  so,  let  us  spread  a  false 
report  that  we  are  bound  for  the  Archipelago,  and  steer  with  high 
hearts  for  the  West  Indies  ! 

But  it  soon  appeared  that  his  own  officers  had  objections  to 
such  a  voyage.  He  reached  Madeira,  after  thinking  fit  to  capture 
a  Genoese  vessel  in  the  Straits,  partly,  we  are  told,  as  a  reprisal  for 
the  stealing  of  a  caravel  by  the  Genoese,  and,  even  more  perhaps, 
because  his  men  clamoured  for  the  prize.  They  also  took  a  Spanish 
galleon,  but,  after  their  kindly  reception  at  Madeira,  disaffection 
sprang  up  in  the  little  fleet.  Rupert  must  keep  his  temper  in  the 
face  of  just  such  maddening  jealousies  and  discords  as  came  near 
to  breaking  his  heart  in  the  English  war,  and,  against  his  better 
judgment,  he  yielded  to  the  voting  of  his  council  that  they  should 
sail  for  the  Azores.  We  read  of  secret  meetings  in  the  cabins,  of 
veiled  insolence  to  the  Prince,  of  attempts  to  tamper  with  his 
very  domestics.  But  Eupert  somehow  had  attained  to  patient 
firmness,  caused  certain  of  the  cabins  to  be  abolished,  put  an  end 
to  candle-light  meetings,  and  at  last  gladly  permitted  the  chief 
malcontent  to  quit  the  fleet.  After  that  we  hear  of  no  more 
grumbling,  but  one  and  all  were  to  pay  dearly  for  the  voyage  to 
the  Azores. 

After  leaving  St.  Michael  the  little  fleet  was  hurled  for  days 
before  a  great  gale,  and  upon  the  third  afternoon  Rupert's  own 
flagship,  the  Constant  Reformation,  which  had  long  been  rotten, 
was  beyond  all  hope.  She  had  started  a  butt,  and,  although  a 
hundred  and  twenty  pieces  of  raw  beef  were  trodden  between  the 
timbers,  and  planks  nailed  over  them,  the  water  gained  fast  upon 
the  pumps.  She  had  lost  her  mainmast  and  her  one  large  boat, 
and  although  the  other  ships  had  seen  her  signals  of  distress  the 
heavy  sea  made  any  attempt  to  venture  near  exceedingly  perilous. 

Rupert's  men  behaved  admirably,  and  he  himself  appears  to 
have  accepted  the  approach  of  death  with  entire  calm.  He  sig- 
nalled to  Maurice  to  run  down  under  his  stern  that  he  might  speak 
his  last  words  to  him,  '  but  the  hideous  noise  of  the  winds  and  seas 
overnoised  their  voices.5  Maurice,  almost  frantic,  swore  that  he 
would  save  his  brother  or  perish,  but  his  captain  and  officers  refused 
in  mutinous  terms  to  venture  their  ship  within  crushing  distance 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  695 

of  the  sinking  craft.  He  ordered  them  to  launch  the  one  small 
skiff,  but  the  men  stubbornly  delayed  to  get  her  out.  His  captain 
walked  the  deck,  saying  calmly,  '  Gentlemen,  it  is  a  great  mis- 
chance, but  who  can  help  it  ?  '  The  Honest  Seaman  endeavoured 
to  render  more  effective  aid  by  running  down  to  the  flagship  '  that 
they  might  enter  her  men  upon  their  bowsprit,'  but  the  attempt, 
desperate  enough  in  such  weather,  proved  futile. 

It  was  then  that  the  crew  of  the  reeling  flagship  did  a  thing 
worthy  of  some  little  fame.  They  besought  Rupert  to  attempt 
to  save  himself  in  their  one  tiny  boat,  since  death  otherwise  was 
certain,  and  when  he  refused,  saying  that  they  would  continue  to 
share  each  other's  fortunes  to  the  end,  they  chose  a  small  picked 
crew  and  set  the  Prince  in  the  little  boat  by  force.  '  They  desired 
him  at  parting  to  remember  they  died  his  true  servants.'  These 
things,  and  Rupert's  reluctance  to  be  saved,  are  vouched  for  by 
three  separate  narratives.  The  crazy  boat,  as  by  a  miracle,  lived 
to  reach  the  Honest  Seaman  and  was  at  once  sent  back  for  the 
rescue  of  others.  Only  Captain  Fearnes  consented  to  go  in  her. 
M.  Mortaigne,  whom  Rupert  had  especially  begged  to  come,  pre- 
ferred to  die  with  the  rest  like  a  chivalrous  gentleman  of  France. 
The  skiff  sank  after  that  second  journey,  and  although  Rupert, 
half  wild  with  grief  and  not  ignoble  shame,  bade  the  captain  of  the 
Honest  Seaman  run  alongside  the  wallowing  craft  at  all  hazards, 
'  they  could  not  fetch  to  her,  since  without  masts  or  sails  she  made 
so  much  less  leeway.  Rupert,  when  every  despairing  effort  had 
been  made  in  vain,  had  to  watch  what  followed  quite  impotently. 
The  chaplain  of  the  Constant  Reformation  had  stayed  with  his 
flock,  and  he  was  seen  to  give  Holy  Communion  to  the  crew  drawn 
up  upon  the  quarter-deck.  And  then,  as  still  he  watched,  night 
came  at  a  stride.  .  .  .  About  nine  o'clock  two  fire  pikes  flamed  out 
of  the  darkness,  the  final  signal  to  their  admiral  of  some  three 
hundred  not  unworthy  men.' 

One  fancies  that  that  was  the  last  great  blow  but  one  of  Rupert's 
life,  that  after  that  one  other  even  greater  grief  he  was  hardened 
and  dulled  against  the  whips  of  fate.  He  was  taken  aboard 
Maurice's  ship  next  day,  and  there  he  remained  for  some  days 
almost  in  hiding,  '  overladen  with  the  grief  of  so  inestimable  a 
loss.'  With  the  flagship  had  gone  down  the  cream  of  the  plunder 
from  their  prizes,  but,  as  Rupert  wrote  simply  enough  to  Herbert, 
'  it  was  not  the  greatest  loss  to  me.' 

Soon  enough  it  was  vitally  necessary  for  him  as  leader  to  put 


696  PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

away  his  trouble.  They  made  again  for  Fayal,  where  the  Portu- 
guese, thinking  that  they  had  only  Maurice  to  deal  with,  were 
far  less  friendly  than  before.  They  took  his  officers  prisoners,  and 
even  fired  upon  his  men.  Rupert  guessed  that  a  peace  had  been 
arranged  between  the  Commonwealth  and  Portugal,  but — he  dealt 
faithfully  with  the  governor !  The  prisoners  were  hastily  released 
and  the  fleet  allowed  to  take  in  stores. 

It  was  here  that  Rupert  got  rid  of  his  chief  grumbler,  and  it  was 
here  that  he  came  to  a  decision  to  decide  all  things  for  himself  in 
future.  Which  was  a  decision  characteristic  enough  of  the  Palatine. 
They  steered  a  course  for  the  West  Indies,  putting  in  at  Cape  Blanco 
that  the  ships  might  be  refitted  and  careened.  Cattle  were  necessary 
for  a  store  of  dried  or  bucanned  beef,  and  Rupert,  having  made  a 
camp  ashore,  marched  inland  with  a  hundred  men.  He  came  in  a 
thick  fog  upon  the  tents  of  the  nomadic  natives,  and  they  fled  from 
him,  leaving  behind  their  sheep  and  goats.  These  were  secured, 
in  addition  to  '  a  man  child,  who  embraced  Prince  Rupert's  legs 
very  fast,  taking  him  for  his  own  parent.'  (This  is  the  '  little 
nigger '  mentioned  several  times  years  after  in  Holmes'  letters  to 
Rupert.  In  1653,  as  Miss  Scott  records,  '  an  African  lad  of  five,' 
is  mentioned  by  one  of  Cromwell's  spies  as  '  part  of  the  prey  the 
Prince  brought  over  seas.')  The  natives  proved  treacherous, 
although  Rupert  endeavoured  to  treat  with  them  fairly.  They 
were  exceedingly  anxious  to  recover  '  the  man  child  '  and  their 
herds,  but  before  any  arrangement  could  be  made  they  killed  a 
hostage  and  a  prisoner  and  fled  inland.  Rupert  pursued  with  great 
fury,  but  failed  to  overtake  them.  His  chronicler  says  of  these 
natives  that  the  milk  of  the  cattle  is  their  only  drink,  there  being  no 
fresh  water  in  the  country.  '  They  assuage  the  cattle's  thirst  with 
the  inlets  of  the  sea,  knowing  no  other  refreshing ' — which  appears 
somewhat  surprising. 

Rupert  himself  procured  water  with  a  shallop  from  Argin 
Island,  and  chartered  a  Dutch  ship  to  carry  to  France  his  prize  cargo 
of  sugar  and  ginger.  He  wrote  to  Charles,  heading  his  letter  '  what 
our  ship's  company  desired  me  to  say  to  the  King.'  In  that  letter 
he  begs  his  Majesty  to  make  what  use  he  will  of  the  prize  money ; 
'  in  such  a  case,  I  dare  say,  there  will  be  none  among  us  will  grumble 
at  it.  All  I  humbly  beg  is  ...  that  your  Majesty  be  pleased  to 
look  upon  us  as  having  undergone  some  hazards  equal  with  others. 
Had  it  pleased  God  to  preserve  the  Constant  Reformation,  I  had 
loaded  the  vessel  with  better  goods.'  He  also  begged  that  the 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  697 

debts  he  had  contracted  at  Toulon  for  the  fleet  might  be  satisfied, 
but  needless  to  say  this  was  neglected.  Rupert  was  always 
curiously  scrupulous  over  debts  for  a  man  with  Stuart  blood  in 
his  veins,  and  to  the  non-fulfilment  of  his  honourable  request  may 
perhaps  be  traced  his  quarrel  with  the  young  King  after  his  return 
to  France. 

They  watered  at  the  Cape  Verde  Islands,  and  sailed  thence  to 
Santiago,  where  the  Portuguese  governor  received  them  courteously. 
Acting  upon  his  information,  Rupert  adventured  up  the  Gambia, 
where,  despite  the  perils  of  the  shallows,  he  secured  three  English 
and  one  Spanish  prize.  From  one  of  these  they  took  a  negro  named 
Jacus,  whom  they  treated  kindly  and  liberated — a  generosity  that 
he  afterwards  repaid.  One  has  glimpses  at  this  time  of  Rupert 
receiving  native  monarchs  with  much  state,  and  one  fancies  that 
both  he  and  Maurice  could  still  at  times  be  boys  at  heart. 

Upon  their  way  back  to  the  Cape  Verde  Islands,  Robert  Holmes, 
one  of  Rupert's  most  trusty  officers,  who  had  landed  with  a  boat's 
crew,  was  taken  prisoner  by  natives.  Both  Princes  '  extremely 
moved '  at  once  dashed  ashore  to  the  rescue.  Whilst  they  treated 
with  the  natives,  the  negro  Jacus  gave  timely  warning  that  his 
countrymen  meditated  treachery.  A  sharp  fight  began,  and  Rupert 
was  wounded  in  the  breast  by  a  poisoned  arrow,  which  he  promptly 
cut  out  himself  with  a  knife,  apparently  suffering  no  ill  effects. 
With  the  help  of  Jacus,  Holmes  and  the  other  prisoners  were 
rescued,  and  the  Princes  retreated  to  the  fleet.  Such  brisk  adven- 
tures seem  to  have  been  accepted  by  them  in  a  most  light-hearted 
spirit,  but  in  those  days  they  were  still  together,  to  share  all  chances 
as  they  came.  Afterwards,  in  the  black  days  that  were  coming, 
it  was  very  different,  when  Rupert  must  tread  his  path  alone.  '  The 
fidelity  of  Jacus,'  as  the  chronicler  remarks  sententiously,  '  may 
teach  us  that  heathens  are  not  void  of  moral  honesty.'  Jacus 
himself,  that  dusky  moralist,  declined  to  be  taken  away  by  the 
English,  averring  that  he  was  not  in  the  least  afraid  to  stay. 

Their  roving  through  all  these  months  reads  like  a  most  vivid 
romance,  but  space  forbids  that  it  should  be  recounted  here  in 
detail.  We  hear  of  more  English  prizes  surrendering,  and  of  a  Dane 
taken  by  Maurice  and  promptly  released  by  Rupert.  The  little 
fleet  separated  for  a  while,  and  on  the  voyage  to  Sal  the  crew  of  the 
Revenge  overpowered  their  officers,  and  sailed  her  back  to  England. 
It  seems  that  her  captain  had  been  '  over  covetous  '  of  men  pressed 
out  of  prizes,  and  had  paid  the  obvious  penalty.  From  that  crew 


698  PRINCE    RUPERT   ON    THE   SEA. 

the  government  in  England  received,  of  course,  a  lurid  account  ot 
Rupert's  '  piracy.'  Near  Barbados  the  Swallow,  Rupert's  flagship, 
sprang  a  leak,  and  they  had  to  put  into  Santa  Lucia.  At  Mont- 
serrat  they  took  two  small  English  prizes,  but  one,  proving  to  be 
the  property  of  a  Royalist,  was  at  once  released.  At  Nevis  they 
attacked  a  large  scattered  fleet  of  merchantmen,  and  Rupert's 
secretary  was  shot  down  at  his  side.  The  merchantmen  were  run 
ashore,  and  no  prizes  were  taken.  At  the  Virgin  Islands  sharp 
disappointment  awaited  them.  Little  or  no  cassava  was  to  be 
procured,  and  provisions  were  running  alarmingly  short.  The 
rations  had  to  be  reduced  to  four  ounces  of  bread  a  day,  but  since 
both  Princes  shared  alike  with  their  men  there  was  no  grumbling. 
As  they  turned  southwards,  near  Anguilla,  a  great  gale  sprang  up, 
scattering  the  fleet.  For  two  days  the  Swallow  was  flung  before  the 
wind,  shaving  the  rocks  of  Anagadas  as  by  a  miracle,  and  on  the  third 
she  came  in  calmer  weather  to  St.  Ann  in  the  Virgins.  Rupert  was 
to  learn  that  the  Honest  Seaman  had  been  spewed  upon  the  rocks 
at  Porto  Rico,  but  of  Prince  Maurice  and  his  ship  no  word  was  ever 
heard  again. 

This  is  that  last  great  grief  of  Prince  Rupert's  to  which  reference 
has  been  made.  There  is  little  need  to  dwell  upon  it  or  to  labour 
the  full  bitterness  of  his  loss.  Anyone  who  has  studied  the  lives  of 
these  two  will  realise  that  henceforward  the  world  was  scarcely  the 
same  to  the  brother  who  was  left.  I  do  not  think  that  this  is  an 
exaggeration  ;  I  believe  that  there  had  been  more  between  these  two 
than  there  is  between  most  brothers.  They  had  faced  so  many 
things  together.  In  the  Civil  War  each  had  stood  steadfastly  by 
the  other  when  detraction  threatened,  each  had  cared  more  for  the 
other's  welfare  than  his  own.  It  had  been  thanks  to  Rupert  that 
Maurice  had  received  commands  to  which  his  talents  scarcely 
entitled  him  ;  and  when  Rupert  had  been  finally  disgraced  for  a 
while  by  the  King,  after  Bristol,  Maurice  had  not  been  moved  for  a 
moment  to  complacence  by  the  affectionate  letter  which  he  had 
himself  received  from  his  Majesty.  And  afterwards  they  had  sailed 
aviking  together,  had  still  shared  all  perils.  And  now — well,  Rupert 
would  know  himself  to  be  alone  in  the  world,  very  drearily  alone. 
It  is  not  to  be  thought  that  he  wore  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve. 
There  was  still  work  to  be  done,  there  were  still  his  men  to  think  for. 
Only,  when  at  last  all  others  had  abandoned  hope,  one  fancies  that 
the  sailors  would  watch  with  rough  sympathy  the  tall,  dark  figure 
that  paced  the  deck  night  after  weary  night,  straining  haggard  eyes 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  699 

across  the  purple  mysteries  of  the  tropic  sea  for  a  sail  that  would 
never  come. 

Now  only  the  Swallow  was  left  of  the  little  fleet,  and  Rupert 
reluctantly  determined  to  return  to  France.  At  Guadeloupe  they 
were  well  received  and  supplied  with  wine,  and  here  they  took  an 
English  prize.  She  was  well  stored  with  provisions,  and  the  half- 
starved  chronicler  alludes  to  her  naively  as  '  Manna  from  Heaven.' 
To  their  surprise  and  indignation  they  were  fired  upon  at  the 
Azores,  and  failed  to  effect  a  landing.  There  is  proof  that  Rupert 
was  by  now  an  effective  sailor.  When  in  chase  of  two  craft  upon 
the  homeward  voyage,  we  read  of  him  conning  the  Swallow  himself, 
after  she  had  lost  ground  through  the  ill-conning  of  the  mates.  But 
it  appears  that  his  iron  constitution  had  at  last  almost  failed  him, 
thanks  to  grief,  arduous  responsibility  and  privation,  and  vile  food. 
*  A  present  of  two  hens  and  a  few  eggs  were  very  acceptable  at 
Finisterre,'  and  when  in  March  1653  he  sailed  into  the  Loire  his 
health  was  slowly  recovering.  The  Swallow  ran  aground  in  the 
river,  and,  although  he  got  her  off,  '  she  consumed  herself,'  writes 
the  loyal  chronicler,  '  scorning,  after  being  quitted  by  Rupert,  that 
any  inferior  person  should  command  her.' 

One  may  perhaps  confess  to  a  certain  sympathy  with  the 
chronicler  and  the  Swallow.  It  was  no  mean  feat  that  came  to  a 
close  upon  that  day.  Privateer  or  pirate,  at  the  least  no  single 
charge  of  cruelty  was  ever  substantiated  against  the  Prince,  in  all  his 
wanderings,  and  for  three  years,  without  previous  naval  experience 
and  with  officers  not  of  the  best,  he  had  kept  the  seas  with  a  few 
rotting  craft  in  the  teeth  of  many  foes.  You  may  perhaps  think, 
as  the  young  King  wrote,  that  his  life  was  of  greater  worth  than  the 
sugar,  copper,  ivory,  and  gold  beneath  the  Swallow' 's  hatches. 

But  soon  enough,  of  course,  the  King  and  his  creatures  were 
squabbling  about  the  sale  and  division  of  that  same  plunder  !  Into 
those  squabbles,  God  be  praised,  one  need  not  enter,  nor  is  it 
necessary  to  touch  upon  Rupert's  subsequent  wanderings  and 
scientific  dabblings.  In  1660  came  the  Restoration,  and  Rupert, 
characteristically  forgetful  of  past  injustice,  accepted  readily  the 
King's  cordial  invitation  that  he  should  make  his  home  in  England. 

It  is  the  scantiest  justice  to  record  that  he  was  out  of  place  at 
the  foulest  court  in  Europe.  He  was  no  saint,  as  many  delicately 
written  letters  in  both  French  and  English  go  to  prove,  but  he 
remained  a  gentleman  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He  was  austere  in 
comparison  to  Rochester,  Buckingham,  and  the  King,  and  it  was  not 


700  PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA, 

for  him  to  soil  his  hands  in  the  fashion  dear  to  them.  And  so  he 
lived  in  something  like  retirement  until  the  Dutch  war  of  1664,  when 
with  alacrity  he  accepted  the  offer  of  sea  service. 

It  was  proposed  that  he  should  sail  with  twelve  ships  against 
De  Ruyter  on  the  Guinea  coast.  Pepys  records  a  meeting  with  the 

Prince,  who  remarked,  '  D me  !  I  can  answer  for  but  one  ship, 

and  in  that  I  will  do  my  part,  for  it  is  not  as  in  an  army  where  a  man 
can  command  everything.'  The  fleet  was  abominably  fitted  out 
and  provisioned  as  usual,  and  Rupert  came  into  collision  with  Pepys, 
not  for  the  last  time,  but  the  Dutch  evaded  him  in  the  Channel  and 
the  expedition  was  recalled.  It  was  not  until  June  of  the  next  year 
that  he  saw  actual  service  again  off  Lowestoft.  The  English  were 
divided  into  three  squadrons  :  The  Red  under  the  Duke  of  York ; 
the  White  under  Rupert ;  and  the  Blue  under  Lord  Sandwich.  The 
rival  fleets  were  of  about  equal  strength,  and  Rupert  in  the  van 
'  received  the  charge '  of  the  Dutch.  He  held  his  fire,  and  then 
broke  clean  through  the  opposing  line.  There  followed  a  general 
and  somewhat  confused  engagement,  the  Duke  of  York  in  the  Royal 
Charles  maintaining  a  furious  yard  to  yard  fight  with  the  Dutch 
Admiral  Opdam  in  the  Concord.  About  one  o'clock  the  Concord 
blew  up,  Opdam  and  almost  her  entire  crew  perishing,  seven  of  the 
Dutch  ships  were  destroyed  by  fire  vessels,  and  the  rest  broke  in 
disorder.  The  pursuit  was  not  pressed  home,  much  to  the  anger  of 
Rupert  and  the  Lord  High  Admiral,  the  Duke  of  York.  James,  by 
the  way,  may  have  become  a  coward  later  in  his  life,  as  Macaulay 
insists,  but  in  these  days  he  certainly  bore  himself  well  upon  the  sea. 
In  the  official  report  of  this  fight,  Rupert  was  quite  ignored,  although 
the  seamen  engaged  are  said  to  have  been  enthusiastic  in  his  praises. 

The  Palatine  was  shelved  for  a  while  in  favour  of  Lord  Sandwich, 
who  achieved  nothing,  but  in  1666  the  command  was  given  to 
Rupert  in  conjunction  with  the  gallant  Duke  of  Albemarle.  The 
King  was  unwilling  that  his  brother  should  again  venture  his  person. 
Clarendon  says  that  both  Rupert  and  Albemarle  '  were  men  of  great 
dexterity  and  indefatigable  industry.'  Albemarle  was  content  to 
leave  much  to  Rupert's  management,  and  the  Prince  ever  loved  to 
rule.  They  sailed  in  May,  but  Rupert  was  ordered  to  attempt  with 
twenty-four  ships  to  intercept  a  French  fleet,  and  upon  June  the 
first  Albemarle  met  De  Ruyter  in  the  Downs  in  greatly  superior 
force.  This  is  the  famous  four  days'  battle,  and  for  two  days 
Albemarle,  with  fifty-six  ships  against  eighty-five,  was  hard  put  to  it 
to  hold  his  own.  His  one  chance  lay  in  the  return  of  Rupert,  , 


PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  701 

and  about  three  o'clock  on  the  third  day  a  great  roar  went  up  from 
the  hard-pressed  English  as  the  Prince's  squadron  under  crowded 
sail  came  dashing  to  the  rescue.  The  sailors  caught  sight  of  the 
towering,  impatient  figure  upon  the  poop  of  the  flagship,  and  they  at 
least  had  ever  utter  faith  in  Rupert.  He  had  heard  the  distant 
firing,  and  had  hastened  back  upon  his  own  responsibility.  Now 
he  flung  himself  into  the  fight  with  his  old  fire,  but  as  the  fleets  joined 
the  Royal  Prince  ran  aground,  and  was  burnt  by  the  Dutch.  This 
was  '  a  misfortune  that  touched  every  heart,  for  she  was  the  best 
ship  ever  built,  and  like  a  castle  at  sea.'  Until  dark  the  furious 
wrestle  was  sustained,  to  be  renewed  next  day  for  two  wild  hours 
before  both  sides  drew  off  exhausted  but  with  honour.  Rupert's 
coming  had  undoubtedly  saved  Albemarle  from  entire  defeat,  but 
the  latter  had  maintained  magnificently  a  struggle  against  crushing 
odds.  Eliot  Warburton  quotes  De  Witte  upon  this  indecisive 
battle,  a  sufficiently  adequate  judge  and  one  certainly  not  pre- 
judiced in  our  favour.  '  If  the  English  were  beat,  their  defeat  did 
them  more  honour  than  all  their  former  victories  ;  our  own  fleet 
could  never  have  been  brought  (again  into  action)  after  the  first  day's 
fight,  if  they  had  been  in  the  other's  place  ;  and  I  believe  none  but 
the  English  could.  All  that  we  discovered  was,  that  Englishmen 
might  be  killed,  and  English  ships  burnt,  but  that  English  courage 
was  invincible.'  This  is  a  high  tribute,  and  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  Dutch  ships  were  fitted  out  through  all  this  war  with  lavish 
care,  foresight,  and  skill ;  whilst  the  English  fleets  were  at  the 
mercy  of  thievish  commissioners  and  a  frivolous,  wastrel  King.  That 
Rupert  and  his  fellow-admirals  more  than  held  their  own  against 
De  Ruyter  and  Van  Tromp  under  such  conditions  seems  to  entitle 
them  to  a  higher  fame  than  has  been  their  portion  in  our  naval 
history. 

In  the  Official  Gazette  tardy  justice  was  done  to  Rupert  at  the 
instance  of  his  secretary.  '  His  conduct  and  presence  of  mind 
equalled  his  fearless  courage,  leading  him  to  change  his  ship  three 
times,  setting  up  his  Royal  Standard  in  each  of  them,  to  animate  his 
own  men  and  brave  the  enemy.'  The  Prince's  secretary  wrote : 
'  You  have  done  right  to  a  brave  Prince,  whose  worth  will  endure 
praise,  though  I  find  his  ears  are  too  modest  to  hear  his  own.' 

And  certainly  Rupert  appears  to  have  troubled  little  concerning 
his  own  fame.  He  was  far  more  concerned  with  his  righteous  anger 
against  the  victuallers  of  the  Navy,  and  was  reiterating  his  com- 
plaints to  the  King.  Pepys  was  naively  troubled  by  his  charges, 


702  PRINCE    RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

'  Fears  he  may  not  be  able  to  carry  on  the  business.'  But  by  July 
the  fleet  was  again  at  sea,  and  upon  the  twenty-fifth  it  met  Van 
Tromp  and  De  Kuyter  off  the  North  Foreland.  Van  Tromp  drew 
away  with  the  English  rear  squadron  to  be  broken  by  it,  and 
De  Ruyter's  van  and  centre  were  shattered  by  Rupert  after  a  stub- 
born fight.  They  drew  off  with  the  loss  of  twenty  ships,  to  be  saved 
by  shoaling  water  from  entire  destruction.  This  was  a  brilliant 
victory,  cowing  even  the  stiff-necked  Dutch,  and  laying  open  their 
coast  to  our  attacks.  Rupert  after  the  battle  promoted  a  gunner 
who  had  saved  his  life  at  risk  of  his  own.  He  lingered  through 
August  about  Sole  Bay  without  succeeding  in  provoking  a  battle, 
writing  constantly  to  the  King  that  his  men  were  sick  for  want  of 
food.  Pepys  appears  to  have  grown  hardened  to  these  attacks, 
but  in  October  the  fleet  returned  and  he  was  summoned  with  the 
Naval  Commissioners  before  the  King.  Pepys  adroitly  spoke  first 
of  the  condition  in  which  the  ships  had  been  brought  back,  and 
Rupert  rose  instantly  '  in  great  heat.  He  told  the  King  that, 
whatever  the  gentleman  said,  he  had  brought  home  his  fleet  in  as 
good  condition  as  ever  fleet  was  brought  home.'  Rupert  was  a 
better  fighting  man  than  debater,  or  he  would  never  have  allowed 
such  an  obvious  red  herring  to  be  drawn  across  the  scent.  It  was,  of 
course,  Pepys'  one  object  to  obscure  the  issue,  and  divert  attention 
from  his  peculations.  The  matter  dropped  for  the  time,  neverthe- 
less Pepys  went  home  much  troubled.  Rupert  with  his  fiery 
honesty  was  disconcerting  as  an  enemy  to  a  worthy  gentleman 
intent  upon  making  the  customary  profits.  However,  the  King  was 
apathetic,  being  concerned  as  usual  with  pleasanter  matters,  and  the 
charges  were  not  pressed  home. 

In  1667  an  old  wound  broke  out  once  more  in  Rupert's  head,  and 
he  was  very  ill,  in  fact  not  far  short  of  death.  He  seems  to  have 
been  aroused  by  the  insulting  raid  of  the  Dutch  up  the  Medway,  and 
to  have  hastened  to  assist  in  their  repulse.  In  the  report  which  he 
drew  up  by  request  of  Parliament  upon  the  causes  of  the  late  naval 
disaster,  he  says  that  if  his  advice  had  been  taken  the  dishonour 
at  Chatham  would  have  been  prevented.  And  this  may  well  be 
believed.  He  adds  that  three  times  during  the  war  his  fleet  had 
been  upon  short  allowance  of  provisions,  and  he  speaks  of  the 
'  horrible  neglect '  of  the  dockyards.  Rupert,  it  may  be  said,  had  a 
characteristic  hatred  for  the  Cabal.  It  was  reported  that  in  Council 
he  had  boxed  Arlington's  ears,  knocking  off  his  hat  and  wig. 

The  Cabal  achieved  their  revenge  in  '73  when  he  was  once  again 


PRINCE    RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA.  703 

given  command  against  the  Dutch.  They  thwarted  him  and  tied 
his  hands  in  every  way,  and  yet  once  again  he  '  performed  wonders.' 
With  the  French  fleet  under  D'Estrees  he  met  De  Ruyter  off 
Schroneveldt.  The  allies,  crowded  together  in  narrow  waters,  were 
in  little  order  for  fighting,  and  some  of  the  officers  counselled 
retreat.  '  But,'  as  the  sailors  boasted,  '  our  Admiral  never  knew 
what  it  was  to  go  back  !  '  Rupert  forced  the  pace  as  usual,  and 
contrived  to  hold  his  own,  although  most  wretchedly  supported  by 
the  French.  A  week  later  he  met  De  Ruyter  once  more,  and  again 
the  French  hung  aloof,  '  watching  their  paid  English  fight  for 
them  !  '  Rupert's  own  flagship,  the  Royal  Charles,  was  so  crank  and 
took  in  so  much  water  through  her  ports  that  her  lower  tier  of  guns 
was  useless.  He  managed  to  break  the  Dutch  line,  and  pursued 
them  for  eight  hours.  He  is  said  to  have  challenged  D'Estrees  to  a 
duel,  but — Rupert's  immense  reach,  his  skill  with  all  weapons,  and 
his  baresark  courage,  made  him  an  antagonist  whom  the  most 
valiant  gentlemen  were  not  exactly  eager  to  meet.  It  is  significant 
that  the  scurrilous  gossips  and  satirists  of  the  English  court  judged 
it  wise  never  to  loose  their  shafts  against  Rupert,  although  the  King 
and  all  others  were  not  spared.  Upon  the  Prince's  return  to 
England  the  country  and  even  his  Majesty  received  him  with  the 
utmost  enthusiasm,  but  Rupert  unquestionably  set  the  needs  of  his 
ships  and  men  before  his  own  personal  triumph.  His  Highness  was 
found  to  be  in  an  exceedingly  bad  temper,  and  was  reported  to  have 
been  near  to  using  his  cane  upon  the  Naval  Commissioners  when 
they  waited  upon  him  ! 

In  August  1673,  off  the  Texel,  he  fought  his  last  battle.  His 
French  allies  were  in  the  van,  he  himself  in  the  centre,  and  Spragge 
n  the  rear.  The  action  may  be  very  briefly  described.  The  French 
under  D'Estrees  did  nothing,  permitting  the  squadrons  of  De  Ruyter 
and  Banckert  to  concentrate  upon  Rupert.  Spragge  had  sworn  to 
take  Van  Tromp  alive  or  dead,  and  there  followed  a  bloody  sea 
duel  between  the  two.  Spragge  quitted  two  ships  in  a  sinking 
condition  (the  Dutch  have  never  been  drawing-room  fighters  upon 
Jie  sea),  and  as  he  passed  to  a  third  a  round  shot  shattered  his  boat 
and  he  was  drowned.  Rupert  sustained  for  a  while  a  desperate 
)attle  against  long  odds,  and  at  last  drew  clear  and  away. 

He  does  not  appear  to  have  gone  to  sea  again.  As  is  well  known, 
he  interested  himself  in  the  founding  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
and  in  scientific  experiments  of  all  kinds.  One  has  glimpses  of  him 
working  at  the  forge,  with  the  King  and  Buckingham  lounging  idly 


704  PRINCE   RUPERT   ON   THE   SEA. 

by,  chaffing  good  humouredly  his  energy  and  blackened  hands.  But 
for  the  most  part  he  led  a  lonely,  almost  austere  life  at  Windsor, 
making  little  secret  of  his  contempt  for  the  smirched  butterflies  of 
the  court.  These  people  were  well  enough,  no  doubt,  but — they 
jarred  upon  a  man  who  could  remember  cleaner  days.  He  had 
outlived  most  things,  all  dreams,  all  hopes,  and  all  ambitions  ;  but 
at  least  he  had  his  memories.  The  peasants  who  met  him  upon  his 
long,  solitary,  twilight  rambles,  with  '  a  faithful,  great,  black  dog ' 
for  sole  companion,  gave  him  a  reputation  for  wizardry,  remem- 
bering his  charmed  life,  his  utter  daring,  and  his  mysterious  experi- 
ments. One  fancies  that  the  lean,  stately  old  man  would  mark  with 
grim  amusement  their  nervous  whisperings  as  he  passed  ;  and  then, 
perhaps,  as  the  white  river  mist  crept  higher  in  the  darkling  fields, 
his  thoughts  would  drift  back  once  more  to  those  gleaming,  far  oS 
days  when  life  yet  held  youth,  and  Maurice,  and  the  chance  of  gay 
adventure  on  the  sea. 

JOHN  BARNETT. 


705 


THE  EARTHQUAKE  AT  LISBON, 

A  LETTER  FROM  A   SURVIVOR,   1733. 
EDITED  BY  THE   REV.  P.  H.   DITCHFIELD. 

THE  Sicilian  tragedy  of  last  year,  the  complete  destruction  of 
beautiful  cities  by  seismic  agency,  the  piteous  cries  of  the  wounded, 
the  gallant  rescues  and  acts  of  heroism  in  which  our  British  tars 
played  no  small  or  unimportant  part,  have  moved  all  hearts  and 
called  forth  the  active  sympathy  of  our  countrymen.  The  story  of  the 
horrors  lost  nothing  in  the  telling.  In  these  days  of  the  ubiquitous 
correspondent  of  the  daily  newspapers,  few  events  can  occur  in  the 
inhabited  earth  without  some  lynx-eyed  and  brilliant  writer  witness- 
ing them  and  startling  the  world  with  a  graphic  description.  When 
a  tragedy  happens,  reporters  dart  like  hawks  upon  their  prey,  and 
nothing  is  hid  from  the  public  gaze.  A  century  and  a  half  ago 
jaffairs  were  managed  differently.  There  were  few  newspapers, 
iand  fewer  correspondents,  and  calamities  quite  as  terrible  as  the 
iMessina  earthquake  found  few  chroniclers.  Hence  the  gleanings 
[from  private  papers  and  family  archives  are  especially  valuable, 
kmd  occasionally  a  fortunate  chance  unearths  a  document  which 
'ecalls  some  half -for  got  ten  event  of  which  many  people  have  heard, 
3ut  few  know  anything  of  the  details. 

The  following  graphic  description  of  the  earthquake  at  Lisbon 
s  a  case  in  point.  A  battered  manuscript  entitled  i  Copy  of  a 
S.  letter  from  Mr.  Chace,  dated  Deer.  31,  1755  containing  an 
.ccount  of  the  Earthquake  at  Lisbon,  and  his  own  Sufferings  and 
escape,'  l  has  come  into  the  writer's  possession,  and  some  extracts 
•om  this  lengthy  document  may  not  be  without  interest  and  help 
s  to  realise  the  tragedy  of  one  of  the  most  terrible  convulsions  of 
ature  the  world  has  ever  known.  Mr.  Chace  shall  tell  his  own 
'Ory,  but  he  is  rather  prolix  at  times,  and  some  of  his  reflections 

1  This  manuscript  was  presented  to  me  by  the  late  Sir  Francis  Tress  Barry, 
art.,  M.P.  The  copy  of  the  original  letter  was  made  in  the  year  after  the  earth- 
uake,  June  1756. 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  45 


70G  THE   EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON. 

and  bemoanings  may  with  advantage  be  abridged.      He   begins 
as  follows  : 

About  three  quarters  after  9  o'clock  in  the  Morning  on  Saturday 
the  first  of  November  1755,  I  was  alone  in  my  Bed  Chamber  four 
stories  from  the  ground,  opening  a  bureau,  when  a  shaking  or 
trembling  of  the  Earth  (which  I  knew  immediately  to  be  an  earth- 
quake) gentle  at  first,  but  gradually  increasing  to  greater  violence 
alarmed  me  so  much  that  turning  round  to  look  at  the  Window,  the 
Glass  seem'd  to  be  falling  out ;  surprized  at  the  continuation  of  it, 
and  immediately  recollecting  the  miserable  fate  of  Callas  in  the 
Spanish  West  Indies,  I  expected  the  same  would  happen  then  ; 
and  also  remembering  that  our  House  was  so  old  &  weak,  that  any 
heavy  Carriage  passing  by  made  it  shake  all  over,  I  ran  directly  up 
into  the  Urada,  to  see  if  the  neighbouring  Houses  were  Agitated 
with  the  same  violence  :  this  place  (as  is  Customary  in  many  Houses) 
was  a  single  Koom  at  the  Top  of  the  House,  with  Windows  all 
round,  the  Roof  supported  by  Stone  Pillars,  it  was  only  one  Story 
higher  than  my  Chamber,  and  commanded  a  Prospect  of  some  Part 
of  the  City  from  the  King's  Palace  up  to  the  Castle ;  I  was  no  sooner 
up  the  Stairs,  than  the  most  horrid  Prospect  the  Imagination  can 
form  appeared  before  my  Eyes  ;  The  House  began  to  heave  to  that 
degree,  that  to  prevent  my  being  thrown  down,  was  obliged  to  put 
my  Arms  out  of  Window,  to  support  myself  by  the  Wall,  while 
every  Stone  in  the  Walls,  separating  from  each  other,  and  Grinding 
against  one  another  (as  did  all  the  Walls  of  the  other  Houses  with 
variety  of  different  motions)  made  the  most  dreadful  Tumbling 
Noise  ever  heard.     The  adjoining  Wall  of  Mr.  Goddard's  Room 
fell  first,  then  followed  all  the  upper  part  of  his  House,  and  every 
other,  to  as  far  as  I  could  see  towards  the  Castle  ;  when  turning 
my  Eyes  quick  to  the  front  of  the  Room  (for  I  thought  the  whole 
City  was  sinking  into  the  earth)  I  saw  the  Tops  of  two  of  the  Pillars 
meet,  and  saw  no  more  ;  I  had  resolved  to  throw  myself  upon  the 
floor,  but  suppose  I  did  not,  for  I  immediately  felt  myself  falling, 
and  then,  (for  I  know  not  how  long  after)  just  as  if  waking  from  a 
Dream  with  confused  Ideas,  I  found  my  Mouth  stuffed  full  of 
something,  which  with  my  left  hand  I  strove  to  get  out,  and  not 
being  able  to  breathe  freely,  struggled  till  my  Head  was  quite  dis- 
incumbered  from  the  Rubbish  ;  in  the  doing  this,  I  came  to  myself 
again,  and  recollecting  what  had  happen'd,  suppos'd  the  Earth- 
quake to  be  over,  and  from  what  I  had  so  lately  seen,  expected  to 
find  the  whole  City  fallen  to  the  Ground,  and  myself  at  the  Top 
of  the  Ruins  ;  when  attempting  to  look  about  me  I  saw  four  high 
Walls  near  Fifty  Feet  above  me  (the  Place  where  I  lay  being 
about  .Ten  Feet  in  Length  &  scarce  Two  Feet  wide)  nor  could  I 
perceive  Door  or  Window  in  any  of  them.     Astonish'd  to  the  last 


THE    EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON.  707 

degree  at  my  Situation,  I  remember'd  that  there  was  such  a  place 
between  the  Houses,  and  having  seen  the  upper  part  of  both  fall, 
concluded  that  either  the  Inhabitants  must  be  all  destroy'd,  or  at 
least  no  probability  of  their  looking  down  in  Time  enough  for 
my  preservation  ;  so  that  struck  with  Horror  at  the  Shocking 
Thought  of  being  Starv'd  to  Death  immediately  in  that  manner, 
I  remained  Stupified  till  the  still  following  Tiles  &  Kubbish  made 
me  seek  for  shelter  under  a  small  Arch  in  the  narrow  Wall  opposite 
my  Head  as  I  lay,  at  the  bottom  of  which  there  appear'd  to  be  a 
little  Hole  quite  through  it  upon  my  approach ;  dragging  myself 
out  of  the  Rubbish,  I  found  it  to  be  much  larger  than  I  imagin'd, 
&  getting  in  my  Head  and  Arms  first,  by  degrees  pull'd  all  my 
Body  after,  and  fell  about  two  feet  into  a  small  dark  place,  arch'd 
over  at  the  Top,  which  I  suppos'd  to  be  only  a  support  of  the  two 
Walls,  till  feeling  about,  found  on  one  Side  a  narrow  pafsage  that 
led  me  round  a  place  like  an  Oven,  into  a  little  Room,  where  stood 
a  Portugueze  Man  cover'd  with  Dust,  who  the  Moment  he  saw  me 
coming  in  that  way,  starting  back  &  crofsing  himself  all  over  cried 
out  as  their  Custom  is,  when  much  surpriz'd,  Jesus,  Mary  &  Joseph 
who  are  you  ?  where  do  you  come  from  ?  which  being  informed, 
he  plac'd  me  in  a  Chair,  this  done,  clasping  his  hands  together  :  He 
lifted  them  and  his  Eyes  together  to  ye  Cieling  in  shew  of  the 
utmost  distrefs  or  concern.  This  made  me  examine  myself  which 
before  I  had  no  leisure  to  do. 

Mr.  Chace  then  describes  in  detail  his  injuries,  a  broken  arm, 
a  shoulder  dislocated,  and  divers  wounds  and  bruises.  Another 
shock  came,  accompanied  by  falling  houses  and  the  screams  of  the 
people.  He  made  his  way  to  the  street,  and  found  the  people  all  on 
their  knees  praying  and  covered  with  dust.  He  walked  a  little  way 
and  then  his  strength  failed  and  he  lay  prostrate  in  the  street.  He 
was  discovered  by  a  friendly  German  merchant — Mr.  John  Ernest 
Jorg — who  took  compassion  on  him  and  conveyed  him  and  other 
friends  to  his  garden,  which  seemed  to  be  the  only  safe  place.  As 
he  lay  on  a  bed  in  a  room  another  shock  occurred,  and  he  was 
covered  with  dust  and  falling  plaster.  The  English  surgeon, 
Mr.  Scarfton,  was  sent  for  but  could  not  be  found,  and  Mr.  Chace's 
friends  tried  their  best  to  dress  his  wounds.  Fires  broke  out  which 
added  greatly  to  the  horror  of  the  scene,  and  were  destined  to  cause 
future  terrible  dangers. 

About  two  O'Clock,  the  Earth  having  enjoyed  some  little 
Respite,  the  Cloud  of  Dust  was  difsipated,  &  the  Sun  appearing, 
we  began  to  hope  the  worst  was  over  ;  as  indeed  it  was  with  regard 
to  Earthquakes  ;  but  still  every  succeeding  Shock,  tho'  it  did  little 

45—2 


708  THE   EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON. 

harm,  was  attended  with  the  same  dread  and  Terror  as  the  former 
great  Ones,  not  knowing  to  what  lengths  it  might  proceed.  However 
this  made  the  People  in  the  Garden,  consisting  of  English,  Irish, 
Dutch  &  Portugueze,  recover  Spirits  enough  to  think  of  attempting 
to  get  out  of  the  ruinous  City  ;  when  Mr.  Jorg  wholly  intent  upon 
afsisting  every  Body,  desir'd  them  only  just  to  stay  to  eat  some 
Fish  he  had  order'd  to  be  got  ready,  and  they  would  then  be  better 
enabled  to  bear  any  future  Fatigue  ;  to  oblige  his  great  Care,  I  eat 
a  little  without  any  other  Inclination,  imagining  from  the  painful 
condition  I  was  in,  a  very  few  Hours  more  would  relieve  me  from 
any  further  cares. 

Mr.  Jorg  proved  himself  a  ministering  angel,  rescuing  several 
people,  amongst  others  an  old  lame  lady  who  would  probably 
have  perished  had  he  not  thought  of  her.  Mr.  Chace  begged  to  be 
carried  out  of  the  city,  but  all  the  servants  had  fled,  and  as  they  said 
the  city  was  destroyed,  the  German  advised  him  to  stay  where  he 
was.  From  the  window  of  his  room  he  saw  the  flames  spreading  in 
all  directions  and  apparently  very  near  to  the  house.  He  thought 
himself  abandoned  as  he  heard  no  sounds  in  the  house.  He  resolved 
if  that  were  his  fate  to  cast  himself  down  from  the  gallery  and  put 
an  end  to  his  excessive  misery  at  once.  By  the  help  of  two  chairs 
he  dragged  himself  to  the  door,  and  on  opening  discovered  his  friend, 
who  with  the  lame  lady  and  two  others  were  waiting  to  discover 
what  Fate  had  in  store  for  them.  At  eleven  o'clock  Mr.  Jorg 
thought  it  was  time  to  go,  and  with  great  composure  went  for  his 
hat  and  cloak  and  brought  a  cap  and  quilt  for  the  wounded  English- 
man. He  was  carried  in  a  chair  ;  someone  holding  a  torch  led  the 
way  down  a  narrow  alley  at  the  bottom  of  which  was  the  church  of 
a  convent  of  friars,  wherein  he  saw  lighted  candles  upon  the  high 
altar  and  '  the  Friars  very  busy  in  their  Church  Dresses,  and  in 
the  porch  lay  some  dead  bodies.' 

The  Church  of  St.  Mary  Magdalen  stood  firm,  and  in  Silver 
Smiths'  Street  there  were  no  houses  quite  fallen,  but  the  people 
were  busy  throwing  bundles  into  the  street.  At  the  great  square, 
the  Terreiro  de  Pace,  he  saw  the  King's  palace,  which  occupied 
one  side  of  it,  slowly  burning.  He  was  placed  under  a  stall. 

To  find  myself  then  so  much  beyond  all  expectation,  so  suddenly 
relieved  from  the  constant  Apprehension  of  falling  Houses,  and 
Danger  of  the  Fire  (as  I  thought  at  least)  when  I  was  in  the  greatest 
Distrefs  and  had  given  up  all  for  lost,  rais'd  my  Spirits  to  that 
Degree  that  now  for  the  first  Time,  notwithstanding  the  great 


THE  EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON.  709 

Pain  I  was  in,  I  began  to  hope  that  it  was  pofsible  still  to  live, 
till  new  Terrors  employ' d  my  Thoughts,  for  ye  People,  all  full  of 
theJNotion  of  its  being  the  Day  of  Judgment  &  willing  therefore 
to  be  employed  in  good  Works,  had  loaded  themselves  with 
Crucifixes  &  Saints  ;  and  Men  and  Women  equally  the  same,  were 
during  the  Intervals  between  the  Shocks,  either  singing  Litanies 
or  cruelly  tormenting  the  dying  with  religious  Ceremonies  :  & 
whenever  the  Earth  trembled  were  all  on  their  Knees,  roaring  out, 
Misericordia  in  the  most  dismal  Voice  imaginable.  The  fear  then 
that  my  Condition  might  excite  their  Piety  at  such  a  Time  when  all 
Government  was  at  an  end,  &  it  was  impofsible  to  guefs  what  way 
their  Furious  Zeal  might  take  against  the  worst  of  Criminals,  an 
Heretick,  made  me  dread  the  approach  of  every  Person.  Add  to 
this,  that  the  Case  de  Pedra,  or  Stone  Key  adjoining  to  the  Square 
had  already  sunk  &  the  least  rising  of  the  Water  would  overflow  us 
all ;  with  such  reflections,  having  pafsed  about  two  Hours  (during 
which  Time  Mr.  Jorg  and  his  Family  were  come  to  the  Square  to  Mr. 
Graves' s  Family)  the  Fire  was  now  almost  opposite  &  under  the 
Shed,  which  had  at  first  been  quite  crouded,  while  now  no  Body 
was  left  but  myself  when  I  heard  a  Cry  of  beat  down  the  Cabana, 
or  Stalls  (some  of  which  it  seems  had  taken  fire)  and  telling  all  that 
were  under  to  get  out ;  they  began  immediately  to  knock  down 
that  where  I  lay  :  with  the  greatest  difficulty  I  just  got  myself  out 
before  it  tumbled  down  and  meeting  with  Mr.  Jorg  &  another 
Person  they  carried  me  to  Mr.  Graves's  Family,  &  laid  me  on  their 
Bundles.  Mrs.  Graves  I  found  to  be  of  the  common  Opinion  that 
it  was  the  Last  Day  :  and  attempting  to  persuade  her  to  the  con- 
trary, She  told  me  it  was  but  of  little  importance  to  Us,  as  the 
Fire  was  just  approaching  to  the  Gunpowder  Shops  opposite,  & 
she  expected  they  would  blow  up  every  moment. 

Happily  the  three  explosions  proved  harmless,  though  the  reports 
were  very  loud.  On  Sunday  morning  at  5  A.M.  the  wind  changed 
and  blew  the  flames  in  the  direction  of  the  square.  Some  black 
servants  carried  Mr.  Chace  to  the  part  opposite  the  Custom 
House,  but  this  soon  blazed  up,  and  another  retreat  had  to  be 
discovered. 

At  nine  o'clock  the  sun  was  shining  brightly  and  several  boats 
came  to  the  shore  and  carried  off  many  of  the  people.  The  dis- 
tressed merchant  and  his  friends  betook  themselves  to  the  water- 
side, but  found  it  impossible  to  embark,  as  directly  the  boat  touched 
the  landing-place  it  was  immediately  filled  by  an  eager  crowd. 
The  fire  followed  them,  creeping  along  the  low  buildings  near  the 
harbour  and  blazing  up  by  means  of  a  large  quantity  of  timber 
stored  there.  They  retreated  to  the  square,  where  they  were  greeted 


710  THE    EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON. 

by  a  shower  of  ashes.  Mr.  Chace  was  compelled  to  cover  his  face 
with  his  quilt.  Then  two  Chaise  Machos,  or  mules,  whose  harness 
had  caught  fire,  began  to  career  madly  up  and  down  the  square, 
galloping  over  the  unfortunate  people  who  screamed.  Then  his 
quilt  caught  fire,  but  some  kind  friend  snatched  it  away  and 
stamped  out  the  flames.  They  then  sought  a  more  secure  position 
at  a  corner  of  the  square. 

About  an  Hour  afterwards  the  Fire  still  gaining  upon  Us,  my 
Figure  excited  the  Pity  of  a  Portugueze  Woman,  to  begin  her  Prayers 
in  a  Melancholy  Tone,  holding  a  Crucifix  close  over  my  Head,  and 
the  People  on  their  Knees  forming  a  Circle  round  us,  join'd  with 
her  :  as  this  was  what  I  had  all  along  expected  would  happen,  I 
waited  the  event  with  the  utmost  Anxiety,  &  had  determin'd  to 
pretend  being  Senselefs,  when  She  abruptly  stopt,  and  immediately 
the  dismal  Roar  of  Misericordia,  always  usual  with  the  Earth- 
quakes (of  which  there  had  been  several  uncounted  by  me  since  the 
Fire  had  become  the  more  threatening  Danger)  made  me  expect 
another  Shock,  but  not  perceiving  any  trembling  at  all,  I  was  the 
more  surpriz'd  at  it,  and  venturing  to  open  my  Quilt,  I  saw  all 
kneeling  down,  and  that  great  Square  full  of  Flames,  for  the  People 
from  the  Adjoining  Streets  had  fill'd  it  with  Bundles,  and  as  the 
Fire  increas'd,  had  taken  themselves  only  away  :  these  were  now  all 
on  Fire,  excepting  just  our  Corner,  and  under  the  Palace  Walls, 
where  Mr.  Graves's  Family  had  return'd  to;  but  as  the  Wind 
blew  very  fresh  &  drove  the  Flames  in  Sheets  of  Fire  close  slanting 
over  our  Heads,  expecting  them  every  minute  to  seize  upon  us,  I 
lost  all  my  Spirits,  and  again  abandoning  myself  to  despair,  thought 
it  was  still  impofsible  after  so  many  escapes  to  avoid  that  sort  of 
Death  I  had  so  much  dreaded. 

Happily  the  wind  abated  and  the  flames  burned  upright  and 
made  no  further  progress.  Hope  revived,  and  Mr.  Chace  felt  hungry. 
An  Irishwoman  recognised  him  and  gave  him  some  melon  and  bread 
and  water.  Mr.  Jorg  also  brought  him  some  food,  carried  him  on 
his  back  to  the  little  company  of  Mr.  Graves's  family,  and  there  left 
him.  The  writer  expresses  deep  gratitude  to  his  German  bene- 
factor, who  had  saved  his  life  several  times,  but  had  at  last  deserted 
him  when  his  chief  dangers  were  over.  He  became  very  uneasy, 
not  knowing  upon  whom  to  rely  in  his  helpless  condition.  He 
requested  Mr.  Graves  to  give  him  a  passage  in  his  boat,  but  was 
refused  on  the  ground  that  the  boat  would  be  entirely  filled  with  his 
family.  However,  he  obtained  the  services  of  a  black  servant, 
whom  he  sent  to  secure  a  place  in  one  of  the  boats.  He  gave  him 
36s.,  all  the  money  he  had,  for  his  conveyance  up  the  river  to  the 


THE   EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON.  711 

Convent  of  Madre  de  Deos  and  thence  to  the  house  of  his  friend 
Mr.  Hake. 

About  3  O'Clock  as  1  suppose,  we  began  to  hear  a  most  dreadful 
Rumbling  Noise  under  Ground,  which  seem'd  to  me  to  proceed 
from  the  Ruins  of  the  Palace,  as  if  the  Earth  had  open'd  there  &  the 
River  was  rushing  in  &  forcing  great  Stones  along  with  it.  The 
cause  of  it  however  I  could  not  learn,  but  it  continu'd  when  I  came 
away. 

The  '  black  boy '  returned  with  the  satisfactory  news  that 
he  had  secured  a  place  in  a  boat,  and  carried  the  writer  on  his  back 
into  a  large  boat  full  of  people  and  laid  him  upon  a  board  in  the 
centre  of  it.  A  priest  came  along  and  trod  upon  his  lame  leg, 
causing  him  intense  agony,  but  the  coolness  of  the  water  revived 
him.  He  had  much  trouble  with  the  watermen,  who  refused  to 
convey  him  to  his  destination,  stopping  at  the  Riberia  or  Fish 
Market,  and  again  at  the  Horse  Guards  at  the  end  of  the  city. 
They  called  him  '  an  Heretick  and  his  Blacks  Devils.' 

At  length,  after  divers  adventures  which  it  would  be  tedious  to 
narrate,  Mr.  Chace  arrived  at  the  house  of  his  friend  Mr.  Hake,  who 
received  him  with  joy  as  one  returned  from  the  grave.  They 
carried  him  into  a  sort  of  tent  made  with  carpets,  under  a  vine  walk, 
where  three  beds  were  placed.  The  King's  farrier,  who  was  a 
famous  bone-setter,  was  sent  for,  and  examined  his  wounds,  finding 
that  the  arm  only  was  broken  ;  but  they  did  not  discover  the  dislo- 
cation of  the  shoulder,  which  caused  him  much  agony.  However, 
his  condition  was  far  better  than  he  expected.  But  there  were  many 
dangers.  Bands  of  starving  people  were  clamouring  for  bread, 
threatening  to  burst  in  upon  them,  so  that  they  were  obliged  to 
eat  their  victuals  by  stealth.  Terrible  reports  of  murders  and 
robberies  reached  their  ears,  and  all  government  had  ceased  to  exist. 
However,  at  length  Mr.  Hake  and  his  family  with  Mr.  Chace  were 
conveyed  on  board  the  good  ship  Tagus  (Captain  John  Allen)  on 
November  29,  and  set  sail  for  England. 

Thus  far  have  I  endeavour'd  to  describe  most  minutely  every 
Accident  that  happen'd  to  me,  as  likewise  the  Hopes  &  Fears 
occasioned  by  them  whether  Deprefs'd  or  Magnified  by  my  debili- 
tated state  of  Body.  I  know  not  therefore,  only  can  say  that  after 
I  got  into  the  Street  the  General  Difstres  painted  upon  every 
ghastly  countenance  made  but  little  reflection  necefsary  to  suppose 
the  nearest  Relations  would  be  unable  to  afsist  each  other ;  &  from 
the  short  examination  I  had  made  of  myself,  thought  it  was  of  little 
consequence  to  me  :  therefore  at  once  resolv'd,  Silently,  without  a 


712  THE    EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON. 

Murmur,  to  resign  myself  to  the  Will  of  the  Supreme  Governor  of 
all  Things,  humbly  hoping  by  my  Patience  in  Suffering  what  he  was 
pleas'd  to  Inflict,  to  make  some  Atonement  for  my  Faults  :  nor 
indeed  could  the  vehement  noisy  supplications  of  the  Disabled  tend 
to  anything  else  at  such  a  Time  as  that,  except  only  to  increase  the 
general  Horror.  How  great  then  must  be  my  Thankfulnefs  to 
Divine  Providence  for  raising  me  up  afsistance  (not  only  unask'd, 
but  even  unhop'd)  amongst  people  almost  Strangers  to  me,  especially 
Mr.  Jorg  (with  whom  I  had  but  a  slight  acquaintance)  who  like  a 
Guardian  Angel  appear 'd  always  to  afsist  me  in  the  utmost 
Extremities. 

Sometime  afterwards,  1  learnt  that  no  part  of  our  House  fell 
except  the  Urada,  where  I  was,  nor  were  any  of  the  Family  kill'd, 
only  the  House-keeper  &  one  man  servant  were  much  hurt  by  the 
falling  of  the  Urada  upon  them  as  they  were  going  out  of  the  House. 
The  Cieling  of  the  upper  Story  was  however  so  much  shatter'd  that 
they  were  afraid  to  venture  into  any  of  the  Rooms.  It  is  universally 
agreed  that  all  the  mischief  proceeded  from  the  3  first  Shocks  of 
the  Earthquake,  which  were  attended  with  a  tumbling  sort  of  Motion 
like  the  Waves  of  the  Sea,  that  it  was  Amazing  the  Houses  resisted 
so  long  as  they  did.  No  Place,  or  Time,  could  have  been  more 
unlucky  for  the  miserable  People ;  the  City  was  full  of  narrow 
Streets,  the  Houses  strong  Built  &  High,  which  falling  fill'd  up  all 
the  Pafsages.  The  Day  of  All  Saints,  with  them  a  great  Holiday, 
when  all  the  Altars  in  the  Churches  were  lighted  up  with  many 
Candles,  just  at  the  time  when  they  were  the  fullest  of  People ; 
most  of  them  fell  immediately  ;  the  Streets  were  likewise  throng'd 
with  People  going  to  &  from  their  Churches,  many  of  whom  must 
have  been  destroy'd  by  the  falling  of  the  Tops  of  the  Houses  only. 
It  would  be  impofsible  to  pretend  to  describe  justly  the  universal 
Horror  &  Distrefs  that  every  where  took  place.  Many  sav'd  them- 
selves by  going  upon  the  Water,  whilst  many  found  there  the  Death 
they  hop'd  to  have  avoided.  Some  were  wonderfully  preserved  by 
getting  to  the  Tops  of  their  Houses,  more  (as  much  so)  by  retiring 
to  the  Bottoms  of  them,  others  again  were  unhurt  imprison'd  under 
the  Ruins  of  theirs,  others  to  be  burnt  alive,1  in  short  Death  in 
every  shape  soon  grew  familiar  to  the  Eye.  The  River  is  said  in  a 
most  wonderful  manner  to  have  risen  &  fallen  several  Times 
successively ;  at  one  Time  threatening  to  overflow  these  parts  of 
the  City,  &  directly  afterwards  leaving  the  ships  almost  aground  in 
the  middle  of  the  River,  shewing  Rocks  that  had  never  been  known 
before.2  The  duration  of  the  first  Shock  (which  came  without  any 

1  *  Whilst  two  Dutchmen  in  particular  were  said  to  have  escaped  by  the  Fire 
coming  to  the  Ruins  of  their  Houses,  and  Lighting  them  thro'  Pafsages  they  would 
not  otherwise  have  found  out.' 

2  '  It's  said  Captn.  dies  once  actually  deserted  his  Packet,  thinking  she  must 
be  lost.' 


THE    EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON.  713 

warning  except  a  great  noise  heard  by  the  People  just  by  the  Water 
side)  is  variously  reported,  but  by  none  made  lefs  than  three 
Minutes  &  a  Half,  at  the  latter  end  of  it.  I  was  (I  suppose)  thrown 
over  the  Wall  &  fell  about  four  stories  between  the  Walls,  where 
I  must  have  been  but  a  little  Time,  if  it  was  the  second  Shock  I  felt 
in  the  Portugueze  Man's  House,  which  was  said  to  have  happen'd 
at  10  O'Clock  (tho'  by  some  People  it  is  confounded  with  the  first) 
therefore  I  think  it  could  not  be  the  third  I  felt  at  Mr.  Jorg's 
House,  for  as  it  was  at  12  O'Clock,  1  must  have  remain'd  a  long  time 
in  the  Street,  which  appear'd  to  me  instead  of  2  Hours  (as  it  must 
have  been,  if  it  had  been  between  the  2nd.  &  3rd.  Shocks)  scarcely 
a  J  of  an  Hour  From  Mr.  Jorg's  House  which  was  in  the  same  Street 
with  our  own  call'd  Pedra  Negras,  situated  upon  the  Hill  leading 
to  the  Castle.  I  saw  the  middle  part  of  the  City  to  the  King's 
Palace,  &  from  thence  up  the  Hill  opposite  to  us  leading  to  the 
Bairo-Castle,  containing  a  number  of  Parishes,  all  in  one  great 
Blaze.  Three  Times  I  thought  myself  inevitably  lost,  the  1st. 
when  I  saw  all  the  City  moving  like  the  Water,  the  2nd.  when  I 
found  myself  shut  up  between  four  Walls,  the  3rd.  when  with  the 
vast  fire  I  thought  myself  abandoned  in  Mr.  Jorg's  House,  and  even 
in  the  Square  (where  I  remained  ye  Saturday  Night  &  Sunday, 
the  almost  continual  trembling  of  the  Earth,  as  well  as  the  sinking 
of  the  great  Stone  Quay,  adjoining  to  this  Square  at  the  third  great 
Shock  at  12  O'Clock)  cover'd  as  it  was  said  with  300  People,  or 
perhaps  more  justly  with  150  who  were  endeavouring  to  get  into 
Boats,  &  were  Boats  &  all  swallow'd  up, '  made  me  fearful  least  the 
Water  had  under-min'd  it,  &  that  at  every  succeeding  Shock,  we 
should  likewise ;  or  else  as  the  Ground  was  low  &  even  with  the 
Water,  the  least  rising  of  it  would  overflow  us.  Full  of  these 
Terrors,  as  well  as  the  Distrefses  already  mention'd,  it  more  than 
once  occurr'd  to  me  that  the  Inquisition  with  all  its  utmost  Cruelty 
could  not  have  invented  to  have  so  much  variety  of  Tortures  for  the 
Mind,2  as  we  were  then  suffering.  Could  the  general  consternation 
have  been  lefs,  not  only  many  Lives,  but  even  effects  might  have 
been  sav'd,  for  the  Fire  did  not  till  Sunday  Morning  reach  the 
Custom  House,  which  stood  next  the  Water  Side,  &  had  large  open 
)laces  on  each  side  of  it  &  in  some  parts  was  2  Day  getting  to  them  : 
>ut  the  King's  Soldiers,  among  whom  were  many  Foreign  Deserters 
who  instead  of  afsisting  the  People,  turn'd  Plunderers,  adding  to 
the  Fires  (as  some  before  their  Execution  confefs'd)  already  too 
lumerous  from  the  fallen  Houses,  for  no  Fire  came  out  of  the 

1  '  And  which  was  the  reason  so  few  Boats  ventur'd  upon  the  River  for  some 
time  after.' 

'  The  earnest  neglected  Supplications  of  the  Disabled,  as  well  as  the  noisy 
Prayers  of  the  People,  who  thought  it  to  be  the  Day  of  Judgment,  added  to  the 
general  Distraction.' 


714  THE    EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON. 

Ground,  nor  were  there  any  openings  of  the  Earth,  except  the  Quay 
already  mention'd  was  one  ;  but  every  where  innumerable  Cracks, 
from  many  of  which  were  thrown  out  Water  &  Sand.  The  King 
sent  directly  to  the  nearest  Garrisons  for  his  Troops  upon  whose 
arrival  order  was  restored,  and  the  Butchers  and  Bakers  dispers'd 
about  to  provide  for  the  People,  who  were  not  permitted  to  remove 
farther  from  the  City  without  Pafses  :  the  common  People  were 
immediately  forc'd  by  the  Soldiers  to  bury  the  Dead  Bodies,  the 
Stench  growing  so  noisome  that  bad  consequences  were  apprehended 
from  it. 

The  Judges  were  likewise  scatter'd  about,  with  orders  to  execute 
all  upon  the  Spot,  that  were  found  guilty  of  Murder  or  Theft. '  The 
Heart  of  the  City  (the  Richest  part  of  it)  was  burnt,  the  Suburbs, 
which  are  very  large  escap'd  &  have  since  been  repair'd.  All  the 
Towns  and  Villages  round  about,  suffer'd  more  or  lefs.  Several 
were  not  only  thrown  down  &  then  burnt,  but  afterwards  quite  over- 
flowed. It  was  strongly  felt  at  Porto,  150  Miles  to  the  North  &  even 
at  Madrid  300  Miles  from  Lisbon  ;  every  Palace  to  the  South 
suffer'd  greatly  :  the  Royal  Palace  &  Convent  at  Mafra  was  not 
thrown  down,  nor  the  grand  Aqueduct :  the  Royal  Family  were  at 
Belem,  where  they  most  commonly  resid'd,  it  was  said  a  large  stone 
graz'd  the  Queen's  Neck  as  she  went  down  Stairs,  none  of  them 
however  were  hurt.  The  Portugueze  ran  to  two  extreams  from  the 
first,  making  the  number  of  their  City  to  be  much  greater  than  it 
really  was  ;  &  on  the  other  hand  as  much  diminishing  the  number 
of  People  lost ;  the  former  they  insisted  could  not  be  so  little  as 
350,000,  but  Mr.  Hake  from  many  Years  residence  in  the  place, 
thinks  250,000  to  be  the  outside  ;  &  the  latter  they  are  desirous  of 
concealing  from  political  Views,  I  suppose,  therefore  it  is  not  likely 
it  will  ever  be  known.  In  one  of  their  best  accounts  since  publish'd, 
it  is  computed  at  about  15,000,  but  Mr.  John  Bristow  Junr.  has 
told  me,  which  he  had  from  the  very  best  Authority  (as  I  imagine 
from  the  Secretary  of  State)  that  the  Number  of  the  Dead  found  & 
buried  was  22,000  &  odd  Hundreds  ;  in  which  case  as  there  must 
have  remained  still  more  under  the  Ruins,  the  Computation 
would  be  moderate  at  50,000  People  lost  by  the  Earthquake. 

There  were  69  British  Subjects  kill'd  upon  that  occasion  (as  by 
a  list  of  names  since  handed  about)  most  of  whom  were  Irish  Roman 
Catholicks,  only  about  12  or  13  English  out  of  near  300,2  a  most 

1  '  It  was  said  before  we  left  the  City,  that  there  were  about  80  Bodies  hanging 
upon  Gibbets  round  about  the  City.     The  Ships  were  several  of  them  search'd 
&  not  allow'd  to  leave  the  Harbour  without  permifsion.' 

2  « Mrs.  Hake,  Sister  to  Sir  Charles  Hardy  was  kill'd  by  the  falling  of  the  Front 
of  her  own  House,  after  she  had  got  into  the  Street,  her  Body  was  found  under  the 
Rubbish  three  Months  afterwards,  not  at  all  chang'd.      Mr.  Giles  Vincent,  Mr. 
John  Legay,  Junr.  his  Wife  and  Infant  Daughter,  Mr.  Theobald  and  four  others, 
were  all  Lost  in  Mr.  Legay's  Junr.  House.      Mrs.  Sherman  suppos'd  to  be  burnt, 


THE   EARTHQUAKE   AT   LISBON.  715 

moderate  number  in  proportion  to  the  general  Lofs,  which  I  presume 
was  greatly  owing  (next  to  Divine  Providence)  to  the  Distance  most 
of  them  were  at  from  the  Streets  where  the  Destruction  was  almost 
over  before  they  could  well  arrive.     It  is  almost  inconceiveable  as 
well  as  inexprefsible  the  great  Joy  it  gave  us  to  meet  with  one 
another  ;  each  thinking  the  other  to  be  in  a  manner  risen  from  the 
Dead,  and  both  having  a  wonderful  Escape  to  relate ;   all  equally 
Isatisfied  to  have  preserv'd  their  Lives  only,  without  desiring  any- 
ithing  further  :   but  in  a  short  time  the  prospect  of  Living,  restor'd 
ithe  cares  of  Life  along  with  it,  the  melancholy  Consequences  making 
ithem  regret  the  same  Stroke  had  not  depriv'd  them  of  both  Life  as 
[well  as  Fortune.     As  for  the  Portugueze  they  were  fully  employed 
Jin  a  sort  of  religious  Madnefs  :  lugging  about  Saints  without  Heads 
or  Arms,  telling  one  another  in  a  most  piteous  manner  how  they  met 
'with  such  misfortunes  &  if  by  chance  they  met  in  their  way  a 
'Bigger,  throwing  their  oun  aside,  they  hawl'd  away  the  greater 
Might  of  Holinefs,  all  kifsing  those  of  each  other  they  encounter'd  ; 
their  clergy  saying  it  was  a  Judgment  upon  them  for  their  Wicked- 
befs,  they  thought  it  was  almost  Impious  for  them  to  try  to  take 
care  of  themselves  &  many  of  them  call'd  it  fighting  against  Heaven, 
but  the  Officer  upon  Guard  at  the  Mint,  with  the  greatest  Courage 
&  resolution  imaginable  remain'd  there  three  Days,  &  by  beating 
down  the  Buildings  round  about  preserv'd  it  from  the  Fire.     How- 
ever the  King  rewarded  him  as  his  Merit  highly  deserv'd.     At  last 
k  Miracle  brought  them  tolerably  to  themselves,  perform'd  as  was 
^uppos'd  by  us,  by  a  secret  Order  from  Court ;  for  in  the  middle  of 
the  Night  the  Virgin  Mary  was  seen  sitting  among  the  Flames, 
svaving  a  White  Handkerchief  to  the  People  from  the  Ruins  1  of  a 
Church  of  a  famous  Convent  of  Hers,2  call'd  our  Lady  of  Pentia  da 
Branca,  situated  upon  the  Top  of  a  very  high  Hill ;  this  was  imme- 
iately  declar'd  to  be  a  forgivenefs  of  all  their  past  Offences,  &  a 
'romise  of  Life.     It  was  said  the  Queen  of  Spain  immediately  sent 
er  Brother  a  large  remittance  of  cash,  &  that  the  King  wrote  a 
etter  with  his  own  Hand,  not  only  offering  his  Treasure  and  his 
roops,  but  to  come  himself  in  Person  if  necefsary.    Other  countries 
nade  some  very  trifling  offers,  but  the  Portugueze  People  of  all 
Denominations  fix'd  their  Hopes  upon  England  from  the  very  first, 
nost  confidently  expecting  all  manner  of  Afsistance  from  thence  ; 
or  would  they  have  been  much  deceiv'd,  had  the  Winds  prov'd  but 
s  favourable  as  the  Intention  of  the  English. 

ot  being  able  to  follow  her  Maid  Servant  thro'  a  narrow  Paf  sage.  Mrs.  Perochon, 
lr.  Churchill,  Mr.  Hutchins  &c.  lost.  Mr.  Holford  had  both  his  legs  broke  &  was 
arried  into  a  Church,  which  was  afterwards  burnt.  Mr.  Branfill's  Housekeeper, 
Irs.  Hufsey  who  had  lived  many  Years  with  my  Father  was  taken  up  alive  out  of 
he  Ruins,  but  died  soon  after.' 

'  Just  thrown  down  by  the  Earthquake.'  2  '  Of  Fryars.' 


716 


THE  BLACK  COCKADE. 

UNPUBLISHED  REMINISCENCES  OF  A   FRENCH  EMIGRE. 

UP  the  long  straight  finger  of  the  peninsula  of  Quiberon  runs,  as 
inexorable  as  destiny,  one  of  the  most  suggestive  little  roads  in  the 
world — the  road  to  Auray.  Whether  it  crosses  the  bare,  stone- 
walled, windmilled  country  round  Quiberon  itself,  or  slips  through 
the  astonishingly  narrow  neck  of  land  where  Fort  Penthievre  still 
rears  its  grass-grown  counterscarp,  or  engages  itself  among  the  fir- 
coppices  of  the  mainland,  it  is  always  the  same,  heartbreaking  in 
its  monotony  and  its  memories.  Along  that  road,  on  the  afternoon 
of  July  21,  1795,  disarmed,  half  stripped,  and  drenched  with  rain, 
the  broken  remnants  of  nine  regiments  of  emigres  tramped  between 
their  guards  towards  Auray  and  death.  This  is  the  story  of  an 
emigre  who,  though  he  saw  it,  had  the  fortune  never  to  tread  that 
road. 

He  was  born  at  Verdun  in  Lorraine  in  June  1765 — the  eldest 
son  of  Jean-Baptiste-Cesar  Catoire  and  Madeleine  Henry  his  wife. 
The  elder  Catoire,  father  of  three  sons  and  four  daughters,  seems  to 
have  held  some  small  post  in  the  revenue.  Our  hero  (who,  curiously 
enough,  never  mentions  his  own  Christian  name)  was  put  to  school 
at  ten  years  of  age,  and,  according  to  himself,  made  passable  progress 
in  his  studies,  though  his  grammar,  not  to  speak  of  his  spelling,  does 
not  indicate  any  high  level  of  attainment.1  When  he  was  '  en 
seconde  '  his  father's  uncle,  who  had  a  living  in  his  gift,  announced 
his  intention  of  resigning  it  to  his  great-nephew.  The  boy  was 
therefore  taken  to  Eheims  to  receive  the  tonsure,  but  did  not  take 
orders,  and  returned  to  his  native  town  to  finish  his  studies  until 
such  time  as  his  great-uncle  should  resign  him  the  living,  which 
he  did  in  1789.  But  the  young  layman  did  not  long  enjoy  his 
benefice, — in  which,  after  a  custom  once  usual  enough,  but  then 
dying  out,  he  would  instal  a  vicaire, — for  next  year  the  civil  oath  of 
allegiance  was  demanded  from  the  clergy,  and  young  Catoire, 
though  only,  as  he  says,  '  simple  tonsure,'  saw  no  way  of  avoiding 
what  was  to  him  '  Fabominable  serment '  but  by  enlisting.  Like 

1  His  language  is  much  the  spoken  French  of  country  districts  to-day. 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  717 

Aramis  of  immortal  memory,  he  exchanged  the  cassock,  which 
certainly  hung  on  him  but  loosely,  for  the  sword,  and  entered  as  a 
cadet  in  the  line  regiment  of  Royal- Vaisseaux,  then  in  garrison 
at  Verdun. 

Nearly  all  the  French  infantry  regiments  were  by  this  time 
disaffected,  and  though  Royal- Vaisseaux  seems  from  the  sequel 
to  have  been  an  exception,  it  was  a  distinctly  insubordinate  corps.1 
Shortly  after  Catoire  had  joined  it  was  ordered  to  Sedan,  where  a 
sojourn  of  some  months  brought  the  recruit  into  relation  with  an 
event  even  more  painful  to  his  convictions  than  the  civil  oath.  It 
was  June  1791,  and  along  the  road  from  Clermont  to  Varennes,  some 
thirty-five  miles  away,  a  large  yellow  berline,  piled  with  luggage, 
Iwas  making  its  way  towards  Montmedy,  the  frontier,  and  safety. 
How  news  of  a  secret  so  well  kept  could  have  got  to  Sedan  in  the 
j  time  is  not  clear,  but  Royal- Vaisseaux  suddenly  received  marching 
orders,  ostensibly  for  Sarrelouis.  In  reality  it  was  leaving  Sedan, 
as  Catoire  soon  found  out  to  his  horror,  '  to  arrest  our  poor  King.' 
Whether  the  bulk  of  the  regiment  disliked  their  errand  or  no  their 
colonel,  the  Comte  de  Gouvernet,  was  a  staunch  Royalist,  and  it 
was  the  officers  who,  according  to  Catoire,  had  recourse  to  the 
extraordinary  expedient  of  substituting  cartridges  filled  with  onion- 
'seed  for  the  powder  which  was  served  out  to  the  men.  Naturally 
this  priming  '  n'eut  pas  son  effet,'  as  Catoire  complacently  observes, 
but  in  any  case  it  was  not  used.  Counter- orders  reached  Royal- 
Vaisseaux  on  the  road,  for  the  postmaster  of  Ste.  Menehould,  aided 
by  destiny,  had  proved  sufficient  to  overthrow  all  Bouille's  careful 
plans  for  his  sovereign's  escape. 

The  arrest  of  the  King  lay  heavy  on  Catoire's  heart  for  more 
than  a  year,  and  when,  about  July  1792,  finding  himself  with  his 
)attalion  (the  first)  as  near  Verdun  as  Marville,  he  got  leave  of 
bsence  to  visit  his  home,  he  evidently  intended  his  conge  to  be 
inal.  By  not  rejoining  his  regiment  he  came  in  for  the  siege  of 
lis  native  town  by  the  Prussians,  the  result  of  France's  declaration 
of  war  in  April  against  their  allies  the  Austrians.  The  Prussians 
crossed  the  frontier  on  August  19 ;  on  August  23  Longwy  capitu- 
ated,  and  six  days  later  Verdun  was  formally  in  a  state  of  siege. 

1  Early  in  the  year,  when  in  garrison  at  Lille,  it  had  taken  a  principal  part 
n  the  forcible  introduction  into  that  town  of  a  large  quantity  of  contraband 
spirit.  In  April  a  collision  had  occurred  with  the  chasseurs  de  Normandie,  and  in 

course  of  an  eight-hours'  fight  seven  soldiers  and  some  townsmen  had  been 
cilled,  while  the  chasseurs  had  subsequently  to  stand  a  three  days'  siege  in  the 
citadel. 


718  THE    BLACK   COCKADE. 

Surrounded  on  all  sides  by  its  vine-clad  slopes,  it  was  an  ill  place 
to  defend.  When  it  refused,  on  August  31,  to  surrender,  Brunswick 
bombarded  it  all  night.  Yet  there  were  Royalist  sympathisers- 
like  Catoire  himself — in  town  and  garrison,  and  even  the  council  of 
defence  was  divided.  It  was  plain  at  least  to  Beaurepaire,  the 
commandant,  which  way  the  tide  was  setting,  and  in  the  dark  of 
the  morning  of  September  2  he  blew  out  his  brains  rather  than 
sign  the  capitulation  which  he  foresaw.  His  suicide  did  not  avert 
the  surrender.  Later  in  the  same  day  the  young  Marceau  bore  to 
Brunswick  the  town's  acceptance  of  his  terms — an  inauspicious 
beginning  of  a  brief  and  brilliant  career.  Later  still  the  defenders 
marched  out  and  the  Prussians  entered. 

Catoire  must  have  been  in  Verdun  through  the  siege.  He 
states  that  he  remained  hidden  in  his  home  from  September  3  to 
October  15  ;  and  it  may  be  true  that  he  somewhat  unaccountably 
concealed  himself  the  day  after  the  Prussians  entered,  but  he  can 
hardly  have  obtained  leave  of  absence  from  his  regiment  on  that 
date,  and  he  could  not  have  got  in  during  the  investment.  But 
his  memory  for  dates  is  not  good,  though  he  is  prodigal  of  them. 
However  it  may  be,  he  evidently  remained  in  hiding  all  through 
the  Prussian  occupation,  not  emerging,  apparently,  even  at  the 
entry  of  the  King's  brothers  with  their  train  of  Royalists.  Three 
days  after  the  invaders  withdrew — on  October  12 — he  was 
denounced  to  the  authorities  by  the  cure  of  his  parish,  a  '  con- 
stitutional '  priest.  He  did  not  wait  for  the  stroke  of  vengeance, 
and  therein  he  did  wisely,  for,  as  a  deserter,  he  was  certainly  more 
culpable  than  the  women  and  girls  who,  some  eighteen  months 
later,  paid  on  the  scaffold  the  price  of  their  visit  to  the  Prussian 
camp.  The  story  of  the  '  Virgins  of  Verdun  ' — how,  dressed  in 
white,  they  played  something  the  part  of  our  own  Maids  of  Taunton, 
presenting  the  invader  not  with  a  Bible,  but  with  sweetmeats  and 
flowers,  may  be  inaccurate  in  detail,  but  the  fate  of  the  victims  is 
not  a  fiction.  More  fortunate,  the  cadet  of  Royal- Vaisseaux  started 
at  once  for  the  frontier.  He  got  as  far  as  the  little  town  of  Bouillon, 
and  there  was  arrested  by  four  gendarmes.  Fifteen  days  in  prison 
followed,  at  the  end  of  which  a  court-martial  condemned  him,  not 
to  a  firing-party,  but  to  the  guillotine. 

That  Catoire  should  perish  untimely  on  the  scaffold  was  not, 
however,  the  design  of  Providence,  which,  '  reserving  me,  perhaps,' 
as  he  quaintly  says,  '  for  another  occasion,'  inspired  his  jailor,  a 
person  of  Royalist  sympathies,  to  connive  at  his  escape.  By  means 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  719 

of  two  sheets  knotted  together  the  young  man  let  himself  down  one 
night  from  the  window  of  his  prison,  and  gaining  the  frontier  by 
unfrequented  roads,  made  his  way  to  that  focus  of  emigration, 
Coblentz.  But  Coblentz  was  no  longer  the  refuge  which  it  had 
been.  Custine's  successes,  and  his  threatening  neighbourhood  at 
Mayence,  were  scattering  most  of  its  floating  population.  Yet 
Catoire  was  at  Coblentz  for  the  next  ten  months  or  so,  though 
of  his  manner  of  life  there  he  gives  no  hint.  Probably  he  found 
existence  far  from  easy.  In  the  end,  like  the  majority  of  the 
emigres,  he  enlisted,  and  at  Maestricht  exchanged  the  white  and 
red  uniform  of  Royal- Vaisseaux,  with  its  blue  facings,  for  the  light 
blue  and  black  and  white  of  the  Legion  de  Damas,  and  fastened  to 
his  shako  not  the  white,  but  the  black  cockade. 

The  corps  of  emigres  which  Catoire  joined  was  in  process  of  being 
raised,  for  Dutch  service  in  the  Allied  Army,  by  the  Comte  fitienne 
de  Damas.  It  consisted  of  two  companies  of  chasseurs  nobles 
and  four  of  fusiliers.  As  Catoire  was  not  nobly  born,  he  was 
presumably  enrolled  in  the  latter.  Two  of  these  came  from  the 
Irish  regiments  of  France,  so  that  in  the  muster  rolls  of  Damas  the 
names  of  O'Meara,  Macdermott,  and  Geoghegan  shouldered  those 
of  Savignac  and  Cardon  Vidampierre.  Not  being  in  French 
service,  but  in  the  pay  of  the  Allies,  the  Legion  de  Damas  and  the 
hussars  of  Beon  (raised  at  the  same  time,  and  fated  to  serve  side 
by  side)  were  obliged  to  wear  the  black  cockade,  an  emblem 
common  to  the  British  and  Austrian  troops  alike.  The  expression 
emigres  d  cocarde  noire  distinguished  the  emigre  regiments  which 
had  served  on  the  Continent — such  as  those  of  Damas,  Beon, 
Perigord,  Rohan,  Salm,  and  Loyal-Emigrant — from  those  raised 
later  in  England  and  flung  directly  on  to  French  soil. 

The  newly  formed  corps  left  Maestricht  in  September  1793  for 
Maubeuge,  on  the  French  side  of  the  Hainault  border,  which  the 
Austrians  were  besieging  with  14,000  men.  The  covering  army 
contained  nearly  twice  that  number,  while  Frederick  Duke  of  York, 
with  Austrian  as  well  as  British  troops,  had  the  task  of  protecting 
Flanders  along  a  forty-five-mile  front. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  give  in  a  very  short  space  the  chief 
events  of  the  Allied  campaign  of  1793-5  in  the  Netherlands,  and 
wearisome — though  feasible — to  trace  week  by  week  the  share 
borne  by  the  Legion  de  Damas.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  the 
English  and  Austrians  were  gradually  driven  back  from  the  Austrian 
Netherlands  to  the  United  Provinces — in  more  modern  phrase 


720  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

from  Belgium  to  Holland — and  were  finally  obliged  to  abandon 
even  the  latter.  If  it  be  permitted  to  conceive  of  the  Low  Countries 
as  a  tree  of  a  slightly  pyramidal  shape,  with  rivers  for  branches, 
then  the  motions  of  the  Allies — and  more  particularly  of  the 
English — resemble  those  of  a  bird  forced  by  the  advance  of  a 
larger  animal  to  flit  upwards  from  branch  to  branch.  From  the 
Sambre  they  withdrew  to  the  Scheldt,  from  the  Scheldt  they  fell 
back  on  the  Maas,  from  the  Maas  they  were  driven  on  to  the  great 
Rhine  mouths,  the  Waal  and  the  Leek,  and  from  these  to  the  last 
and  perpendicular  bough,  the  Yssel.  After  that  they  flew  off  the 
tree  altogether. 

Into  this  war  of  outposts  and  sieges,  of  harassing  retreats  and 
comfortless  bivouacs,  the  ex-soldier  of  Koyal-Vaisseaux  disappears 
for  the  next  year  and  a  half.  The  personal  note,  however,  rises 
sometimes  to  the  surface  in  his  short,  dry  and  somewhat  inaccurate 
account  of  the  campaign,  as  when  he  speaks  of  Brabant,  '  cette 
miserable  et  funeste  province,  ou  j'ai  essuie  bien  de  la  misere,'  or 
blames  Prince  Frederick  Josias  of  Coburg-Saalfeldt,  the  Austrian 
commander-in-chief,  for  throwing  away  the  victory  at  Fleurus. 
Fortunately  other  wearers  of  the  black  cockade  have  been  more 
communicative.  Two  in  particular  stand  out  in  excellence  and 
contrast — the  level-headed  Tercier,  who,  with  twenty  years  of 
service  and  the  rank  of  captain  behind  him,  entered  as  a  volunteer 
in  the  chasseurs  nobles  of  Damas,  and  the  young  hussar  of  the 
Legion  de  Beon,  the  Comte  de  Neuilly,  through  whose  entrancing 
pages  a  high-spirited  boy  of  seventeen  rides  laughing  at  danger  and 
privation  with  even  more  than  traditional  French  wit  and  grace. 

There  was  need  enough  of  buoyancy  of  soul,  or  of  the  spirit 
which  gave  the  Vendean  peasant  his  first  amazing  victories — the 
spirit  which  brought  all  Damas  and  Beon  to  their  knees  in  thank- 
fulness in  the  church  of  Waterloo  after  a  hot  and  difficult  retreat, 
which  moved  even  the  light-hearted  Neuilly,  crossing  himself  with 
his  comrades  when  their  chaplain  gave  them  all  absolution  in 
extremis  as  the  first  cannon  were  heard  at  Kouveroy.  For  war 
had  hard  conditions  for  the  French  exiles.  They  were  fighting 
against  their  countrymen  side  by  side  with  their  hereditary  foes, 
under  the  orders  of  a  Dutch,  an  Austrian,  or  a  British  prince  or 
general ;  and  Biese,  Haddick,  Sztaray,  Abercromby,  Harcourt, 
Guezeau,  with  whom  they  served  in  turn,  were  commanders  equally 
foreign  to  them.  In  that  heterogeneous  army  they  had  strange 
comrades  in  arms.  Damas  was  once  encamped  with  a  Croat 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  721 

regiment,  whose  insubordination  and  marauding  instincts  had  to  be 
checked  by  summary  measures.  Culprits  were  hoisted  up  to  the 
top  of  a  tree  and  thence  allowed  to  fall  three  times  to  the  ground, 
the  third,  if  not  an  earlier,  fall  being  fatal.  '  This  punishment,' 
observes  Tercier  briefly, '  is  cruel.'  At  the  sack  of  Thuin  the  bodies 
of  the  slain  burnt  in  a  horrible  bonfire,  nourished  with  faggots  and 
the  town  records,  round  the  tree  of  liberty  :  '  it  was  our  Croats  and 
Wallachians  who  had  had  this  pretty  idea,'  comments  Neuilly. 
In  its  own  ranks,  unknown  to  most  of  its  members,  the  Legion  de 
Damas  numbered  a  woman,  the  '  Chevalier  de  Haussey,'  fighting 
with  her  husband,  M.  de  Bennes,  and  passing  for  his  brother,  sur- 
viving his  death  by  her  side  at  the  defence  of  the  canal  of  Louvain, 
and  escaping,  with  a  man  disguised  as  a  woman,  from  the  Repub- 
lican prisons  after  Quiberon.  A  French  foot  soldier  whom  the 
Comte  de  Neuilly  cut  down  in  self-defence  before  Thuin  turned  out 
to  be  a  woman  too. 

Nor  did  the  emigres  run  merely  the  customary  risks  of  battle. 
Their  countrymen  refused  to  treat  them  as  prisoners  of  war,  shoot- 
ing them  out  of  hand  when  captured,  and  always  exempting  them 
from  the  capitulation  of  a  surrendered  town.  After  the  garrison 
of  Nieupoort  had  marched  out  (July  19,  1794)  Moreau  kept  the 
thirty  wounded  volunteers  of  Loyal- Emigrant  whom  he  found  in 
the  town  until  he  could  hunt  out  the  rest  for  a  completer  hecatomb. 
Between  150  and  180  were  shot  in  cold  blood  on  the  dunes.  Some 
days  earlier  Vandamme  had  poured  what  he  himself  called  '  un 
feu  d'enfer  '  into  three  boatloads  who  were  trying  to  escape,  before 
the  surrender,  to  Flushing.  The  wounded  of  the  same  regiment, 
after  their  magnificent  sortie  from  Menin  in  April,  were  despatched 
by  the  Republicans.  Warned  by  these  massacres  the  defenders 
of  Bois-le-Duc,  when  that  fortress  surrendered  to  Pichegru  in 
October,  arranged  that  the  emigres  of  the  Legion  de  Beon 
amongst  them  should  go  out  with  the  garrison  disguised  as 
carters  and  servants,  or  even  wearing  the  uniform  and  marching 
in  the  ranks  of  the  two  regiments  of  Hesse-Philippsthal.  The 
stratagem  was  unavailing,  for  nearly  all  were  discovered  and  cut 
to  pieces,  in  spite  of  Pichegru's  frantic  efforts  to  save  them.  After 
;his  the  Prince  of  Orange  gave  his  word  that  no  emigres  should  be 
eft  in  a  besieged  post. 

Not  sieges,  however,  so  much  as  outpost  duty  or  the  covering 
a  retreat  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Legion  de  Damas.  After  the  abandon- 
ment of  the  siege  of  Maubeuge  they  were  stationed  along  the 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  46 


722  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

Meuse,  engaged  in  daily  exchanges  of  shots  with  the  French  on  the 
other  bank.  In  the  spring  of  1794  they  were  in  a  similar  position 
between  Dinant  and  Givet,  in  cantonments  damp  with  rain  and 
iinow,  on  the  banks  of  the  little  river  Lesse.  The  hussars  of  Beon, 
posted  nearer  the  enemy,  were  several  times  surprised  by  the 
patrols  of  the  French  cavalry  brigade,  especially  as  the  young 
emigres  of  the  corps  constantly  amused  themselves  by  fishing  for 
trout  in  the  river.  In  such  cases  they  at  once  paid  the  penalty 
on  the  further  bank,  in  view  of  their  comrades.  But  at  the  end  of 
May  Damas  was  called  to  more  active  work.  The  army  of  the 
Meuse  under  Jourdain  had  succeeded  in  rolling  back  the  army 
corps  of  the  Austrian  general  Beaulieu,  and  General  Riese,  in  whose 
division  was  Damas,  resolved  to  hold  Dinant  as  long  as  possible  to 
protect  their  retreat.  The  town  had  no  fortifications,  and  stood 
high.  Posted  behind  the  hedges  of  a  large  farm  on  the  south  of 
Dinant,  which  rose  steeply  at  their  backs,  Catoire  and  his  regiment 
saw  Beaulieu  retreating  towards  them  in  good  order.  The  emigres 
had  twice  to  be  ordered  to  retire  from  their  position,  for  the  Comte 
de  Damas  did  not  hasten  to  obey  the  first  summons,  a  piece  of 
rashness  which  nearly  cost  his  men  dear.  Some  of  the  French 
infantry  were  akeady  in  the  lower  town  when  Damas  passed 
through,  the  last  regiment  to  cross  the  Meuse — and  during  the  long 
march  on  Namur  which  followed  the  enemy  harassed  them,  '  en 
nous  poursuivant,'  says  Catoire,  '  d'une  rude  maniere,  et  nous 
accablant  de  boulets  et  de  cartages  (sic)'  Indeed,  his  regiment  was 
nearly  always  holding  some  untenable  position.  In  July  it  was 
the  chateau  of  Hougoumont,  with  Beon  behind  them  occupying 
Mont  St.  Jean.  They  were  replying  as  best  they  could  without 
artillery  to  artillery  fire,  when  behind  a  screen  of  cavalry  Lef  ebvre's 
whole  division  was  suddenly  descried,  and  on  the  emigres  fell  the 
task  of  covering  as  long  as  possible  the  consequent  retreat  of  the) 
Prince  of  Orange's  main  body  on  Brussels.  Or  it  was  the  canaij 
of  Louvain,  a  week  later.  Here  Damas  and  Beon,  600  strong.., 
kept  12,000  men  in  check  for  four  hours.  Even  the  Moniteur,  in 
acknowledging  the  loss  of  1500  men,  praised  their  bravery.  Wheri 
the  two  regiments  were  ordered  to  draw  off  they  had  not  a  singlfi 
cartridge  left,  and  one  of  the  companies  of  chasseurs  nobles  in  Damafi 
was  reduced  to  half  its  strength.  Their  wounded,  unable  to  follovj 
the  dangerous  retreat  along  the  canal,  were  taken  to  Brussels  b] 
the  Republicans  and  shot. 

It  was  not  only  the  enemy  who  praised  the  Legion  de  Damas 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  723 

In  March  1794,  when  it  was  bivouacked  near  Thuin,  its  gallantry 
in  surprising  the  village  of  Erquelines  on  the  further  side  of  the 
Sambre  had  won  from  the  Prince  of  Orange  a  warm  eulogy  in  the 
orders  of  the  day.  Catoire  had  in  fact  his  share  in  battles — even 
in  victories  :  in  early  June  in  that  which  temporarily  beat  off  the 
French  from  the  walls  of  Charleroi,  in  mid-June  in  the  Austrian 
success  won  in  a  fog  on  the  plain  of  Gosselies,  and  sometimes  called 
the  first  battle  of  Fleurus.  Of  the  second  battle,  ten  days  later, 
on  which  the  legion  were  already  congratulating  themselves  as  on 
a  victory  which,  in  Tercier's  words,  '  allait  enfin  terminer  cette 
horrible  Revolution,'  Catoire  plainly  shared  Haddick's  opinion. 
'  Twenty-five  years  have  I  served,'  exclaimed  the  Austrian  general 
to  the  disgusted  emigres,  '  and  I  have  never  yet  seen  a  victorious 
army  beating  a  retreat.' 

But  henceforward,  as  though  in  retribution  for  a  neglected 
opportunity,  retreat  was  the  constant  portion  of  the  Allies.  By 
the  end  of  June  the  Austrian  Netherlands  were  abandoned  ;  a  month 
later  came  the  final  parting  of  the  Austrian  and  British  forces.  In 
August  it  was  clear  that  neither  English  nor  Dutch  were  strong 
enough  to  stop  the  victorious  advance  of  Pichegru.  After  York 
had  fallen  back  on  Bois-le-Duc  Damas  was  sent  to  join  Beon  there, 
but,  more  fortunate  than  the  sister  regiment,  it  had  left  before  the 
surrender.  The  same  good  fortune  befell  it  at  Venloo.  Yet  it 
had  suffered  severely  enough.  On  the  very  day  of  the  fall  of  Venloo 
it  was  reviewed  at  Arnheim  by  the  Stadtholder.  It  had  lost  302 
men  since  August  1,  and  had  now  only  343  under  arms  ;  for  one 
thing,  it  was  found  that  the  neighbourhood  of  the  English  army, 
with  its  better  pay  and  rations,  attracted  the  Irish  soldiers  to 
desert. 

Arnheim  saw  Damas  there  once  again,  after  the  fall  of  Nimeguen. 
By  this  time  the  end  was  approaching.  After  a  fortnight's  welcome 
rest  at  Utrecht — a  rest  seasoned  even  with  a  little  gaiety — Damas 
went,  with  other  regiments  under  the  command  of  Harcourt,  into 
unhealthy  cantonments  in  the  lines  of  Grebbe,  which  separated  the 
provinces  of  Utrecht  and  Guelders,  where  it  was  quartered  in  miser- 
able marshy  villages,  with  no  hospital  and  about  half  the  strength, 
fever-stricken,  always  on  guard.  Already,  indeed,  retiring  as  they 
had  been  since  the  battle  of  Fleurus,  the  legion  had  begun  the 
terrible  retreat  of  the  winter  of  1794-5.  Rain  had  fallen  since  the 
beginning  of  November,  and  in  the  middle  of  December  there  set 
in  the  severest  frost  of  the  century.  Canals  and  rivers  existed  no 

46—2 


7:11  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

longer  as  barriers,  but  as  roads.  Infantry,  cavalry  and  artillery 
manoauvred  on  the  ice  as  they  might  have  done  in  July  on  the 
Belgian  plains.  The  sentries  were  frozen  at  their  posts.  Later, 
when  the  Legion  de  Rohan  was  retreating  through  Friesland,  and 
nightly  building  themselves  huts  of  snow  with  their  sabres,  their 
patrols  and  those  of  the  French  would  meet  and  be  unable  even 
to  challenge  each  other,  so  stiffly  were  their  moustaches  frozen  to 
the  fur  of  their  pelisses.  The  French  crossed  the  Meuse  and  the 
Waal  on  the  ice — the  latter  river  three  times — and  the  Dutch  fleet 
in  the  Texel  afterwards  surrendered  to  the  light  artillery  of  a 
cavalry  division.  At  last,  in  the  middle  of  January,  Walmoden,  left 
in  joint  command  with  Harcourt  by  the  recall  of  the  Duke  of  York, 
ordered  a  further  retreat  from  the  north  bank  of  the  Waal. 

The  days  that  followed  are  amongst  the  most  tragical  in  the  history  of  the 
Army.  .  .  .  The  country  to  the  north  of  Arnheim  is  at  the  best  of  times  an  inhos- 
pitable waste,  and  there  were  few  dwellings  and  few  trees  to  give  shelter  or  fuel 
after  a  dreary  march  through  dense  and  chilling  mist  over  snow  twice  thawed 
and  refrozen.  .  .  .  When  the  day  was  ended,  the  troops  of  different  nations  fought 
for  such  scanty  comforts  as  were  to  be  found.  .  .  .  Day  after  day  the  cold  steadily 
increased  ;  and  those  of  the  army  that  woke  on  the  morning  of  January  17  saw 
about  them  such  a  sight  as  they  never  forgot.  Far  as  the  eye  could  reach  over 
the  whitened  plain  were  scattered  gun-limbers,  waggons  full  of  baggage,  stores, 
or  sick  men,  sutlers'  carts  and  private  carriages.  Beside  them  lay  the  horses, 
dead  ;  around  them  scores  and  hundreds  of  soldiers,  dead  ;  here  a  straggler  who  had 
staggered  on  to  the  bivouac  and  dropped  to  sleep  in  the  arms  of  the  frost ;  there  a 
group  of  British  and  Germans  round  an  empty  rum-cask ;  here  forty  English 
guardsmen  huddled  together  about  a  plundered  waggon  ;  there  a  pack-horse  with  a 
woman  lying  alongside  it,  and  a  baby,  swaddled  in  rags,  peeping  out  of  the  pack 
with  its  mother's  milk  turned  to  ice  upon  its  lips — one  and  all  stark,  frozen,  dead. 
Had  the  retreat  lasted  but  three  or  four  days  longer,  not  a  man  would  have  escaped ; 
and  the  catastrophe  would  have  found  a  place  in  history  side  by  side  with  the 
destruction  of  the  army  of  Sennacherib  and  with  the  still  more  terrible  disaster  of 
the  retreat  from  Moscow.1 

So  fared  the  main  body.  The  Legion  de  Damas,  with  Aber- 
cromby,  had  its  own  Odyssey.  But  Catoire,  who  has  not  a  descrip-| 
tive  pen,  cannot  summon  up  a  picture  a  tithe  as  vivid  as  this,  whictj 
the  historian  of  our  army  has  evoked  from  the  records  of  eye-j 
witnesses.  His  patient  little  chronicle  says  merely,  '  Nous  fumefj 
en  route  pendant  le  froid  rigoureux  des  mois  9bre,  xbre,  Janvier  ei| 
fevrier  .  .  .  non  sans  beaucoup  de  peine  et  de  fatigues,  ayanj 
ete  oblige  (sic)  de  passer  dans  les  neges,  et  meme  d'avoir  ete  conj 
traint  (sic)  de  passer  le  Ehin  a  la  nage  etant  poursuivis  par  I'ennemi'i 
(sic).'  The  cold  on  January  16  was,  says  Tercier,  the  most  terriblj 

1  Hon.  J.  W.  Fortescue,  History  of  the  British  Army,  vol.  iv.,  part  i.,  p.  320. 


THE    BLACK   COCKADE.  725 

he  ever  experienced  before  or  after,  and  on  that  day  the  legion 
marched  from  eight  in  the  morning  till  midnight,  along  ways  strewn 
with  corpses — many  of  them  English — to  Apdthorn,  a  little  frontier 
town  of  Hanover.  The  snow  was  falling  ;  the  country  was  a  plain 
without  a  village  ;  they  dared  not  loiter.  Apdthorn,  when  they 
got  there,  was  crammed  with  the  allied  troops.  A  dilapidated  barn 
was  with  difficulty  obtained  for  shelter,  but  no  food  was  to  be 
procured  till  the  morrow  at  midday — the  fatal  17th  of  January.  At 
Groenloo  the  French  were  on  their  heels.  The  frost  had  broken  ; 
and  in  the  night  the  legion  set  out  again,  often  wading  in  water  to 
the  waist.  Two  hours  longer  in  Groenloo  and  they  would  have 
been  captured.  But  as  they  dragged  themselves  along  next  day, 
knee-deep  in  mud,  some  of  the  younger  men,  spent  and  disheartened, 
threw  themselves  down  by  the  wayside  and  cried,  like  Chateau- 
briand during  Brunswick's  retreat  through  the  mire  of  Champagne, 
that  it  was  better  to  die  than  to  endure  such  misery. 

Marching  under  such  conditions,  it  is  small  wonder  that  Catoire 
should  at  last  lose  himself.  The  ultimate  destination  of  the  legion 
was  Harburg  on  the  Elbe,  but  the  Lorrainer,  having  traversed  with 
his  comrades,  as  he  says,  nearly  all  the  province  of  Munster,  got 
separated  from  them  somewhere  in  Hanover,  very  possibly  at 
Quakenbruck,  whence,  instead  of  following  them  eastward  to 
Diepenau,  he  seems  to  have  gone  due  north.  At  any  rate,  after 
wandering  '  from  town  to  town,  from  village  to  village,'  he  stumbled 
at  last  into  the  little  town  of  Kloppenburg  in  Oldenburg.  By 
»ood  fortune  it  was  occupied  by  another-  emigre  regiment — that  of 
Comte  Archambault  de  Perigord,  recently  raised  by  him,  and 
commanded  by  his  brother  Bozon  de  Perigord.  The  Comte  de 
Perigord,  to  whom  Catoire  was  personally  known,1  allowed  the 
straggler  to  enter  his  corps,  and  the  latter  finally  found  him- 
self, with  the  rest  of  the  emigres  d  cocarde  noire,  in  garrison  at  Stade, 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Elbe.  Here,  in  English  pay,  the  exiles  waited 
until  fate  should  beckon  them  over,  to  engulf  them,  on  the  sands 
of  Brittany,  in  disaster  more  irrevocable  than  had  ever  stared  them 
in  the  face  behind  the  walls  of  Bois-le-Duc  or  among  the  snows  of 
Friesland. 

1  His  uncle,  the  Cardinal  Alexandre-Angelique  de  Talleyrand-Perigord,  had 
been  Grand  Vicaire  of  Verdun,  and  was  Archbishop-Duke  of  Rheims  when  Catoire 
received  the  tonsure  there.  Archambault  and  Bozon  de  Talleyrand-Perigord  were 
younger  brothers  of  the  great  diplomatist. 


726  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

II. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  July  9,  in  the  same  year  of  1795,  any 
interested  inhabitant  of  Portsmouth  might  have  observed  a  stir 
in  the  flotilla  of  transports  which  had  been  lying  off  Spithead  for 
the  last  few  days.  Probably  the  sight  did  arouse  some  curiosity  in 
him,  for  the  French  emigre  regiments  which  those  ships  had  brought 
from  Hanover  had  been  ashore  for  a  time  at  Portsmouth,  and  had 
even  renewed  acquaintance  there  with  the  Highlanders  who  had 
shared  their  perils  at  Nimeguen.  And  if  he  happened  to  be  the 
merchant  whom  Tercier  records  having  met  at  a  Portsmouth  inn, 
it  is  possible  that  he  repeated  the  opinion  which  he  had  expressed 
on  that  occasion  :  '  It  is  a  very  bad  expedition.' 

Good  or  bad,  the  expedition  weighed  anchor  at  ten  o'clock  on 
that  fine  July  morning — five  regiments  of  infantry  with  the  black 
cockade — Damas,  Beon,  Salm,  Perigord  and  Rohan — all  under  the 
command  of  the  young  colonel  of  hussars,  the  brother  of  the 
heroine  of  the  glass  of  blood,  Comte  Charles  de  Sombreuil,  himself 
perhaps  the  most  gallant  and  tragic  figure  in  all  the  long  muster- 
roll  of  those  who  died  for  the  lilies.  Young,  brave,  gifted,  sur- 
passingly handsome,  he  was  summoned  to  Portsmouth  on  the  very 
day  that  should  have  seen  his  marriage.  '  Je  meurs  d'amour  et  de 
desespoir,'  he  wrote  ;  but  honour  called — and  perhaps  glory  too. 
.  .  .  Ere  the  month  was  out  he  had  drained  the  lees  of  disillusion 
and  defeat,  and  lay  dead  under  the  convent  wall  at  Vannes,  the 
balls  of  a  Republican  firing-party  in  his  heart. 

The  emigre  regiments  raised  in  England  and  Loyal- Emigrant 
had  already  sailed  in  the  middle  of  June  under  the  command  of  the 
Comte  d'Hervilly,  in  company  with  Sir  John  Warren's  squadron  of 
eight  ships  ;  had  landed  at  Carnac  on  the  eastern  side  of  Quiberon 
Bay ;  had  even,  in  the  persons  of  Tinteniac's  and  du  Boisberthelot's 
Chouans,  held  for  a  time  Auray  and  Landevant.  But '  les  ennemis 
sont  dans  la  ratiere  et  moi  avec  quelques  chats  a  la  porte,'  wrote 
Hoche  exultantly.  His  metaphor  was  only  too  cruelly  correct, 
and  when  Sombreuil's  division  cast  anchor,  a  little  before  sunset  on 
July  15,  in  the  wide  and  placid  bay  of  Quiberon,  they  came  only  as 
fresh  victims.  Hoche,  with  his  12,000  men — three  to  one — had 
held  all  the  regiments  with  the  white  cockade  penned  in  the  peninsula 
since  he  had  taken  the  Chouan  position  on  the  mainland. 
Thousands  of  the  loyal  peasantry  were  herded  there  too  ;  women, 
children,  the  infirm, — useless  mouths,  camped  without  shelter. 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  727 

cooking  what  food  they  could  get  on  fires  of  seaweed.  And  mean- 
while there  fought  for  Hoche  the  incredible  mismanagement  and 
carelessness  of  the  Royalist  commanders,  and  the  friction  produced 
by  a  command  insanely  divided  between  the  irritable  and  incom- 
petent d'Hervilly  and  the  enigmatic  and  incompetent  Puisaye. 

All  was  soon  to  be  made  clear  to  the  new  contingent.  Next 
day,  before  they  could  be  disembarked,  d'Hervilly,  without  wait- 
ing for  their  reinforcement,  attacked  the  Republican  position  at 
Ste.  Barbe,  failed  to  carry  it,  got  two  of  his  best  regiments  almost 
wiped  out,  and  received  his  own  death-wound.  Only  one  nail 
remained  to  be  driven  into  the  coffin  of  the  Royalists.  Fort 
Penthievre  effectually  blocked  the  entrance  to  the  lower  part  of  the 
peninsula,  and  Fort  Penthievre  was  still  theirs.  On  the  night  of 
the  20th,  a  dark  night  of  rain  and  wind,  it  was  surprised;  There 
was  treachery  within  ;  deserters  led  the  grenadiers  as  they  came 
creeping  round,  knee-deep  in  the  sea,  and  the  men  of  d'Hervilly's 
own  regiment  helped  them  over  the  parapet. 

Though  Catoire  cannot  have  formed  part  of  it,  a  detachment 
of  his  new  regiment,  Perigord,  was  cut  to  pieces  on  the  platform. 
But  the  remains  of  Perigord  (and  presumably  Catoire  too)  formed 
part  of  that  company  which  turned  to  bay  next  morning  with 
Sombreuil  in  the  little  fort  on  the  shore  by  Port  Haliguen,  with  its 
rusty  old  cannon  and  crumbling  four-foot  walls.  Every  hope  was 
gone.  Puisaye  had  saved  himself  by  flight ;  there  was  scarcely  a 
cartridge  left.  Only  an  English  corvette,  the  Lark,  kept  up  so 
withering  a  fire  on  the  stretch  of  beach  that  Hoche's  grenadiers 
could  not  approach,  and  so,  a  musket-shot  away,  drawn  up  orderly 
with  their  guns  in  a  slight  depression  of  the  sandhills,  they  waited 
till  the  Royalist  commander  should  himself  throw  away  his  one 
safeguard  to  obtain  that  mistaken  capitulation  afterwards  so 
terribly  repudiated;  The  corvette's  guns  were  presently  silent ;  a 
young  sailor  of  the  Comte  d'Hector's  regiment  had  swum  off  to  her 
with  Sombreuil's  request,  and  had  returned  to  die  with  the  rest. 
Gesril  du  Papeu's  brilliant  devotion  lives  for  ever  in  marble  above 
the  bones  of  his  slaughtered  comrades  at  Auray,  but  the  spirit  which 
moved  him  was  not  his  alone.  There  were  officers  who  embarked 
their  colours  and  remained  themselves  on  the  shore  ;  there  was 
Tercier  himself,  to  whom,  with  the  means  of  escape  suddenly  at  his 
hand,  the  thought  of  abandoning  his  regiment  did  not  even  occur  ; 
and — most  poignant  figure  of  all,  and  perhaps,  indeed,  the  most 
heroic — Charles  de  Lamoignon,  of  Catoire's  regiment,  who  placed 


728  THE   BLACK    COCKADE. 

his  wounded  brother  in  a  boat  and  came  back,  so  loath  to  die  that 
'  il  pleurait  a  chaudes  larmes.'  But  of  all  the  despair,  the  rage, 
the  broken  hopes,  the  shattered  faith — of  the  beach  strewn  with 
fugitives,  with  the  dead,  the  drowned,  with  useless  weapons — 
nothing  remains  at  Quiberon  to-day.  The  dazzling  white  sand  is 
clean  of  blood  and  tears  ;  only  a  few  tufts  of  pale  sea-holly  shiver 
at  the  foot  of  the  low  dunes,  and  underneath  the  spot  where  Som- 
breuil  gave  up  his  sword,  a  child  or  two  builds  other  forts  of  sand. 

Since  daylight  the  boats  of  the  English  squadron  had  been  hard 
at  work  taking  off  fugitives,  but  as  the  day  wore  on  a  rising  sea 
rendered  the  task  more  difficult.  Nor,  indeed,  were  there  boats 
enough  for  so  great  a  number.  From  what  he  says,  Catoire  evidently 
made  an  effort  to  escape  in  this  way,  but  failed  ;  he  was  lucky, 
however,  not  to  be  drowned,  as  so  many  were,  in  the  attempt. 
Trying  instead  to  get  to  some  hiding-place,  he  was  captured  by  a 
patrol,  stripped  of  all  he  possessed,  and  left  with  only  an  old  torn 
shirt  in  place  of  his  own,  which  was  new.  (Not  the  officers,  not  even 
Sombreuil  himself,  were  exempt  from  this  treatment.)  Worse, 
however,  to  Catoire's  mind,  was  the  destruction  before  his  eyes  of 
his  baptismal  certificate  and  his  regimental  papers ;  worse  still  the 
ill-usage  meted  out  to  the  venerable  Bishop  of  Dol ;  worst  of  all 
the  massacre  of  a  priest  on  whom  the  soldiers  had  found  a  little 
ciborium  containing  several  consecrated  wafers,  which  with 
blasphemies  and  imprecations  they  trampled  under  foot.  The 
priest  paid  for  his  remonstrances  with  his  life.  '  At  this  frightful 
spectacle,'  says  Catoire,  '  I  could  not  help  shrugging  my  shoulders,' 
which  seems  a  mild  enough  manner  of  expressing  disapprobation 
under  the  circumstances.  '  One  of  these  madmen  said  that  I 
deserved  the  same  fate,  but  the  sergeant  would  not  allow  it.  I 
thought  that  he  would  have  let  me  go  :  not  at  all.  I  was  confined 
in  [the  fort  of]  St.  Pierre ' — where  Sombreuil  had  surrendered — '  in 
a  room  where  there  were  already  three  ecclesiastics  of  Vannes  and 
three  officers  of  Loyal- Emigrant  who  were  to  be  shot  the  following 
morning  as  well  as  I.' l 

Once  again  our  hero  escaped  death.  He  owed  his  safety  to  the 
wine  and  brandy  which,  disembarked  originally  from  the  English 

1  Catoire's  narrative  contains  no  mention  of  the  alleged  capitulation  nor  even 
any  definite  reference  to  the  surrender,  being  in  fact  rather  scanty  and  confused 
at  this  point.  Probably  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  go  into  details  on  an 
event  so  recent.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  regarding  with  sus- 
picion his  statements  as  to  the  ill-treatment  of  the  Bishop  of  Dol,  the  murder  of  a 
priest,  and  the  summary  execution  of  tmigrte. 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  729 

ships,  was  now  enlivening  the  hearts  of  the  Republican  rank  and 
file.  Catoire's  place  of  captivity  looked  out  on  to  a  garden.  Into 
this  garden  he  was  let  out.  The  two  soldiers  told  off  to  guard  him, 
laying  their  muskets  on  the  ground,  sat  down  on  a  stone  bench  and 
continued  their  interrupted  potations  until  they  were  unable  to 
stand,  much  less  to  pursue  their  prisoner,  who  slipped  quietly  over 
a  low  wall  and  hid  till  sundown  in  a  dog-kennel.  When  night  came 
he  left  his  hiding-place  and  made  his  way  to  the  village  where  he 
had  been  quartered  the  night  before — St.  Julien.  He  knocked 
softly  at  a  door  ;  it  was  opened,  but  the  inmates  of  the  house  would 
not  admit  him  until  he  had  recourse  to  a  lie,  and  declared  himself 
a  priest,  and  a  chaplain  to  boot.  Then  the  good  Bretons  took  him 
in,  and  hid  him  in  a  hayloft,  lest  the  house  should  be  searched. 
At  11  P.M.  there  came  indeed  another  knock  at  the  door,  yet  it  was 
not  a  Republican  search-party,  as  Catoire  feared,  but  a  priest  from 
Quiberon  village,  come  to  see  a  sick  person  in  the  house.  Taking 
the  refugee  for  one  of  his  own  order,  he  conducted  him  to  another 
and  somewhat  safer  hamlet,  to  the  dwelling  of  some  '  pious  persons,' 
who  hid  him  in  another  loft,  lit  only  by  a  small  aperture  two  or 
three  inches  in  diameter. 

In  this  retreat  Catoire  remained  hidden  from  July  21  to  the 
beginning  of  October — a  sojourn  longer  and  probably  more  un- 
comfortable than  his  retirement  at  Verdun.  But  there  were  those 
who  fared  worse.  Villeneuve-Larochebarnaud,  of  the  same  regi- 
ment, after  some  agonising  days  and  nights  in  a  position  where  he 
could  only  just  kneel  upright,  was  smuggled  out  of  prison  in  a  chest 
and  hidden  in  a  pigsty,  where  he  had  to  defend  himself  against  the 
attacks  of  the  enraged  inmate.  Nearly  all  the  prisoners  who 
escaped  shooting  were  saved  by  the  agency  of  women  from  the 
prisons  of  Vannes  and  Auray.  It  was  thus  that  Tercier  avoided 
death,  though  he  owed  much  to  his  own  coolness  in  slipping  out 
through  the  open  door  when  the  gaoler  was  reading  out  the  list  of 
condemned.  Catoire's  case  has  something  of  a  parallel  in  that  of 
Boisherault  d'Oyron,  who  threw  the  gold  he  had  on  him  to  the 
firing-party  which  had  already  despatched  sixty-nine  of  his  com- 
rades, and  ran  off  while  they  were  scrambling  for  it.  This  was 
at  Quiberon  too.  He  hid  all  night  in  a  field  of  corn,  and  lay  for 
three  months  in  a  barn,  escaping  at  last  disguised  as  a  fisherman. 
It  was  in  some  such  travesty  as  this — '  habille  en  pauvre,'  he  says — 
that  Catoire  at  last  succeeded  in  eluding  the  vigilance  of  the 
Republicans,  and,  getting  clear  of  the  fatal  peninsula,  was  conducted 


730  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

by  a  guide  to  the  curd  of  Locmariaquer,  whence,  after  a  week's 
delay,  a  little  coasting  vessel  conveyed  him  to  the  English  convoy, 
at  anchor  off  the  island  of  Hoedic: 

Here,  in  the  Arethusa  ('  la  Retus  '  he  phonetically  calls  her), 
Catoire  found  his  colonel,  Bozon  de  Perigord,  who  had  succeeded, 
at  the  time  of  the  surrender,  in  getting  off  in  a  boat  to  Warren's 
squadron.  But  his  regiment  no  longer  existed.  The  debris  had 
been  drafted  with  the  rest  into  Loyal-Emigrant.  Not  knowing 
what  to  do,  Catoire  seems  to  have  gone  on  to  lie  d'Yeu,  whence  the 
Comte  d' Artois,  so  anxiously  looked  for  among  the  insurgents  of  the 
mainland,  was  just  about  this  time  despatching  to  Charette  the 
stunning  intelligence  that  he  would  not  land  after  all  till  a  more 
convenient  season.  There  was  no  help  at  lie  d'Yeu,  where  Doyle's 
contingent  were  already  short  of  provisions  and  forage,  and  Catoire, 
who  did  not,  like  so  many  of  his  comrades,  attempt  to  join  the 
Chouans,  returned  to  Hoedic.  He  was  still  passing  himself  off  as  a 
priest,  and  was  further  counselled  by  a  gentleman  of  his  regiment  on 
board  the  Arethusa  to  declare  himself  a  chaplain,  '  though  I  was 
not  and  never  have  been  a  priest,  and  have  never  received  even  the 
four  minor  orders.'  His  advisers  moreover  suggested  his  going  to 
Jersey  instead  of  to  England,  especially  as  French  was  spoken  in  the 
former  island.  Thither  he  accordingly  set  out  in  an  English  trans- 
port. And  still,  as  he  thought  (mistakenly)  that  no  emigre  not  a 
priest  was  in  receipt  of  relief  from  the  English  Government,  '  j'eus 
la  foiblesse  de  me  dire  pretre  et  aumonier  pour  avoir  des  secours.' 
Had  he  but  known  it,  he  was  entitled  to  a  larger  sum  as  a  layman. 

The  point  approaches  when  it  can  no  longer  be  concealed  why 
M.  Catoire  wrote  this  '  Recit  des  avanture  (sic)  qui  me  sont  arrive 
(sic)  avant  pendant  et  apres  mon  emigration.'  No  thought  of  the 
interest  of  posterity  urged  his  pen  ;  it  was  present  difficulties  which 
caused  him  to  take  in  hand  that  somewhat  unaccustomed  implement. 
The  true  motive  has  something  of  real  pathos,  something  of  a  certain 
grim  humour,  and  the  whole  is  an  excellent  moral  lesson  against  the 
practice  of  lying.  Catoire's  little  sketch  of  his  life  was  drawn  to 
soften  the  hearts  of  those  who  dispensed  the  charity  of  the  Emigrant 
Office,  or  more  probably — since  it  lies  at  this  day  among  his  papers 
in  the  Record  Office — that  of  the  Prince  de  Bouillon,  who  performed 
the  same  office  in  Jersey.  For  Catoire's  lie  came  home  to  roost, 
and  rendered  a  destitute  man  more  destitute  still. 

Five  days  before  Christmas  the  exile  landed  in  Jersey  from  the 
transport.  A  few  more  houses  had  doubtless  risen  along  the  port 


THE   BLACK   COCKADE.  731 

at  St.  Helier  since  Chateaubriand,  arriving  there  in  much  the  same 
case  three  years  before,  had  noticed  that  they  were  beginning  to  be 
built.  Our  emigre,  unlike  the  nephew  of  the  Comte  de  Bedee,  had 
no  relation  or  friend  in  Jersey  ;  he  knew  not  a  soul.  A  kindly 
priest  procured  him  a  little  room  in  a  house  where  there  were  other 
ecclesiastics,  who,  pitying  his  forlorn  condition,  and  believing  him  to 
be  of  their  cloth,  tried  to  get  him  relief.  Above  all,  there  was  in  the 
same  house  '  une  charitable  et  pieuse  demoiselle  qui  eut  encore  une 
plus  grande  commiseration  de  1'etat  dans  lequel  j'etois,  etant  tout 
pale,  livide  et  malade,  cette  brave  DeUe  eu  (sic)  un  soin  extreme  de 
moi  m'ayant  procure  des  chemises  et  habille  (sic)  un  peu,  car  en 
verite  j'etois  tout  mid.'  She  even  gave  the  refugee  money. 
'  Alas  !  '  cries  the  recipient,  '  a  father,  a  mother,  a  brother  and  a 
sister  would  not  have  done  so  much  for  me ' ;  from  which  we  may 
gather  that  his  family  had  not  given  him  any  pecuniary  assistance 
since  his  emigration.  His  deception,  however,  he  still  kept  up, 
even  carrying  it  so  far  as  to  request  to  be  allowed  to  say  Mass, 
though  he  always  carefully  provided  some  pretext  for  avoiding  the 
committal  of  such  a  sacrilege. 

After  about  a  month  and  a  half  of  this  existence,  however, 
Catoire's  conscience  got  the  better  of  him,  and  in  the  end  he  told  his 
story  to  '  a  very  enlightened  confessor,'  who  gave  him  '  all  sorts  of 
good  counsels.'  He  revealed  the  truth  to  the  charitable  lady  also. 
She  was  surprised,  but  hinted  that  she  had  had  her  suspicions  after 
a  fortnight's  acquaintance  with  her  protege.  And,  from  the  sequel, 
must  we  not  assume  that  she  was  glad  to  find  those  suspicions 
confirmed  ?  For  the  penniless  exile  had  the  amazing  audacity, 
prudence — call  it  what  you  will — to  make  an  offer  of  marriage 
to  his  benefactress,  whose  nationality  and  name  remain  alike 
unknown,  and  whose  age  one  somehow  feels  to  have  exceeded  the 
thirty  years  of  her  suitor.  His  own  account  of  his  wooing  is  simple. 
*  Comme  depuis  cinq  ans  je  suis  militaire  il  me  painoit  tres  fort 
d'agir  comme  j'ai  ete  oblige  de  faire  par  les  mauvais  conseils  : 
desorteque  voulant  m'etablir  par  reconnaissance  et  attachement, 
j'ai  propose  a  la  dite  Demoiselle  si  elle  vouloit  accepter  ma  main.' 

And  the  lady  ?  '  It  seemed  to  me  that  she  would  not  refuse  it.' 
But  perhaps  she  made  a  condition  of  some  kind  ;  at  any  rate  it  was 
in  consequence  of  this  step  that  Catoire  went  to  London  to  get 
certificates  of  his  services  from  his  regimental  chiefs  and  also  from 
one  of  his  boyhood's  instructors — obviously  now  an  emigre  too — to 
prove  that  he  had  never  received  holy  orders.  Armed  with  these 


732  THE   BLACK   COCKADE. 

papers  he  returned  to  Jersey,  and  applied  to  the  Comte  du  Tresor 
for  admission  into  the  new  corps  which  he  was  raising.  M.  du 
Tresor  found  his  certificates  excellent,  but  '  could  not  receive  me 
because  he  had  been  told  that  I  had  said  myself  that  I  was  a  chap- 
lain.' Thus  did  the  snake  which  Catoire  had  so  carefully  reared 
turn  and  bite  him. 

What  became  of  the  too  ingenious  refugee  ?  Did  he  succeed  in 
divesting  himself  of  the  mythical  soutane,  now  become  a  veritable 
shirt  of  Nessus  ?  Did  he  marry  his  benefactress  ?  Did  he  drift 
over  to  England  and  employ  himself,  like  many  a  thousand  times 
better  born  than  he,  in  some  despised  occupation.  We  do  not 
know.  There  were  two  French  gentlemen  who  wore  the  cross  of 
St.  Louis  as  they  unloaded  vessels  at  the  port  of  Hamburg,  and 
Chateaubriand,  as  M.  Anatole  le  Braz  has  recently  shown  in  his 
hero's  despite,  was  a  teacher  in  a  Suffolk  school.  Poor  Catoire 
had  more  vocation  for  the  calling  of  a  stevedore  than  for  that 
of  a  schoolmaster.  But  his  fate  is  dark.  A  sentence  more  shows 
that  he  has  left  Jersey  for  Guernsey  in  the  hope  of  getting  enrolled 
in  the  list  of  Emigres  or  of  entering  a  regiment,  there  being  several 
refugees  in  Guernsey  who  had  served  in  his  own.  After  these 
words  he  has  written  '  The  End,'  only  adding  a  postscript  stating 
that  he  was  present  at  every  one  of  the  actions  in  which  the  Legion 
de  Damas  took  part, — enumerating  those  not  mentioned  in  his 
narrative — and  that  he  has  a  surgeon's  certificate  of  the  wounds 
he  has  received.  And  with  that  his  memorial  must  have  gone 
over  to  England,  or  back  to  Jersey,  to  the  hands  of  Philippe 
d'Auvergne,  titular  Prince  de  Bouillon  and  captain  in  his  Britannic 
Majesty's  Navy,  who,  as  he  read  it  in  the  frowning  castle  of  Mont 
Orgueil  or  in  the  little  house  where  he  dwelt  pleasantly  under  its 
shadow,  was  sorry,  perhaps,  for  the  waif  who  had  survived  battle 
and  disaster  to  founder  on  a  shoal  less  tragic  but  almost  as  desperate. 

D.  K.  BROSTER. 


733 


THE   OSBORNES.1 
BY  E.   F.  BENSON. 

CHAPTER  XL 

TIM  had  been  engaged  to  spend  this  week-end  with  a  party,  of 
rhich  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that,  though  it  would  probably  be 
msing,  it  would  not  appear  in  the  columns  of  the  '  Morning  Post.' 
»ut  on  the  Saturday  afternoon  he  sent  an  excuse  and  remained 
town  instead.  Much  as  he  hated  solitude,  he  had  got  something 

do  which  made  solitude  a  necessary  evil.  He  had  got  to  sit 
Lown  and  think,  and  continue  thinking  till  he  had  made  up  his 
He  had  to  adopt  a  certain  course  of  action,  or  by  not  acting 
it  all  commit  himself  to  another  course. 

Claude  had  not  come  back  into  the  room  after  sending  that 
message  by  the  telephone,  and  calling  to  him  the  farewell  he  had 
been  unable  to  answer.  A  few  seconds  before  only,  when  he  himself 
had  come  into  the  room  and  found  Claude  examining  the  counter- 
foils of  his  cheque-book,  he  had  thought  that  all  was  over,  and  had 
Claude  said  nothing  to  him,  just  looked  at  him,  and  pointed  with 
a  finger  to  the  blank  counterfoil  close  to  the  end  of  the  book,  Jim 
would  have  confessed.  But  Claude  had  spoken  at  once  those 
incredible  words,  and  the  moment  after  had  confirmed  the  reality 
of  them  by  the  message  to  his  bank.  The  immensity  of  that  relief 
had  taken  away  Jim's  power  of  speech;  had  he  tried  to  use  his 
voice  he  must  have  screamed.  Then  he  heard  the  door  of  the 
flat  shut,  and  the  next  moment  he  was  rolling  on  the  sofa,  his  face 
buried  in  its  cushions,  to  stifle  his  hysterical  laughter. 

The  incredible  had  happened ;  the  impossible  was  now  part  of 
the  sober  history  of  the  month.  The  bank  had  called  in  question 
the  cheque  ;  evidently  Claude  had  come  down  here  to  see  whether 
he  had  drawn  a  cheque  of  corresponding  date,  had  found  a  blank 
counterfoil  (not  the  first  in  the  book),  and  had  accepted  that  as 
evidence  that  the  cheque  was  of  his  own  drawing.  The  possi- 
bility of  a  forgery  never  apparently  occurred  to  him.  His  vaunted 
1  Copyright,  1910,  by  E.  F.  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


734  THE   OSBORNES. 

carelessness  about  money  matters  was  strikingly  exemplified ;  he  had 
not  exaggerated  it  in  the  least.  What  a  blessed  decree  of  Providence 
that  one's  brother-in-law  shall  be  so  rich  and  such  an  idiot !  Jim 
felt  almost  satisfied  with  the  world. 

But  next  moment  with  the  same  suddenness  as  this  spasm  of 
relief  had  come,  it  ceased.  Swift  and  huge  as  the  genie  of  some 
Arabian  tale,  a  doubt  arose.  And  before  it  fully  developed  itself, 
it  was  a  doubt  no  longer,  but  a  certainty.  For  one  moment  his 
relief  had  tricked  him  into  believing  that  Claude  thought  the  cheque 
to  be  of  his  own  drawing ;  the  next,  Jim  could  no  more  delude  him- 
self with  that.  Rich  as  Claude  was,  fool  as  he  was,  it  was  not 
possible  that  he  should  believe  himself  to  have  drawn  five  hundred 
pounds  in  cash  but  a  week  ago,  and  to-day  find  no  trace  of  it,  nor 
any  possible  memory  of  how  he  had  spent  it.  No,  the  cheque  had 
been  called  in  question  ;  Claude  therefore  must  know  that  forgery 
had  been  committed.  That  was  certain. 

But  he  had  told  his  bankers  that  the  cheque  was  genuine. 

Jim  got  up  from  the  sofa,  put  the  cushion  in  its  place,  and 
smoothed  it  with  mechanical  precision.  What  did  this  mean  ? 
Did  he  guess  by  whom  the  forgery  was  committed  ?  In  a  moment 
Jim  felt  injured  and  indignant  at  the  idea  of  such  a  possibility 
crossing  Claude's  mind.  He  had  never  given  him  the  shadow  of 
ground  for  thinking  that  such  a  thing  as  forgery  was  possible  to 
him.  It  was  an  insult  of  the  grossest  kind,  if  such  a  notion  had 
ever  presented  itself  to  him.  But  Claude  was  of  a  suspicious 
nature ;  once  before,  Jim  remembered,  Dora  had  talked  some 
nonsense  about  Jim's  having  cheated  at  croquet,  and  Claude  had 
said  that  he  was  satisfied  that  this  was  not  the  case,  when  Jim  told 
him  it  was  not.  He  won  a  sovereign  over  that  silly  game  of  croquet. 

But  it  was  monstrous — if  true — that  Claude  should  suspect 
him  of  this.  It  was  impossible  for  any  self-respecting  person, 
however  unworthy  of  self-respect,  to  stop  in  his  rooms,  accept  his 
hospitality,  until  he  had  made  sure  that  such  an  idea  had  never 
crossed  Claude's  mind.  His  sense  of  injury  bordered  upon  the 
virtuous.  And  then  with  disconcerting  rapidity,  sense  of  injury 
and  virtue  all  vanished.  He  could  not  keep  it  up.  He  saw  through 
himself. 

Once  more  his  mind  went  back  to  the  rapturous  possibility  that 
had  caused  him  to  bury  his  face  in  the  sofa-cushion.  Was  there 
any  chance  of  Claude's  believing  that  the  cheque  was  genuine  ? 
But  already  the  question  did  not  need  an  answer.  That  possibility 


THE   OSBORNES.  735 

was  out  of  sight,  below  the  horizon,  and  he  was  here  alone,  swim- 
ming, drowning. 

That  Claude  knew  forgery  had  been  committed  was  certain 
then,  and  for  some  reason  he  shielded  the  forger.  Either  he  sus- 
pected Jim  (the  sense  of  injury  and  virtue  did  not  make  themselves 
felt  now),  or  he  did  not.  If  he  did  not,  good.  If  he  did,  well,  good 
also,  since  he  shielded  him. 

Quick-witted  and  mentally  nimble  as  he  was,  Jim  took  a  little 
while  to  realise  that  situation.  In  the  normal  course  of  life  he 
would  necessarily  meet  Claude  often,  and  he  could  not  see  himself 
doing  so.  He  could  not  see  how  social  intercourse  was  any  more 
possible.  Or  would  Claude  avoid  such  intercourse,  manage  some- 
how that  they  should  not  meet  ?  That  might  be  managed  for  a 
time,  but  not  permanently.  Dora  would  ask  him  to  dine,  or  Lady 
Osborne  would  ask  him  to  stay,  and  either  he  or  Claude  would 
always  have  to  frame  excuses.  Yet  Claude's  words  of  farewell  to 
him  had  been  quite  normal  and  cordial.  There  was  nothing  there 
that  anticipated  unpleasantness  or  estrangement  in  the  future. 
Perhaps  Claude  harboured  no  suspicion  against  him.  Then  whom 
did  he  shield  ?  There  was  only  one  person,  himself,  who  could 
have  done  this,  whom  there  could  be  sufficient  motive  for  shielding. 
And  then  suddenly  his  own  dislike  of  his  brother-in-law  flared 
up  into  hatred,  the  hatred  of  the  injurer  for  the  injured,  which  is 
one  of  the  few  things  in  this  world  that  are  pure  black,  and  have 
no  ray  or  reflection  of  anything  good,  however  inverted  and  dis- 
torted, in  them.  And  he  was  living  in  the  rooms,  eating  the  food, 
drinking  the  wine  of  the  man  whom  he  hated.  That  Claude  had 
loaded  him  with  benefits  made,  as  once  before,  his  offence  the 
greater.  And  he  was  in  Claude's  power ;  at  any  moment,  even  if 
he  did  not  suspect  Jim  now  of  having  done  this,  he  had  but  to  send 
a  further  message  to  the  bank,  saying  that  their  suspicion  was 
correct,  and  he  had  not  drawn  the  cheque,  and  he  would  suspect 
no  further,  for  he  would  know. 

The  hot  hours  of  the  sunny  afternoon  went  by,  not  slowly  at 
all,  but  with  unusual  speed,  though  he  passed  them  doing  nothing, 
but  occasionally  walking  up  and  down  the  room.  He  had  told 
Parker  when  he  sent  his  telegram  of  excuse  about  the  river  party 
that  he  would  dine  at  home  and  alone,  and  it  was  a  matter  for 
surprise  when  he  was  told  that  dinner  was  ready.  And  after 
dinner  he  sat  again  in  the  room  where  this  morning  he  had  found 
Claude  with  his  cheque-book,  as  far  from  his  decision  as  ever. 


736  THE   OSBORNES. 

But  about  one  thing  he  had  made  up  his  mind  ;  he  believed  Claude 
knew,  or  at  any  rate,  suspected  who  had  done  this.  There  was 
no  other  explanation  that  could  account  at  all  reasonably  for  his 
shielding  the  culprit.  It  was  no  time  to  invent  Utopian  explana- 
tions (and  even  they  would  be  elusive  to  the  seeker) ;  Jim  wanted 
to  see  the  things  that  were  actually  the  case  on  this  evening. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  What  was  to  be  done  ?  He  could  not 
tell  Claude  that  his  suspicions  were  grossly  and  gratuitously  insult- 
ing, for  Claude  had  expressed  none  ;  he  had  said  there  was  nothing 
to  suspect,  no  ground  for  suspicion.  Nor  did  Jim  see  that  it  was 
possible  to  continue  seeing  Claude,  feeling  that  he  was  in  his  hands, 
that  at  any  moment  he  might  disown  the  cheque,  and  let  the  bank 
pursue  the  usual  course.  Claude  had  been  generous,  quixotically 
generous  that  morning  ;  but  who  knew  whether  that  might  not 
only  be  a  momentary  impulse,  or  even  a  move  merely  to  gain  time, 
to  consider  ?  It  was  a  serious  step  to  let  one's  wife's  brother  be 
prosecuted.  But  very  likely  he  had  only  done  it  to  stay  immediate 
proceedings  :  very  likely  he  wanted  to  talk  it  over  with  Dora  first. 
.  .  .  And  at  that  thought  the  breaking-point  came.  Through 
these  solitary  hours  Jim  had  faced  a  good  deal,  and  the  fibres  of 
endurance  were  weakened.  And  he  could  not  face  that.  Any- 
thing was  more  tolerable  than  the  picture  of  Dora  being  told. 

Generous  !  That  word  had  occurred  in  his  thoughts,  and  it  had 
been  applied  by  him  to  Claude.  It  was  no  less  than  his  due  ;  he 
had  always  been  generous.  His  generosity  had  not  cost  him  much, 
had  not  entailed  self-denial,  but  it  had  been  there,  it  had  been  given. 
First  in  very  little  ways,  as  when  he  gave  Jim  free  living  at  the  flat ; 
then  in  larger  ways,  when  for  the  sake  of  Dora  he  imputed  mere 
carelessness  to  himself  instead  of  letting  crime  be  brought  home 
to  another.  The  price  of  his  generosity  concerned  nobody.  And 
Jim  was  beaten.  The  worst  of  him  surrendered  to  something  a 
little  better  than  the  worst.  The  surrender  was  not  nobly  made ; 
it  was  made  from  necessity,  because  every  other  course  was  a 
little  more  impossible  than  that.  Claude  had  to  be  told.  He 
knew  that  he  was  in  Claude's  hands  already  ;  the  most  he  could 
do  and  the  least  was  to  seem  to  put  himself  there.  And  then 
suddenly  he  felt  so  tired  that  thought  was  no  longer  possible,  and 
he  fell  asleep  where  he  sat. 

It  was  deep  in  the  night  when  he  woke,  for  the  noise  of  traffic 
had  almost  sunk  to  silence,  but  from  the  dreamlessness  of  exhausted 


THE   OSBORNES.  737 

sleep  he  passed  straight  into  full  consciousness  again,  and  took  up 
the  tragic  train  of  thought  where  he  had  left  it.  He  did  not  re- 
consider his  decision — it  was  cut  in  steel — nor  did  he  desire  to,  for 
to  wish  for  the  impossible  requires  the  strong  spring  of  hope,  and 
of  hope  he  had  none.  He  was  beaten  ;  he  resigned.  And  then  on 
the  outer  darkness  there  shone  a  little  ray.  Claude,  whom  a  few 
hours  ago  he  had  hated  with  the  rancour  of  the  injurer,  had  been 
generous,  appallingly  generous.  Was  there  nothing  he  could  do 
for  Claude  ? 

Yes  ;  one  thing,  the  hardest  of  all,  the  utmost.  For  weeks  he 
knew  things  had  not  gone  well  with  him  and  Dora.  He  got  on 
her  nerves,  his  vulgarities  (as  was  most  natural)  irritated  her,  and 
she  could  no  longer  see  in  him  anything  but  them.  But  there  was 
more  in  Claude  than  that.  She  did  not  know  it,  but  he  might  tell 
her.  Perhaps  if  she  knew,  she  would  see,  would  understand.  .  .  . 
Or  had  Claude  already  told  her  ?  That  had  seemed  possible 
before,  a  thing  easily  pictured.  But  he  did  not  think  it  likely  now. 
It  was  not  consistent  with  what  Claude  had  already  done.  For  it 
must  have  been  for  his  wife's  sake  that  he  had  acted  thus. 

A  little  while  before  it  had  seemed  to  Jim  the  worst  possible 
thing,  the  one  unbearable  thing,  that  Dora  should  know.  But 
looked  at  from  this  new  standpoint  it  was  different.  If  Claude 
told  her,  it  was  one  thing  ;  it  was  another  if  he  did.  If  he  did,  if  he 
could,  it  might  help  Dora  to  see  that  there  was  something  in  Claude 
beyond  his  commonness.  And — Jim  was  a  long  time  coming  to 
it — it  might  in  some  degree  atone,  not  in  Claude's  eyes,  for  he 
would  not  tell  Claude  what  he  meant  to  do,  but  in — in  those  eyes 
which  look  on  all  evil  things  and  all  good  things,  and  see  the  differ- 
ence between  them. 

There  were  a  few  arrangements  to  be  made  on  Sunday,  but  he 
made  them  without  flinching.  Claude  and  Dora  he  knew  were  at 
Grote,  and  a  line  to  Claude  there,  asking  to  see  him  as  soon  as 
possible  on  Monday,  and  a  line  to  Dora  at  Park  Lane,  saying  that 
he  wanted  to  see  her  alone  in  the  afternoon,  was  all  that  was  neces- 
sary. It  was  better  to  take  those  interviews  in  that  order — he 
could  not  help  being  clever  over  it — for  it  was  easier  to  face  Dora 
when  able  to  tell  her  that  he  had  already  confessed  to  Claude. 
What  he  had  to  say  would  come  with  more  force  thus.  She  would 
see  that  for  the  sake  of  helping  Claude  and  her,  he  had  done  some- 
hing  that  could  not  have  been  easy. 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  167,  N.S.  47 


738  THE   OSBORNES. 

All  that  day  down  at  Grote  they  waited  for  news  from  Sir  Henry, 
but  none  came.  Lord  Osborne,  always  optimistic,  saw  the  most 
hopeful  significance  in  his  silence. 

'  Depend  upon  it,  my  dear,'  he  said  to  Dora  as  she  went  to  bed 
that  night,  '  depend  upon  it  Sir  Henry  has  seen  my  lady  again,  and 
has  quite  forgotten  that  we  might  be  in  some  anxiety,  because, 
as  he  knows  now,  forgetting  he  ain't  told  us,  there's  nought  to  be 
anxious  about.  That's  like  those  busy  men — Lord,  my  dear! 
fancy  passing  your  life  in  other  people's  insides,  so  to  speak — 
why,  it  would  make  you  forget  your  own  name  !  But  if  there  had 
been  any  cause  for  us  to  worry,  depend  upon  it  he'd  have  let  us 
know.  I  bet  1  shall  be  making  a  joke  of  my  lady's  ailments  before 
I'm  twenty-four  hours  older.  I'll  be  getting  a  few  ready  for  her 
as  I  do  my  undressing  to-night.  And  it's  me  as  is  cheering  you 
up,  my  dear,  this  moment.  You  go  to  sleep  quiet,  or  else  I'll  tell 
Mrs.  0.  that  you've  given  me  such  an  uncomfortable  Sunday  as 
I've  not  had  since  first  we  was  married.' 

Then  came  Monday  morning.  Dora  had  her  early  post  brought 
up  to  her  bedroom,  but  since  she  had  received  Saturday  posts 
forwarded  from  town  yesterday,  there  was  nothing  sent  on.  In 
fact,  there  was  only  one  letter  for  her  directed  to  her  here.  And 
she  opened  it  and  read  it. 

Claude  had  already  left  by  an  early  train  when  she  got  down. 
She  did  not  expect  this,  since,  as  far  as  she  knew,  he  had  no  engage- 
ments that  morning  and  had  intended  not  to  leave  till  a  later  train, 
but  he  had  gone.  Lord  Osborne  and  she  were  going  to  lunch  in 
the  country  and  drive  back  afterwards,  but  after  breakfast,  when 
the  last  guests  had  gone,  she  went  to  him.  He  was  in  the  room 
he  called  the  '  lib'ry,'  and  was  reading  the  '  Morning  Post.' 

'  See  here,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  and  think  how  we're  all  at  the  ' 
mercy  of  the  Press.     There's  my  lady  giving  a  little  party  this 
evening,  and  I'm  blest  if  they  don't  know  all  about  it  already. 
Listen  here  :  "  Lady  Osborne  has  a  small  party  to-night  to  meet  " 

'  Ah,  don't,'  said  Dora,  not  meaning  to  speak,  but  knowing  she  ; 
had  to. 

Instantly  the  paper  fell  to  the  ground. 

'  What  is  it,  my  dear  ?  '  he  said. 

'  I  have  heard  from  Sir  Henry,'  she  said. 

She  gave  him  a  moment  for  that ;  then  she  went  on — 

'  Dad,  dear,'  she  said,  '  there  is  trouble.    He  saw  her  again ; 


THE    OSBORNES.  739 

yesterday,  and  has  written  to  me  about  it.  There  is  something 
wrong.  He  does  not  know  for  certain  what  it  is,  but  they  will 
have  to  find  out.  Oh,  it  is  no  use  my  hinting  at  it.  You've  got 
to  know.' 

'  Yes,  my  dear,  yes,'  said  he. 

'  They  have  got  to  operate.  It  may  b  i  very  bad  indeed.  They 
can't  tell  yet.  They  don't  know  till  they  see.' 

Dora  drew  a  long  breath. 

'  It  may  be  cancer,'  she  said,  and  by  instinct  she  put  her  hand 
over  her  eyes,  so  that  she  should  not  see  him. 

'  Mrs.  0.  ?  '  he  said  very  quietly. 

Dora  heard  the  buzzing  of  honey-questing  bees  in  the  flower- 
border  outside  the  window,  the  clicking  of  a  mowing-machine  on 
the  lawn,  and  from  close  beside  her  the  slow  breathing  of  Lord 
Osborne.  Without  looking  at  him,  she  knew  that  he  had  pursed 
up  his  lips,  almost  as  if  whistling,  a  habit  of  his  in  perplexed 
moments.  He  had  been  smoking  a  cigar  when  she  came  in,  and 
she  heard  him  lay  this  down  on  a  tray  by  his  elbow.  And  then  he 
spoke. 

'  Well,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  we've  all  got  to  help  her  bear  it, 
whatever  it  is.' 

Dora  found  it  impossible  to  speak  for  a  moment.  She  could 
have  given  him  sympathy  had  there  been  anything  in  his  words 
that  suggested  it  was  wanted.  She  could  have  told  him  that  they 
must  hope  for  the  best,  that  the  worst  was  by  no  means  certain  yet ; 
there  were  a  hundred  quite  suitable  things  to  say,  if  only  he  had 
appeared  to  need  them  in  the  least.  But  quite  clearly  he  did  not ; 
he  did  not  happen  to  be  thinking  about  himself  at  all  or  to  want  any 
consolation.  And  in  face  of  this  simplicity  she  was  dumb.  It 
was  perfect :  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  except  give  the  sign  of 
assent. 

'  And,  my  dear,  if  you'll  order  the  motor  round  at  once,  I'll 
put  a  few  papers  together,  as  I  must  take  up  with  me,  and  then  I 
think  I'll  be  off.  And  what'll  you  do,  my  dear  ?  Hadn't  you 
better  stop  as  planned  and  have  your  morning  in  the  country  ? 
Not  but  what  I  should  dearly  like  to  have  you  by  my  side.' 

'  Ah,  dad  ! '  said  she,  and  kissed  him. 

He  smiled  at  her,  holding  her  hand  tight  a  moment. 

'  We've  got  to  keep  our  pecker  up,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  so  as  to 
help  her  keep  hers.  She'll  be  brave  enough  when  she  sees  we're 
brave,  God  bless  her !  And  brave  we  are  and  will  be,  my  dearie. 

47—2 


740  THE   OSBORNES. 

We'd  scorn  to  be  cowards.  And  I'm  glad  we  didn't  know  this  till 
this  morning,  for  she'll  be  pleased  to  hear  as  we  had  such  a 
pleasant  Sunday.' 

'  Yes,  she  could  think  of  nothing  else  when  she  talked  to  me  on 
Saturday,'  said  Dora. 

What  little  more  there  was  to  be  told  she  told  him  on  their  way 
up,  but  otherwise  their  drive  was  rather  silent.  Once  or  twice 
he  leaned  out  of  the  window  and  spoke  to  the  chauffeur. 

'  You  can  get  along  a  bit  quicker  here,'  he  said.  '  There's  an 
empty  road.' 

Then  he  turned  to  Dora. 

'  If  you  don't  mind  going  a  bit  above  the  average,  my  dear  ?  * 
he  asked.  c  T'would  be  a  good  thing,  too,  if  we  got  home  before 
Claude,  and  it's  but  a  slow  train  he'll  have  caught.' 

And  once  again,  as  they  crossed  the  great  heathery  upland  of 
Ashdown  Forest,  redolent  with  gorse  and  basking  in  the  sun, 
'  Seems  strange  on  a  beautiful  day  like  this ! '  he  said.  '  But  there ! 
who  knows  but  that  we  sha'n't  have  some  pleasant  weather  yet  ? ' 

Claude,  meantime,  getting  Jim's  letter  by  the  same  post  that 
had  brought  this  news  to  Dora,  had  left  by  an  earlier  train,  in  order 
to  see  Jim  as  soon  as  possible.  He  had  gone  before  Dora  came  down, 
and  thus  heard  nothing  of  Sir  Henry's  letter,  and  though  he  was- 
anxious  to  know  as  soon  as  he  got  to  town  how  his  mother  was, 
he  determined  to  go  to  the  flat  on  his  way  to  Park  Lan"e.  That  would 
not  take  long,  whatever  it  might  be  that  Jim  wished  to  tell  him; 
a  few  minutes,  he  imagined,  would  suffice. 

All  the  way  up  he  pondered  over  it,  but  think  as  he  might,  he 
could  find  only  one  explanation  of  Jim's  request,  and  that  was  that 
he  was  going  to  confess.     That  was  the  best  thing  that  could  happen,  i 
and  as  far  as  he  could  see  it  was  the  only  thing.     But  the  thought  j 
of  his  own  part  embarrassed  him  horribly  :  he  had  no  liking  for  his 
brother-in-law,  and  guessed  that  on  Jim's  side  there  was  a  similar 
barrenness  of  affection.     All  this  would  make  the  interview  difficult 
and  painful :  he  could  forgive  him  easily  and  willingly,  but  instinc- , 
tively  he  felt  how  chilly  a  thing  forgiveness  is,  if  there  is  no  warmth 
of  feeling  behind  to  vitalise  it.    But  when  first  he  suspected  that 
Jim  had  done  this,  he  felt  sorry  for  him  ;  if  it  turned  out  that  he  was  ; 
going  to  confess,  his  pity  was  certainly  not  diminished. 

On  the  threshold  he  paused  :  his  repugnance  for  what  lay  before 
him  was  almost  invincible,  and  all  his  pondering  had  led  to  nothi 


THE   OSBORNES.  741 

practical :  he  was  still  absolutely  without  idea  as  to  what  he  should 
say  himself.  But  the  thing  had  to  be  done  ;  waiting  made  it  no 
easier,  and  he  went  in.  He  would  have  to  trust  to  the  promptings 
of  the  moment :  all  he  was  sure  of  was  that  he  did  not  feel  unkind, 
but  only  sorry.  So — had  he  known  it — he  need  not  have  been  so 
very  uncomfortable. 

Jim  was  standing  in  the  window,  looking  out  on  to  the  street. 
He  turned  as  Claude  came  in,  but  said  nothing.  Something  had 
to  be  done,  and  Claude  spoke. 

'  You  asked  me  to  come  and  see  you,'  he  said.  '  So  I  came  up 
as  early  as  I  could.  Oh,  good-morning,  Jim ! ' 

He  looked  up,  and  saw  that  Jim  did  not  speak  because  he  could 
not.  His  face  was  horribly  white,  and  his  lips  were  twitching. 
And  at  the  sight  of  him,  helpless,  and,  whatever  he  had  done, 
suffering  horribly,  a  far  greater  warmth  of  pity  came  over  Claude 
than  he  had  felt  hitherto.  All  his  kindness  was  challenged.  And 
the  prompting  of  the  moment  was  not  a  mistaken  one. 

'  Oh,  I  say,  old  chap,'  he  said,  and  stopped  short. 

For  Jim  broke.  During  all  those  two  hideous  days  he  had 
nerved  himself  up  to  encounter  abuse,  disgust,  any  form  of  righteous 
wrath  and  contempt.  He  knew  well  that  Claude  had  spared  him 
not  for  his  own  sake,  but  for  Dora's,  and  in  this  confession  he  was 
going  to  make  he  was  prepared  to  be  treated  as  he  deserved,  though 
Claude  had  spared  him  public  disgrace.  But  what  he  had  not 
nerved  himself  up  to  encounter  was  kindness,  such  as  that  which 
rang  in  those  few  words.  And  once  more,  but  now  not  with  hys- 
terical laughter,  but  with  the  weeping  of  exhaustion  and  shame  and 
misery,  he  buried  his  head  in  that  same  sofa-cushion. 

Claude  felt  helpless,  awkward,  brutal.  But  it  was  no  use 
doing  anything  yet :  there  was  no  reaching  Jim  till  that  violence 
had  abated,  and  he  sat  there  waiting,  just  crossing  over  once  to  the 
door,  and  bolting  it  for  fear  Parker  should  come  in.  And  at  length 
he  laid  his  hand  on  Jim's  shoulder. 

'  It's  knocked  you  about  awfully,'  he  said.  '  I  can  see  that ; 
I'm  awfully  sorry.  You  must  have  had  a  hellish  two  days.  You 
needn't  tell  me,  you  know.' 

Jim  pulled  himself  together,  and  raised  his  head. 

'  That's  just  what  I  must  do,'  he  said.     '  I  forged  your  cheque.' 

'  Well,  well,'  said  Claude. 

But  Jim  had  got  the  thing  said,  and  now  he  went  on  with  sup- 
pressed and  bitter  vehemence. 


742  THE    OSBORNES. 

'  I've  always  been  a  swindler,  I  think,'  he  said.  '  I'm  rotten  : 
that's  what's  the  matter  with  me.  I've  cheated  all  my  life.  I 
can't  even  play  games  without  cheating.  I  cheated  you  at  croquet 
once,  and  won  a  sovereign.  Dora  saw.' 

Again  Claude's  instinct,  not  his  reason,  prompted  him,  and  not 
amiss.  It  only  told  him  he  was  sorry  for  Jim,  and  could  a  little 
reassure  him  over  this. 

'  But  she  didn't  know  we  were  playing  for  money,'  said  he 
quickly.  '  In  fact,  I  told  her  we  were  not.' 

'  So  it's  twice  that  you  have  spared  me.     Her,  rather,'  said  Jim. 

Claude  accepted  the  correction.  It  was  an  obvious  one  to  him 
no  less  than  to  Jim. 

'  Yes  :  she'd  have  been  awfully  cut  up  if  she  had  known,'  he 
said  simply. 

Jim  got  up. 

'  I  wonder  if  you  can  believe  I  am  sorry  ?  '  he  said.  '  I  am. 
My  God,  I've  touched  bottom  now.' 

'  Why,  yes,  of  course  I  believe  it,'  said  Claude.  '  It's  broken 
you  up ;  I  can  see  that.  Fellows  don't  break  unless  they  are  sorry. 
But  as  for  the  thing  itself,  if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  it,  I  think 
all  cheating  is  touching  bottom.  It's  a  rotten  game.  You  know 
that  now,  though.  And  if  you  can  believe  me,  I'm  awfully  sorry  too. 
It's  a  wretched  thing  to  happen.  But  I'm  so  glad  you  told  me : 
it  makes  an  awful  difference,  that.' 

Jim  was  silent  a  moment. 

'  I  want  to  ask  you  something,'  he  said  at  length.  '  When  did 
you  first  suspect  me  ?  Was  it  when  I  came  in  and  found  you  here 
on  Saturday  ? ' 

Claude  bit  his  lip  :  he  did  not  at  all  like  answering  this. 

'  No,  before  that,'  he  said.  '  At  least  I  was  afraid  it  was  you  as 
soon — as  soon  as  I  found  I  had  left  a  cheque-book  here.  I'm  sorry, 
but  as  you  ask  me,  there  it  is.' 

'  From  your  previous  knowledge  of  me  ?  '  asked  Jim  quietly. 

'  Well,  yes,  I  suppose  so,  though  you  make  me  feel  a  brute. 
I  say,  I  don't  think  it's  any  good  going  back  on  that,  either  for  your 
sake  or  mine.' 

'  Yes  it  is  :  it  hurts,  that's  why  it's  good.' 

Claude  shifted  his  place  on  the  sofa  a  shade  nearer  Jim,  and 
again  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

'  Well,  I  think  you've  been  hurt  enough  for  the  present,'  he 
said.  '  I  don't  like  seeing  \t.  You've  had  as  much  as  you  can 
stand  just  now.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  743 

Jim  shook  his  head. 

'  There's  another  thing,  too,'  he  said.  '  I'm  absolutely  cleaned 
out,  and  I  can't  repay  you  till  next  quarter.' 

Claude  considered  this.  It  was  perfectly  cheap  and  easy  to 
say  that  he  need  not  think  of  paying  at  all,  but  his  judgment  gave 
him  something  better  to  say  than  that. 

'  Well,  we'll  wait  till  then,'  he  said.  '  I  don't  want  to  be  un- 
reasonable.' 

Again  Jim's  lip  quivered,  and  Claude  seeing  that  rose  to  go. 

'  Well,  I  must  get  back,'  he  said.  '  I  want  to  hear  how  the 
mater  is.  She  hasn't  been  well,  and  Sir  Henry  Franks  saw  her  on 
Saturday,  and  again  yesterday.  Look  round  after  lunch,  will  you  ? 
I  don't  think  Dora  and  the  governor  get  back  till  then.  And 
you'll  come  on  to  the  musical  show  this  evening  ?  There'll  be  some 
good  singing.  Eight,  oh !  ' 

But  still  Jim  could  not  speak,  and  there  was  silence  again.  Then 
Claude  spoke  quickly,  finally. 

'  Buck  up,  old  chap,'  he  said,  and  went  straight  to  the  door 
without  looking  back. 

He  let  himself  out,  and  went  for  a  turn  up  and  down  the  street 
before  going  to  Park  Lane.  He  had  been  a  good  deal  moved,  for, 
kind-hearted  to  the  core,  it  was  dreadful  to  him  to  see,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  '  a  fellow  so  awfully  down  in  his  luck.'  And  he  was 
conscious  of  another  thing  that  struck  him  as  curious.  He  had 
liked  Jim  during  those  few  minutes  he  had  seen  him  to-day,  a  thing 
he  had  never  done  before,  and  he  wished  he  could  have  made  things 
easier  for  him ;  which  again  was  a  new  sensation,  for  all  that  he  had 
ever  done  for  his  brother-in-law  he  had  done,  frankly,  for  Dora's 
sake.  But  he  could  not  see  how  to  make  this  easier  :  it  was  no 
use  telling  him  that  cheating  was  a  thing  of  no  importance  ;  it  was 
no  use  telling  him  he  need  not  pay  back  what  he  owed.  That  was 
not  the  way  to  make  the  best  of  this  very  bad  job.  Of  course, 
Jim  must  feel  miserable  ;  it  would  be  a  thing  to  sicken  at  if  he  did 
not.  Luckily,  however,  there  was  no  doubting  the  sincerity  of  his 
wretchedness.  And  yet  the  boyish  sort  of  advice  implied  by  the 
'  buck  up  '  was  in  place,  too.  But  he  felt  vaguely  that  he  could 
have  done  much  better  than  he  had  done  :  in  that,  had  he  known  it, 
he  would  have  found  that  Jim  disagreed  with  him. 

He  was  told,  to  his  surprise,  by  the  servant  who  let  him  in  that 
Dora  and  his  father  had  arrived  a  few  minutes  ago,  and  that  Dora 


744  THE   OSBORNES. 

wished  to  see  him  as  soon  as  he  came  in.  Accordingly  he  went 
straight  to  her  room. 

'  Oh,  Claude !  '  she  said,  '  you  have  come.  We  didn't  know 
where  you  were.  I  had  no  idea  you  had  left  Grote  till  I  came 
down  to  breakfast.' 

There  was  trouble  in  her  voice,  and  he  noticed  it,  wondering  if 
by  any  chance  it  had  something  to  do  with  the  trouble  he  had  seen 
already  that  day.  But  clearly  it  could  not. 

'  What  is  it  ? '  he  said  quickly. 

'  Your  mother,'  she  said,  for  it  was  no  use  attempting  to  break 
things.  '  Sir  Henry  saw  her  again  yesterday.  There  has  to  be  an 
operation.  There  is  some  growth.  They  can't  tell  what  it  is  for 
certain  until  they  operate.  Dad  is  going  to  see  her  now.  They 
have  settled  it  is  best  for  him  to  tell  her.  Of  course  he  won't  tell 
her  what  the  fear  is.  Oh,  Claude  !  I  am  so  sorry ;  it  is  so  dreadful.' 

'  How  does  the  governor  take  it?  '  asked  Claude. 

*  Exactly  as  you  would  expect.' 

'  But  it  will  be  awful  for  him  telling  her,'  said  he.  '  I  had  much 
better.  Per  or  I,  anyhow.  It'll  tear  his  heart  out.' 

'  He  won't  let  you.  When  Sir  Henry  spoke  of  telling  her,  he 
said  at  once,  "  That's  for  me  to  do."  And  then  he  went  away  to 
have  a  few  minutes  alone  before  going  to  her.' 

A  tap  came  at  the  door  :  Lord  Osborne  always  tapped  before 
he  entered  Dora's  room.  It  was  her  bit  of  a  flat,  he  called  it,  and 
his  tap  was  ringing  the  bell,  and  asking  if  she  was  in. 

'  Well,  Claude,  my  lad,'  he  said,  '  Dora  will  have  told  you. 
We've  all  got  to  keep  up  a  brave  heart,  for  your  mother's  sake.' 

Claude  kissed  his  father,  and  somehow  that  went  to  Dora's 
heart.  He  had  once  said  to  her  that  kissing  seemed  '  pretty  meaning- 
less '  when  she  was  not  concerned. 

'  Yes,  dad,'  said  he.     '  That  we  will.' 

'  That's  right,  my  boy.  And  that  blessed  girl  of  yours  has  been 
so  good  to  me,  such  as  never  was,  and  if  she'll  give  her  dad  a  kiss, 
too,  why  there  we  are,  and  thank  you,  my  dear.  Now  I'm  going 
to  see  mother  and  tell  her,  and  I  daresay  she'll  like  to  see  you  both 
sometime  to  day,  though  if  she  doesn't,  why  you'll  both  understand, 
won't  you  ?  They've  fixed  it  for  to-morrow,  if  she's  agreeable.' 

'  Dad,  do  let  me  do  that  for  you  ?  '  said  Claude.  '  It's  better 
for  me  to  tell  her.' 

'  No,  my  lad,  that's  for  your  father  and  no  other,'  said  he, 
*  though  it's  like  you  to  suggest  it,  and  thank  you,  my  boy.  I'll  come 


THE   OSBORNES.  745 

straight  back  to  you,  my  dears,  and  tell  you  how  all  goes,  and  how 
she  takes  it,  and  pray  try  to  quiet  Mrs.  Per.  She's  carrying  on  so 
silly,  wringing  her  hands  and  asking,  "  Is  she  better  ?  Is  she 
better  ?  "  And  telling  me  to  bear  up  and  all,  as  if  I  didn't  know 
that,  small  thanks  to  her !  Per  takes  her  back  to  Sheffield  this 
afternoon,  thank  the  Lord,  and  may  I  be  pardoned  for  that  speech, 
but  it's  how  I  feel  with  her  ridiculous  ways.' 

He  went  straight  to  his  wife's  room,  and  was  admitted  by  the 
nurse.  Lady  Osborne  was  in  bed,  of  course,  but  smiled  to  him  with 
neither  more  nor  less  than  her  usual  cheerfulness. 

'  Well,  and  there's  my  Eddie,'  she  said.  '  And  I  hope  you've 
had  a  pleasant  Sunday,  my  dear,  as  I'm  sure  you  must  have,  with 
such  pleasant  company  as  came  down  to  see  you.  I  tell  you  I'm 
feeling  a  regular  fraud  this  morning,  for  what  with  lying  in  bed  and 
the  medicine  Sir  Henry  gave  me,  which  took  the  pain  away 
beautiful,  I  feel  ever  so  much  better.  Now  sit  you  down,  Mr.  0., 
and  have  a  chat.  Are  you  comfortable  in  that  chair,  my  dear  ?  ' 

'  That  I  am,  specially  since  I  know  you're  feeling  easier  and 
more  like  yourself,  mother,'  he  said.  '  And  before  long,  please 
God,  we'll  have  you  looking  after  us  all  again.' 

His  wife  was  silent  a  moment.     Then  she  spoke. 

'  Eddie,  my  dear,'  she  said,  '  Sir  Henry  said  as  how  you  would 
come  and  have  a  talk  with  me,  for  he's  told  me  nought  himself, 
but  just  said,  "  You  lie  still  and  don't  worry,  Mrs.  Osborne,"  for  he 
forgets  as  how  you've  been  honoured.  And  I've  guessed,  my  dear, 
that  he  means  you've  to  tell  me  what's  the  matter  with  me,  and 
what  they're  going  to  do  to  me.  My  dear,  I'll  lie  here  a  year, 
and  take  all  the  medicine  they  choose,  if  only ' 

He  moved  his  chair  a  little  nearer  the  bed  :  the  tears  stood  in  his 
eyes,  but  his  mouth  was  firm. 

'  I've  come  to  tell  you,  my  dear,'  he  said,  '  and  we  can't  always 
be  choosers  to  have  things  the  way  we  wish.  We've  got  to  submit 
to  the  will  of  God,  and  when  them  as  are  wise  doctors,  like  Sir 
Henry,  tells  us  it's  got  to  be  this,  or  it's  got  to  be  that,  it's  His  will 
my  dear,  no  less  than  the  doctor's  word.  He's  sent  us  a  sight  of 
joy  and  happiness,  and  to-day,  Maria,  he's  sending  us  a  bit  of 
trouble,  for  a  change,  I  may  say.  But  we'll  take  it  thankful,  old 
lady,  same  as  we've  taken  all  them  beautiful  years  that  we've  had 
together.  My  dear,  if  I  could  get  into  bed  there  instead  of  you,  and 
go  through  it  for  you  !  But  that's  not  to  be.  I'll  tell  you  as  quick 


746  THE    OSBORNES. 

as  I  can,  my  dear,  for  there's  no  use  in  being  silly  and  delaying, 
but ' 

He  blew  his  nose  violently,  then  left  his  chair,  and  knelt  down 
by  the  bed,  taking  her  hand  in  his.  And  he  kissed  it. 

'  They  don't  quite  know  what's  wrong  with  you,  dearie,'  he 
said,  '  and  they've  got  to  see.  You  won't  feel  nothing  ;  they'll 
give  you  a  whiff  of  chloroform,  and  you'll  go  off  as  easy  as  getting 
to  sleep  of  a  night.  And  when  you  wake,  they  hope  that  there'll 
be  good  news  for  you,  my  dear,  and  that,  as  I  say,  you'll  soon  be 
about  again,  scolding  and  vexing  us  and  making  our  lives  a  burden, 
as  you've  always  done,  God  bless  you.  There,  Maria,  I  can  manage 
my  joke  still,  and  I'm  mistaken  if  I  don't  see  you  smiling  at  me, 
same  as  ever.' 

She  had  smiled,  but  she  grew  grave  again. 

'  I  want  to  know  it  all,  Eddie,  my  dear,'  she  said.  '  There's 
nothing  you  can  tell  me  as  I  shall  fear  more  than  what  I  guess. 
Do  they  think  it's  the  cancer  ?  ' 

'  No,  they  don't  say  that,'  he  said.  '  But  they've  got  to  see 
what  it  is.  They're  not  going  to  think  anything  yet,  until  they 
see.' 

'  Thank  you,  dearie,  for  telling  me  so  gentle,'  she  said.  '  I 
declare  it's  a  relief  to  me  to  have  it  spoken.  And  when  is  it  to  be  ? ' 

'  They  said  something  about  to-morrow.  But  that's  as  you 
please,  Maria.  But,  my  dear,  there's  no  use  in  putting  it  off  ;  better 
have  done  with  it.' 

'  No  ;  I  wish  as  it  could  have  been  to-day.  But  what  a  lot  of 
trouble  the  inside  is,  as  I  said  to  Dora  on  Saturday.  Eddie,  my 
dear,  I'm  such  a  coward.  You've  all  got  to  be  brave  for  me ;  it's 
a  lot  of  worry  I'm  giving.  But  it's  not  my  fault  as  far  as  I  know  ; 
I've  lived  clean  and  wholesome.  It's  a  thing  as  is  sent  to  one.  Lor,' 
my  dear,  you're  crying.  Now,  let's  have  no  sadness  in  this  house  ; 
it  would  be  shame  on  us  if  we  couldn't  take  our  bit  of  trouble  like 
men  and  women,  instead  of  like  a  pig  as  squeals  before  you  touch 
it.  But  what  an  upset !  There's  you,  my  dear,  wishing  it  was  you, 
and  there's  me  being  so  glad  it's  not  you.  We  sha'n't  agree  about 
that,  Mr.  0.  And  now,  my  dear,  if  you'll  say  a  bit  of  a  prayer, 
same  as  we've  always  said  together  every  morning,  you  and  I, 
before  going  down  to  our  breakfast,  and  then  let's  have  Dora  and 
Claude  in,  and  have  a  bit  of  a  chat.  "  Our  Father,"  my  dear.  We 
don't  want  more  than  that ;  it's  what  we've  always  said  together 
of  a  morning,  and  it  hasn't  taken  us  far  wrong  yet.' 


THE   OSBORNES.  747 

There  was  silence  a  little  after  that  was  said,  and  then  Lord 
Osborne  got  up. 

'  And  if  I  haven't  forgot  to  kiss  you  "  Good-morning,"  my 
dear,'  he  said.  'Well,  that's  that.  And  shall  I  fetch  Dora  and 
Claude  ?  And  what  about  Mrs.  Per  ?  Per's  out,  1  know.  He  left 
early  this  morning  from  Grote,  and  had  business  in  the  City,  which 
he  said  would  keep  him  to  lunch.  Maria,  my  dear,  my  vote's 
against  Mrs.  Per.' 

'  Wouldn't  she  feel  left  out  ?  '  asked  his  wife. 

'  Well,  she'd  feel  no  more  than  is  the  case,'  said  he.  '  Give 
me .  Mrs.  Per,  my  dear,  when  there's  Shakespeare  or  Chopin 
ahead,  but  not  now.  Such  grimaces  as  she's  been  making  in  the 
Italian  room  !  You'd  have  thought  her  face  was  a  bit  of  string, 
and  she  trying  to  tie  knots  in  it !  No,  Mrs.  0. ;  I'll  fetch  Dora  and 
Claude,  and  that's  all  you  get  me  to  do.  You  may  ring  the  bell  for 
Mrs.  Per,  but  not  me.' 

'  Well,  perhaps  it  would  be  more  comfortable,'  said  she,  '  with- 
out Lizzie,  if  you're  sure  as  she  won't  feel  she  should  have  been 
sent  for.  I  don't  feel  to  want  any  antics  to-day.' 

He  stood  by  the  bed  a  moment  before  going. 

'  I've  never  loved  you  like  to-day,'  he  said. 

6  Well,  that's  good  hearing,'  she  said  ;  '  but  you  repeat  yourself, 
Eddie.  I've  heard  you  say  that  before,  my  dear.' 

'  And  it  was  always  true,'  said  he. 

The  moment  he  had  left  the  room  she  called  to  the  nurse. 

4  Now  make  me  tidy,  nurse,5  she  said,  '  and  if  you'd  smooth 
the  bedclothes,  and  a  pillow  more,  my  dear,  would  make  me  look 
a  little  more  brisk-like  and  fit  for  company.  There's  Lady  Dora 
coming,  so  pretty  and  so  sweet  to  me,  and  my  son  Claude,  her 
husband.  My  hair's  ah1  anyhow,  so  if  you'd  just  put  a  brush  to  it, 
and  there's  a  couple  of  rings  on  the  dressing-table,  which  I'll  put 
on ;  handsome,  aren't  they,  diamonds  and  rubies.  Thank  you, 
nurse,  and  we're  only  just  in  time.  Come  in,  my  dears  ;  come  in 
and  welcome.' 

'  Such  a  way  to  receive  you,'  she  said.  '  But  there,  why  apolo- 
gise, for  if  I  didn't  always  say  my  bedroom  was  the  pleasantest 
room  in  the  house.  Dora,  my  dearie,  you've  taken  good  care  of 
Mr.  0.,  and  thank  you,  and  he's  so  pleased  with  you  that  I'm  on 
the  way  to  be  jealous.  You  wait  till  I'm  about  again,  and  see  if 
I  don't  cut  you  out.  Mr.  0.,  do  you  hear  that  ?  Dora's  got  no 


748  THE   OSBORNES. 

chance  against  me,  when  I'm  not  a  guy  like  this,  lying  in  my  bed. 
And  you  sit  there,  Dora,  and  Claude  by  you,  as  should  be,  and 
Mr.  0.  on  the  other  side.  There's  a  nice  comfortable  party,  what 
I  like.' 

'  What's  this  talk  of  a  guy  ?  '  said  Claude.  '  You  look  famous, 
mother.' 

'  Well,  then,  my  looks  don't  belie  me.  Who  shouldn't  look 
famous  with  her  friends  and  family  coming  to  see  her  like  this  ? 
Dora,  my  dear,  you've  got  to  take  my  place  again  to-day,  if  you'd 
be  so  kind,  for  there's  the  concert  this  evening,  and  I  won't  have 
it  put  off.  Lor,'  I  shall  be  here,  as  comfortable  as  ever  I  was,  with 
my  door  open,  and  listening,  and  feel  that  I  was  with  you  all, 
wearing  my  new  tiara  and  shaking  hands.  No,  my  dear,  there's 
no  sense  in  putting  it  off.  Such  nonsense !  I've  asked  our  friends 
to  come  and  see  us  this  evening,  and  them  as  feel  inclined  shall 
come,  if  my  word  is  anything.  But  we'll  be  a  woman  short  at 
dinner,  thanks  to  my  silliness.  I  wonder  if  Lady  Austell  would 
be  able  to  come,  for  there's  the  savoury  of  prawns  as  she  took  twice 
of  last  time  she  dined  with  us.  I  bid  her  to  the  party,  I  know, 
but  not  to  dinner,  I  think.  Claude,  do  you  go  and  telephone  to 
her  now  for  me,  and  you,  Mr.  0.,  go  down  and  help  him  ;  and  I'll 
chat  to  Dora  the  while.' 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  intention  of  this  diplomacy,  and 
the  two  men  left  the  room.  Then  Lady  Osborne  turned  to  Dora. 

'  My  dear,'  she  said,  '•  you'll  have  heard  all  there  is  to  know. 
And  I  just  want  to  tell  you  that  I'm  facing  it  O.K.,  as  Claude 
says.  There'll  be  nothing  on  my  part  to  make  anybody  else  shake 
and  tremble.  But  you'll  have  an  eye  to  your  dad,  dear.  He  feels 
it  more  than  me,  though  God  knows  I'm  coward  enough  really. 
It's  got  to  be,  and  though  I  hate  the  thought  of  the  knife — well, 
my  dear,  those  as  are  born  into  the  world  and  have  the  pleasure 
of  it  have  to  take  the  troubles  as  well  as  the  joys.  And  if  they 
find  the  worst,  I'm  prepared  for  that,  as  long  as  I  know  you'll 
stick  to  Mr.  0.,  and  help  him.  And  there's  Claude,  too.  Sometimes 
I've  thought  you've  not  been  so  happy  together  as  I  could  have 
wished.  I  don't  know  what  is  wrong,  but  I've  thought  sometimes 
as  all  isn't  quite  right.  I  wanted  to  say  just  that  to  you ;  that 
was  why  I  sent  them  down  together,  so  crafty.  But  he  loves  you, 
my  dear,  and  you  can't  do  more  than  love.  And  you're  going  to 
bear  him  a  child,  please  God.  My  dear,  that's  the  best  thing  God 
ever  thought  of,  if  I  may  say  so,  for  us  women.  I've  had  two, 


THE   OSBORNES.  749 

bless  them,  and  I  should  have  liked  to  have  had  a  hundred.  I'd 
have  borne  each  one  with  thanksgiving.' 

She  was  silent  a  moment. 

'  Claude's  a  kind  lad,'  she  said.  '  He  takes  after  his  father. 
And  he  loves  you,  too.  I'm  not  presuming,  I  hope,  my  dear.  That's 
all  that's  been  on  my  mind,  and  I  wanted  to  get  it  said.  You'll 
forgive  an  old  woman  as  is  your  boy's  mother.  Thank  you,  my 
dear,  for  giving  me  that  kiss.  I'll  treasure  that.  I'll  think  of  that 
when  they  send  me  off  to  sleep  to-morrow.' 

The  others  came  back  at  this  moment  with  the  news  that 
Lady  Austell  would  come  to  dinner. 

'  Now  that's  nice  for  your  brother,'  said  Lady  Osborne.  '  He'll 
like  to  find  his  mamma  here.' 

Dora  had  telephoned  to  Jim  to  say  she  would  come  and  see 
him  after  lunch.  Since  receiving  his  note  that  morning  she  had 
given  but  little  thought  to  what  he  might  have  to  say  to  her,  for 
these  other  events  banished  all  else  from  her  mind.  In  spite  of 
that  which  lay  before  them  all,  she  could  hardly  feel  sad,  she  could 
hardly  feel  anxious,  for  the  noble  simplicity  and  serenity  of  the 
other  three  infected  her,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else,  with  its  own 
peace.  She  had  not  got  to  comfort  anybody,  to  make  any  effort 
herself  ;  she  was  lifted  off  her  feet  and  borne  along  in  these  beauti- 
ful shining  waters  of  courage  and  quietness.  Indeed,  it  seemed  to 
her  that  no  one  was  making  any  effort  at  all :  she  did  not  find  her 
father-in-law  sitting  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  and  rousing  him- 
self when  she  came  into  a  semblance  of  cheerfulness  ;  she  did 
not  see  Claude  trying  to  suppress  signs  of  emotion.  They  all  be- 
haved quite  naturally.  At  first  it  amazed  her,  for  she  knew,  at 
any  rate,  that  there  was  no  lack  of  love  and  tenderness  in  either 
of  them  ;  it  seemed  that  they  must  be  exerting  some  stupendous 
control  over  themselves.  Then  she  saw,  slowly  but  surely,  how 
wide  of  the  mark  such  an  explanation  was.  They  were  exerting 
no  control  at  all,  they  behaved  like  that  because  they  felt  like 
that,  because  their  attitude  towards  life  and  death  and  love  was 
serene  and  large  and  quiet.  All  these  months  it  had  been  there 
for  her  to  see,  but,  inexplicably  blind  as  she  now  felt  she  had  been, 
she  had  needed  this  demonstration  of  it  before  she  began,  even 
faintly,  to  understand. 

It  was  no  wonder,  then,  that  Jim's  affairs  had  been  obliterated 


750  THE   OSBORNES. 

from  her  mind,  but  now,  as  she  entered  the  flat,  she  wondered 
what  he  wanted  that  should  make  him  wish  to  see  her  in  this 
appointed  way.  For  a  moment,  with  a  sickening  qualm,  she  went 
back  to  that  quarter  of  an  hour's  suspense  on  Saturday  morning, 
when  she  had  allowed  herself  to  fear  that  he  was  connected  in 
some  hideous  fashion  with  the  cheque  Claude  could  not  recollect 
about.  That  had  haunted  her  afterwards,  too,  when  she  lay  long 
awake  at  Grote  on  Saturday  night ;  but  Claude  had  said  so 
emphatically  that  the  cheque  was  all  right  that  she  felt  her 
fear  to  be  fanciful.  Meantime  Jim  did  not  yet  know  about  Lady 
Osborne,  and  as  soon  as  she  entered  she  told  him. 

'  Oh,  Jim ! '  she  said,  '  we  are  in  trouble.  Lady  Osborne  has 
got  to  have-  an  operation.  There  is  something  wrong,  and  they 
want  to  see  what  it  is.  There  is  a  growth  of  some  sort.  And,  oh, 
I  have  been  so  blind,  so  blind !  They  are  all  behaving  so  splen- 
didly, and  yet  behaviour  is  the  wrong  word ;  they  behave  splen- 
didly just  because  they  are  splendid.  I  never  guessed  they  were 
like  that.  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  But  first,  what  did  you  want 
to  see  me  about  ?  You  don't  look  well,  dear.  What  is  it  ?  ' 

'  I'm  all  right,'  said  he. 

'  But  what  is  it  ?  '  asked  Dora  again,  vaguely  frightened. 

Jim  leaned  forward,  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  propping 
his  head  on  his  hands.  This  was  worse  than  the  telling  of  Claude 
had  been,  but  it  had  to  be  done.  He  had  promised  some  humble, 
sorry  little  denizen  within  him  that  he  would  do  it. 

'  Did  Claude  speak  to  you  about  a  cheque,'  he  asked,  '  which 
he  could  not  remember  drawing  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  and  then  afterwards  he  said  it  was  all  right,'  said  she. 

'  Then  I've  got  to  tell  you,'  he  said. 

Then  her  fear  seized  her  again  in  full  force. 

'  Don't,  Jim,'  she  cried,  '  don't  tell  me  there's  anything  wrong.' 

'  It's  no  use  beating  about,'  he  said.  '  I  forged  that  cheque  and 
cashed  it.  Claude  knows  ;  I  told  him.' 

Dora  sat  still  a  moment.  Then  she  put  her  hands  up  to  her 
head. 

'  Open  the  window,'  she  said,  '  I  am  stifling.' 

He  got  up  and  threw  open  the  window  away  from  the  street. 
Then  he  walked  over  to  the  chimney-piece  and  leaned  his  elbows 
on  it,  with  his  back  to  her. 

At  first  Dora  felt  nothing  but  hard  anger  and  indignation,  and 


THE   OSBORNES.  751 

she  knew  that  if  she  spoke  at  all  it  would  be  to  say  something 
which  could  do  no  good,  and  perhaps  only  make  a  breach  between 
them  that  could  never  be  healed. 

And  it  was  long  that  she  waited,  it  was  long  before  any  spark 
of  pity  for  him  was  lit.  Then  she  spoke. 

*  Oh,  Jim,  what  a  miserable  business  !  '  she  said.  '  But  why 
did  you  tell  me  ?  Couldn't  you  have  spared  me  knowing  ?  Or 
perhaps  you  were  afraid  Claude  would  tell  me.' 

'  No  ;  I  don't  tell  you  for  that  reason,'  he  said.  '  After  I  saw 
Claude  this  morning  I  knew  he  would  never  tell  you.' 

'  Why,  then  ?  ' 

'  Because  I  want  to  tell  you  about  Claude.  It  may  do  some 
good.  Well,  Claude's  treated  me  in  a  way  that's  beyond  my  under- 
standing. He  is  beyond  your  understanding,  too,  at  present,  and 
that's  why  I  am  telling  you.  I  wish  you  could  have  been  here 
when  I  told  him.  He  was  only  sorry  for  me.  If  he  was  God,  he 
couldn't  have  been  more  merciful.  And  it  wasn't  put  on.  He  felt 
it ;  and  I  wanted,  for  once,  to  see  if  I  couldn't  be  of  some  use.' 

He  turned  round  and  faced  her. 

'  I  want  you  to  know  what  sort  of  a  fellow  Claude  really  is,'  he 
said.  '  I  know  you  don't  get  on  well,  and  that's  because  you  don't 
know  him.  You  judged  him  first  by  his  face — that, 'and  perhaps 
a  little  bit  by  his  wealth.  And  then  you  judged  him  by  what  you 
and  I  call  vulgarity  and  want  of  breeding.  That's  not  Claude 
either.  Claude's  the  fellow  who  treated  a  swindler  and  a  forger 
in  the  way  I've  told  you.  He's  got  a  soul  that's  more  beautiful 
than  his  face,  you  know,  and  he's  the  handsomest  fellow  I  ever 
saw.  I  wanted  you  to  get  a  glimpse  of  it.  It  might  help  things. 
That's  all  I've  got  to  say.  I'm  sorry  for  giving  you  the  pain  of 
knowing  what  I've  done,  but  I  thought  it  might  do  good.  He's 
just  broken  me  up  with  his  goodness.  That's  Claude.' 

The  anger  was  quite  gone  now,  and  it  was  a  tremulous  hand 
that  Dora  laid  on  his  shoulder. 

'  Oh,  Jim,'  she  said,  '  thank  you !  I  am  so  sorry  for  you,  you 
know,  and  I'm  grateful.  I  shall  go  back  and  tell  Claude  I  know, 
and — and  thank  him,  and  be  sorry.' 

'  Yes,  that  is  the  best  thing  you  can  do,'  said  Jim. 

Claude  was  alone  in  their  sitting-room  when  she  got  back,  and, 
as  he  always  did,  he  rose  from  his  chair  as  she  entered.  For  a 


752  THE   OSBORNES. 

moment  she  stood  looking  at  him,  mute,  beseeching.  Then  she 
came  to  him. 

'  Thank  you  about  Jim,  dear,'  she  said.  c  He  has  just  told  me 
about  it,  to  make  me — make  me  see  what  you  were.  Oh,  Claude, 
I  didn't  know.' 

And  then  the  tears  came.  But  his  arm  was  round  her,  and  her 
head  lay  on  his  shoulder. 


(To  be  concluded.) 


THE 

COENHILL    MAGAZINE. 


JUNE    1910. 


KING  EDWARD    VII. 

THERE  was  something  deeply  and  even  tragically  impressive  in 
the  solemn  simplicity  of  the  words  in  which  the  momentous 
news  of  the  demise  of  the  Crown  was  announced  to  a  group  of 
anxious  spectators  at  the  midnight  hour — '  Gentlemen,  the  King  is 
dead.'  The  awful  mysteries  of  life  and  death,  the  tremendous 
significance  of  the  event  itself,  the  human  perplexity  and  grief 
in  the  presence  of  the  great  change,  are  all  comprised  in  those 
brief  words.  When  a  personality  so  vigorous,  so  kindly,  so  notable, 
quits  the  mortal  scene,  leaving  so  grievous  a  gap  in  a  circle  of 
devoted  intimates,  the  bare  fact  is  saddening  enough  ;  but  this 
sorrow  and  this  perplexity  are  increased  a  thousandfold,  when  the 
Figure  that  steps  so  swiftly  and  so  tranquilly  into  the  unknown  is  the 
head  of  a  great  nation  and  a  mighty  empire,  one  who  was  endeared 
to  his  subjects  by  his  unfailing  kindliness  and  justice,  who  had 
won  their  admiration  no  less  than  their  regard  by  the  patience,  the 
sagacity,  and  the  wisdom  with  which  he  had  played  his  august  part. 
It  is  as  easy  to  describe  as  it  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  secret 
of  King  Edward's  personal  influence.  It  came  from  a  frank  and 
manifest  love  of  life,  not  enjoyed  in  a  selfish  isolation,  but  with 
an  open-handed  generosity,  and  a  desire  to  share  with  others  and  to 
communicate  to  them  his  own  enjoyment,  his  delight  in  existence, 
with  all  its  interests,  pleasures,  and  duties.  May  I  be  pardoned  for 
relating  a  simple  personal  reminiscence  ?  I  came  away  from  an  inter- 
view with  the  King  at  Buckingham  Palace,  in  which  he  had  spoken 
to  me  very  warmly  and  graciously  of  the  Letters  of  Queen  Victoria. 
When  I  came  out,  an  Equerry,  with  whom  I  was  acquainted,  was 
waiting  for  me.  '  Well,'  he  said,  '  how  did  you  fare  ?  '  I  said  the 
only  words  which  came  into  my  mind  :  '  The  King  was  very  kind.' 
VOL.  XXVIII, — NO.  168,  N.S.  48 


754  KING    EDWARD   VII. 

'  He  always  is,'  said  the  Equerry,  with  a  smile.  That  was  the  simple 
secret — an  invariable  and  genuine  kindness,  which  streamed  from 
the  King  like  light  from  the  sun.  But  beside  that,  there  was  an 
added  grace  in  the  extraordinary  personal  charm  of  the  King's 
look  and  voice  and  manner.  He  set  one  at  one's  ease,  instantly 
and  immediately,  with  a  perfect  simplicity  of  address.  He  seemed 
not  to  have  learned  or  inquired,  but  to  know  and  remember  every- 
thing about  one.  He  made,  on  that  occasion,  a  reference  to  my 
father,  with  a  tenderness  of  reminiscence  that  could  not  be 
simulated  or  misunderstood.  And  then,  too,  he  had  a  sort  of  un- 
questioned and  unaffected  dignity,  which  made  all  who  served  him 
incapable  of  negligence  or  imperfection.  He  was  himself  so  strict 
and  punctual  in  the  performance  of  duty,  so  decisive  in  carrying 
out  every  detail  to  which  he  had  pledged  himself,  that  the  example 
he  set  was  more  potent  even  than  any  command.  He  said  exactly 
what  he  thought,  whether  it  was  praise  or  blame,  approval  or 
disapproval;  but  it  was  all  tempered  by  a  just  consideration  for 
all  who  served  him  and  an  anxious  regard  for  their  contentment. 
He  was  the  most  loyal  and  sincere  of  friends,  and  never  overlooked 
faithful  service.  And  then  he  had  an  instinctive  perception  of  the 
national  character,  the  wholesome  sentiment  that  underlies  it,  and 
the  rooted  dislike  of  all  affectation.  Thus  he  was  without  any 
question  the  most  popular  man  in  his  dominions,  and  he  deserved 
that  popularity,  because  he  had  won  it,  not  by  scheming,  but  by 
work.  He  knew  his  business,  and  he  meant  to  do  it  in  a  sturdy 
British  fashion  ;  he  was  absolutely  independent,  and  lived  his 
own  life  on  his  own  lines  ;  but  the  truest  part  of  that  life  was  his 
entire  devotion  to  his  country  and  his  empire.  He  was  deter- 
mined that  Monarchy  should  be  a  thing  and  not  a  name  ;  and  yefc 
he  was  equally  determined  that  he  would  never  outstep  the  tradi- 
tions of  his  great  position,  but  that  he  would  respect  the  liberties 
and  rights  of  his  subjects,  just  as  he  required  of  them  that  they 
should  respect  his  own. 

Neither  must  one  omit  another  great  kingly  quality,  for  which 
King  Edward  was  royally  conspicuous— his  unflinching  courage. 
He  can  hardly  have  been  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  his  life  was  latterly 
a  precarious  one  ;  he  had  frequent  warnings,  and  he  neither  dis- 
regarded them  nor  unduly  feared  them.  He  just  went  forward, 
bravely  and  even  gaily,  and  did  not  lay  down  his  pen  or  leave  his  post 
until  he  stepped  to  his  bed  of  death.  He  desired  to  live,  with  all  the 
eagerness  of  a  splendid  vitality,  but  he  had  no  craven  fears :  he 
looked  neither  backwards  nor  forwards,  but  made  every  moment  of 
life  his  own.  There  were  some  who  supposed  that  he  had  lived  for  so 


KING   EDWARD   VII  755 

long  before  his  accession  a  life  of  comparative  independence,  that 
he  would  be  unable  or  unwilling  to  take  up  the  great  responsibilities 
of  the  Crown.  His  share  of  royal  duties  had  hitherto  been  confined 
to  ceremonial  appearances,  and  to  representing  the  Sovereign  on 
public  occasions.  The  cares  of  State  and  the  anxieties  of  Govern- 
ment were  unfamiliar  to  him.  But  he  reigned  with  no  less  zest  and 
vivacity  than  he  had  lived  his  uncrowned  life,  with  unabated  vigour 
and  undiminished  enjoyment ;  and  thus  our  sorrow  need  not  make 
us  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  a  death  in  harness  was  the  death  that 
he  would  most  have  desired,  and  that  it  is  but  a  part  of  the  felicity 
of  a  life  so  full  of  movement,  so  rich  in  honour  and  renown. 

With  the  growth  of  democracy  and  popular  liberty,  Monarchy  is 
an  institution  that  has  undergone,  in  the  last  century,  a  subtle  and 
a  remarkable  change.  It  has  ceded  its  political  initiative,  resigned 
its  political  veto ;  it  is  apparently  restricted  by  constitutional 
and  traditional  limitations ;  and  yet  within  the  last  seventy  years, 
instead  of  losing  preponderance  and  prestige,  the  Grown  has  insen- 
sibly and  gradually  acquired  a  position  of  immense  responsibility 
and  far-reaching  influence,  owing  to  the  wisdom  and  insight,  the 
tact  and  conscientiousness,  the  kindness  and  devotion,  and,  above  all, 
the  supreme  commonsense  of  the  last  two  occupants  of  the  Throne. 
It  is  easy  to  be  impressed  by  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  state, 
and  natural  to  conclude  that  a  distinguished  courtesy  and  a  dignified 
acquiescence  is  all  that  is  required  of  a  constitutional  monarch. 
But  a  very  little  reflection  will  show  that  the  position  is  one  of 
extreme  delicacy  and  constant  anxiety.  A  constitutional  monarch 
must  not  only  be  possessed  of  endless  industry  and  patience,  a 
wide  and  accurate  knowledge  of  causes  and  personalities  ;  he  must 
be  at  once  firm  and  courteous  ;  he  must  be  both  dignified  and 
accessible.  He  must  not  only  not  manifest  any  personal  political 
preferences,  but  he  must  banish  every  such  consideration  from  his 
mind.  He  must  be  impartially  just  and  sincerely  sympathetic. 
He  must  be  the  friend  of  labour,  order,  and  peace.  He  must  have 
at  heart  the  best  interests  and  the  true  welfare  of  all  classes  and 
conditions  of  his  subjects ;  and  here  in  Great  Britain  he  must  inter- 
pret the  pulse  of  that  great  Imperial  spirit  which  beats  so  securely 
and  so  largely  through  a  vast  and  complex  Empire  and  animates 
such  varied  nationalities.  Queen  Victoria,  by  her  womanly  large- 
heartedness,  her  shrewdness  and  experience,  her  quick  and  instinc- 
tive insight,  gave  to  the  Crown  a  unique  prestige.  When  she  died, 
it  seemed  impossible  that  this  could  be  increased,  and  especially  by 
a  King  who,  out  of  filial  reverence  and  wise  judgment,  had 

48—2 


756  KING   EDWARD   VII. 

been  precluded  from  taking  any  active  part  in  the  government  of 
the  land.  And  yet  by  a  sincere  devotion  to  the  cause  of  peace, 
by  a  genuine  love  for  stately  publicity,  by  an  inimitable  gracious- 
ness  of  demeanour,  founded  upon  a  perfectly  natural  human 
kindliness,  King  Edward  contrived  to  smoothe  away  political 
irritations  and  foreign  complications  alike,  and  to  substitute  for 
a  certain  stiff  insularity  in  our  European  relations  a  cordial  and 
unsuspicious  understanding,  the  value  of  which  it  is  impossible 
to  over-estimate.  He  made  it  clear  by  his  frankness  and  friendli- 
ness that  though  he  was  the  guardian  and  protector  of  our  national 
interests,  yet  that  England  was  no  less  conscious  of  the  rights  of 
other  nations  than  of  her  own  rights,  and  that  she  was  as  anxious 
to  secure  the  just  independence  of  other  Powers  as  she  was  to 
preserve  her  own.  This  great  and  happy  result  was  brought  about 
by  the  King's  combination  of  instinctive  amiability  and  open- 
minded  fairness.  All  the  qualities  which  underlie  the  British 
ideal  of  sport  existed  naturally  in  the  King's  temperament.  He 
was  ambitious  without  jealousy,  modest  under  success,  and  good- 
humoured  under  defeat.  He  was  tranquil  in  anxiety,  courageous  in 
danger,  and  simple  in  prosperity.  And  in  English  public  life  he 
set  an  example  to  all  politicians  and  statesmen  of  genial  courtesy 
and  unruffled  bonhomie,  which  did  not  stand  for  an  absence  of 
conviction,  but  for  a  resolute  subordination  of  all  predilections 
to  harmony  and  concord. 

Our  present  Sovereign  has  trodden  the  same  wise  path  of 
forbearance  and  quiet  devotion  to  duty.  He  has  made  himself 
acquainted  with  every  part  of  his  great  Empire — indeed,  he  has 
probably  travelled  further  than  any  Sovereign  who  has  ever  lived. 
He  has  set  an  example  of  happy  and  serious  domesticity,  of 
upright  and  unblemished  private  life  ;  he  has  identified  himself 
with  no  party  and  with  no  school  of  thought.  He  has  shown 
an  active  interest  in  all  that  concerns  social  welfare  and  progress. 
His  Royal  Consort  has  shown  a  similar  devotion  to  duty  and 
a  generous  sympathy  with  every  department  of  national  life.  The 
new  reign  begins  not  without  anxiety,  at  a  time  of  constitutional 
change  and  political  friction,  but  yet  under  the  best  and  happiest 
auspices  ;  and  though  it  is  but  human  to  deplore  with  sincere  grief 
and  heartfelt  emotion  the  sudden  close  of  so  active  a  life  and  so 
generous  an  influence,  the  loyal  and  devoted  confidence  of  the 
nation  is  given,  in  sure  hope  and  implicit  faith,  to  the  Monarch 
who  ascends  a  throne  consecrated  with  august  memories  and 
deeply  based  in  the  affections  of  the  nation  and  of  the  empire. 

ARTHUR  C.  BENSON. 


757 

THE  MAJOR'S  NIECE. 
BY  GEORGE  A.  BIRMINGHAM. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THERE  are  still  to  be  found  in  Ireland  several  towns  of  great  import- 
ance, in  the  opinion  of  their  inhabitants,  which  are  twenty  miles 
or  more  distant  from  any  railway  station.  These  places  have  a 
curious  attraction  for  high  government  officials.  The  less  accessible 
they  are  the  more  eager  Lords  Lieutenant  and  Chief  Secretaries  are 
to  visit  them.  Now  that  motor  cars  are  plentiful  and  fairly  reliable, 
the  difficulty  of  getting  to  remote  towns,  which  used  to  be  serious, 
is  very  greatly  diminished.  Cabinet  Ministers  and  errant  Members 
of  Parliament  who  have  no  particular  business  in  Ireland  have 
taken  of  late  to  bringing  their  wives  with  them  on  their  pilgrimages. 
This  gives  great  pleasure  to  the  native  inhabitants,  and  it  should 
be  reckoned  for  righteousness  to  the  ladies  themselves  that  they 
always  profess  a  desire  to  benefit  the  towns  they  visit  and  to  elevate 
the  standard  of  comfort  of  the  people.  We  may  easily  believe  that 
these  are  their  real  objects,  for  no  other  reasons  for  their  visits  are 
imaginable.  Ballymoy,  for  instance,  is  one  of  these  fortunate 
towns,  and  no  one  would  go  to  Ballymoy  for  the  sake  of  the  scenery, 
which  is  uninteresting,  or  to  play  golf,  for  there  are  no  links.  Nor 
is  the  society  of  the  place  such  as  would  be  likely  to  attract  great 
ladies  accustomed  to  the  brilliant  political  salons  of  London  or  the 
splendid  festivities  of  Dublin  Castle. 

The  district  has  in  it  one  resident  landlord,  Major  Kent,  of 
Portsmouth  Lodge,  and  he  owns  only  a  small  property.  He  is  a 
bachelor,  devoted  to  the  breeding  of  polo  ponies  as  a  business, 
and  yachting  as  a  recreation.  The  other  landlord,  Sir  Giles  Buckley, 
who  has  a  much  larger  property,  lives  in  Surrey,  and  employs  a  firm 
of  Dublin  land  agents  to  collect  such  rents  as  the  government  still 
allows  him  to  levy  on  his  tenants.  In  the  social  life  of  the  place  he 
is  of  no  account.  There  is  a  Resident  Magistrate,  Mr.  Ford,  spoken 
of  generally  as  '  the  R.M.,'  who  is  married  and  lives  in  a  house 
which  has  been  let  to  generations  of  his  predecessors  ;  and  will  be 
let,  no  doubt,  to  Resident  Magistrates  yet  unborn.  There  is  the 


758  THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

rector,  Mr.  Cosgrave,  who  suffers,  summer  and  winter,  from  bron- 
chitis. His  wife  is  a  lady  of  many  sorrows,  afflicted  with  difficult 
children,  impossible  servants,  and  her  husband's  incurable  infir- 
mities. There  is  a  District  Inspector  of  Police,  Mr.  Gregg,  who,  like 
the  Resident  Magistrate,  is  designated  by  the  initials  of  his  office 
and  spoken  of  in  the  locality  as  '  the  D.I.'  He  has  been  married 
for  about  a  year.  There  is  also  Mr.  Cosgrave's  curate,  the  Rev. 
J.  J.  Meldon.  He  is  regarded  as  vulgar  by  Mrs.  Ford ;  is  liked  by 
Mrs.  Gregg,  who  is  younger  than  Mrs.  Ford  ;  and  enjoys  the  friend- 
ship of  Major  Kent.  By  the  actual  natives  of  the  town  he  is  treated 
with  a  sort  of  wondering  contempt.  They  appreciate  his  easy 
manners  and  friendly  helpfulness  ;  but  they  have  grave  doubts 
about  his  sanity  and  speak  of  him  among  themselves  as  a  '  decent 
poor  man,  though,  maybe,  not  quite  right  in  his  head.' 

So  far,  the  upper  classes.  Next  come  the  real  rulers  of  the  town 
and  neighbourhood,  Father  McCormack,  who  has  been  parish  priest 
of  Ballymoy  for  twenty-  years,  and  Mr.  Doyle.  Mr.  Doyle  is  the 
hotel  keeper,  the  principal  publican,  the  chief  draper  and  the 
largest  provision  dealer  in  Ballymoy.  He  is  the  unanimously 
elected  Chairman  of  all  Leagues  and  Boards.  He  presides  at  all  the 
public  meetings  and  proposes  all  the  resolutions  of  confidence  in  the 
Irish  Party  which  are  required.  The  other  inhabitants  take  it  in 
turn  to  second  them  and  combine  to  pass  them  unanimously  with 
cheers.  Mr.  Doyle  is,  of  course,  a  strong  Nationalist,  and  holds 
radical  opinions  on  the  land  question.  He  manages,  however,  to 
live  on  excellent  terms  with  Major  Kent,  who  is  a  good  customer, 
and  divides  the  task  of  local  government  amicably  with  Father 
McCormack.  Though  a  devout  Roman  Catholic,  Mr.  Doyle  is  on 
terms  of  close  intimacy  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Meldon. 

The  lot  of  most  Church  of  Ireland  curates  in  Ballymoy  is  dull, 
and  therefore  unhappy ;  Mr.  Cosgrave  has  been  obliged  to  appoint 
seven  or  eight  in  rapid  succession  ever  since  the  failure  of  his  health 
necessitated  the  keeping  of  an  assistant.  Meldon  is  the  first  of  them 
who  has  shown  any  signs  of  settling  down.  He  is  an  exceptional 
man  and  has  succeeded  better  than  any  of  his  predecessors  in 
adapting  himself  to  his  surroundings.  He  lodges,  as  all  the  other 
curates  did,  with  the  postmaster,  and  is  looked  after  by  the  post- 
master's wife.  She  cooks  chops  for  his  dinner  on  weekdays,  and  on 
Sundays  adds  to  the  chops  a  rice  pudding.  She  makes  his  bed 
every  morning,  and,  if  nothing  happens  to  prevent  her,  sweeps  the 
floor  of  his  sitting-room  once  a  month.  With  this  accommodation 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  759 

Mr.  Meldon  is  perfectly  content.  He  has  no  objection  to  dirt,  and  has 
a  fortunate  kind  of  appetite  which  enables  him  to  enjoy  an  unvarying 
diet  of  fried  chops.  His  habits  are  perfectly  regular.  Except  on 
the  days  which  he  spends  with  Major  Kent  he  appears  at  his  lodging 
half  an  hour  late  for  every  meal.  His  books  (he  has  a  large  number 
of  books)  lie  about  on  the  floor.  His  bicycle  is  kept  behind  his 
sitting-room  door.  He  has  a  white  dog  which  sleeps  on  the  foot  of 
his  bed.  It  is  called  Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz,  conveniently  shor- 
tened to  Baz  in  addressing  the  animal  directly.  He  explains  to 
the  curious  that  this  name,  which  is  Hebrew,  means  Bending  and 
Destruction.  It  was  appropriate  to  the  dog  in  the  days  of  puppy- 
hood  when  it  used  to  eat,  tear,  and  worry  hearthrugs,  shoes,  gloves, 
counterpanes,  tablecloths,  and  the  lower  parts  of  curtains.  The 
postmaster's  wife  has  from  the  very  first  greatly  disliked  Maher- 
Shalal-Hash-Baz. 

It  is  Mr.  Meldon's  custom  to  walk  up  and  down  the  main  street 
of  Ballymoy  on  market  days,  and  to  enter  into  conversation  with 
everyone  whom  he  meets.  He  is  on  terms  of  intimacy  with  all  the 
shopkeepers  and  with  almost  all  the  country  people  who  come  to  do 
business  in  the  town.  He  gives  advice,  freely  and  earnestly,  to 
everybody  on  any  subject,  from  the  treatment  of  chickens  with  the 
pip  and  the  proper  way  of  spraying  potatoes  to  the  making  of  a 
marriage  for  a  son  or  daughter.  He  always  attends  the  Petty 
Sessions  Court  as  an  interested  onlooker.  When  the  law  has  been 
duly  administered  and  the  weekly  batch  of  malefactors  handed  over 
to  the  care  of  Mr.  Gregg,  D.I.,  he  usually  leaves  the  Court  House  in 
company  with  his  friend  Major  Kent. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  occasions,  a  Wednesday  afternoon  early 
in  August,  that  he  noticed  a  look  of  depression  and  worry  on  the 
Major's  face.  Being  a  man  of  quick  sympathy  and  of  readiness  to 
help  anyone  in  trouble,  he  addressed  his  friend  at  once. 

'  You're  looking,'  he  said,  '  a  bit  blue  to-day,  Major.  Anything 
wrong  ?  ' 

'  There  is  not,3  said  the  Major — '  nothing  that  you  can  cure 
anyhow.' 

'  Don't  be  too  sure  of  that.  I  have  a  great  deal  of  experience  of 
life,  besides  all  I've  learned  about  human  nature  in  books.  If  you'll 
take  my  advice,  Major,  you'll  trot  out  your  affliction,  whatever  it  is, 
and  let  me  see  what  I  can  do.  Has  the  chestnut  filly  gone  lame 
on  you  ?  ' 

The  filly  to  which  Meldon  alluded  was  an  animal  of  great  promise 


760  THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

for  which  Major  Kent  confidently  expected  a  large  price.  She  was 
therefore  a  subject  of  considerable  anxiety,  and  her  health  was 
carefully  watched.  An  accident  to  her  would  have  been  a  serious 
misfortune. 

'  She  has  not,'  said  the  Major,  '  and  I  wouldn't  care  a  hang  if 
she  had.' 

'  Something  must  have  gone  wrong  with  the  Spindrift  then.' 

It  was  a  natural  inference.  Next  in  importance  to  the  ponies 
came  Major  Kent's  yacht,  a  ten-ton  cutter  which  lay  at  anchor  in 
the  bay  below  Portsmouth  Lodge. 

'  No,'  said  the  Major,  '  the  Spindrift's  all  right.' 

*  Then  unless  that  housekeeper  of  yours  has  cut  up  rough  sud- 
denly or  got  some  kind  of  fit  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with 
you.  If  it  isn't  the  filly  and  it  isn't  the  boat,  what  is  it  ?  ' 

'  Mrs.  O'Halloran's  all  right  so  far.  What  she  may  do  in  the 
way  of  a  fit  later  on,  of  course  I  can't  say.  Up  to  the  present  I 
haven't  told  her.' 

'  Major,'  said  Meldon  solemnly,  '  you're  not  going  to  be  married, 
are  you  ? ' 

'  No,  I'm  not.  I — I — could  find  it  in  my  heart,  J.J.,  to  wish  I 
was.' 

Everyone  who  was  intimate  with  the  Eev.  Joseph  John  Meldon 
addressed  him  by  his  first  two  initials.  Those  who  were  not  intimate 
with  him  spoke  of  him  behind  his  back  as  the  Kev.  J.  J. 

'  You'd  better  come  home  with  me  and  have  a  bit  of  lunch,' 
said  the  Major, '  and  I'll  tell  you  the  fix  I'm  in.  I  don't  believe  you 
can  help  me — nobody  can — but  it  will  be  some  relief  to  talk  it  over.' 
"  A  friend,"  '  said  Meldon,  '  "  should  bear  a  friend's  infir- 
mities." That's  in  Shakespeare,  but  you're  so  miserably  illiterate 
that  you  probably  don't  recognise  the  quotation.  I've  often 
deplored  the  want  of  some  cultured  and  intellectual  society  in 
Ballymoy.  As  a  University  graduate  I  can't  help  feeling  myself 
a  bit  isolated.' 

'  You  may  get  more  of  that  sort  of  thing  than  you  want  very 
soon.  I  don't  say  you  will,  for  I'm  not  sure  yet ;  but  you  may.' 

'  Anybody  wanting  you  to  take  the  chair  at  a  lecture  on  Irish 
antiquities  ?  ' 

'  No.  Don't  be  an  ass,  J.J.  Who'd  lecture  on  antiquities  in 
Ballymoy  ?  ' 

They  reached  the  hotel  and  passed  into  the  yard  where  the 
Major  stabled  his  cob  while  he  sat  on  the  Bench  in  the  Petty  Sessions 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  761 

Court.  The  yard  man,  who  counted  confidently  on  a  liberal  tip, 
wheeled  the  dogcart  from  the  coachhouse  and  harnessed  the  cob. 
Major  Kent  and  Meldon,  seated  side  by  side,  started  on  their  five 
miles  drive  to  Portsmouth  Lodge.  For  awhile  nothing  more  was  said 
on  the  subject  of  the  mysterious  trouble.  Meldon  discussed  a  case 
which  had  been  tried  in  Court  that  day.  A  woman  had  summoned 
her  uncle  for  breaking  down  the  stone  wall  which  divided  her  farm 
from  his.  She  believed  that  he  did  so  in  order  to  encourage  his 
heifer  to  trespass  on  her  meadow.  The  uncle  had  replied  with  a 
cross-summons  against  his  niece  for  threatening  language  addressed 
to  the  heifer  and  followed  by  an  assault  with  stones  and  a  stick. 
The  case  presented  points  of  interest,  but  Major  Kent  was  inatten- 
tive and  made  short  replies  to  the  curate's  remarks.  At  last  he 
interrupted  an  able  estimate  of  the  amount  of  perjury  committed 
by  the  witnesses. 

'  J.J.,'  he  said,  '  you  know  all  about  girls,  don't  you  ?  ' 

'  I  do,  of  course,'  said  Meldon,  cheerfully  dropping  the  subject 
of  the  injured  heifer.  '  I've  been  engaged  to  be  married  for  more 
than  two  years,  and  for  some  time  before  that  I  was  frequently  in 
the  society  of  Gladys  Muriel.  There's  not  a  turn  or  a  twist  in  any 
ordinary  girl  that  I  don't  thoroughly  understand.  My  own  little 
girl  is  quite  typical,  only  of  course,  better  looking  than  most.  In 
fact  I  shouldn't  be  going  too  far  if  I  described  her  as  exceptionally 
pretty.  Her  hair  is  a  sort  of  yellowish  colour,  not  exactly  gold, 
but ' 

'  I  don't  want  to  know  about  her  hair.  You've  told  me  all 
there  is  to  tell  about  that  little  girl  of  yours  a  dozen  times  or 
more.  You've  shown  me  her  photograph  till  I'm  tired  looking 
at  it.' 

'  All  right.  I'll  say  no  more  about  her.  But  kindly  recollect, 
Major,  that  it  was  you  who  turned  the  conversation  on  to  the 
subject  of  girls.  I  was  talking  about  perjury  until  you  interrupted 
me.' 

'  I  had  a  letter  from  my  sister  this  morning,'  said  the  Major. 

'  I  didn't  know  you  had  a  sister.  Is  she  older  or  younger  than 
you  ?  I  have  a  reason  for  asking  that  question.' 

'  She's  older.' 

'  Ah  !  Well,  now,  putting  you  down  as  fifty  years  of  age,  your 
sister  is  very  probably  fifty-five.  I  don't  want  to  be  offensive  in 
any  way,  and  I  am  sure  that  Miss  Kent  is  a  delightful  person,  but 
you  can  hardly  call  her  a  girl,  can  you  ?  When  I  said  I  understood 


762  THE    MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

girls  thoroughly  I  didn't  mean  you  to  think  that  my  knowledge 
extended  to  women  of  fifty-five.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  having  aunts 
of  my  own,  I  do  know  something  about  middle-aged  ladies  ;  but  I 
don't  set  up  to  be  an  expert.  I  mention  this  because  I  shouldn't 
like  you  to  rely  too  confidently  on  any  advice  I  may  give  you  in  the 
case  of  your  sister.' 

4 1  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about,  J.J.  I  don't  want 
any  advice  about  my  sister.  If  you  knew  her,'  the  Major  grinned 
feebly,  '  you  would  hesitate  before  offering  advice  about  her.' 

'  No,  I  shouldn't,  not  a  bit,  if  I  thought  she  needed  it.' 

'  Well,  you  might  not.  I  must  say  for  you  there  are  few  things 
you  do  hesitate  about.  Any  way  my  sister  isn't  Miss  Kent.  She 
married  an  Englishman  called  Purvis  more  than  twenty  years 
ago.7 

'  Does  she  want  a  divorce  ?  or  a  judicial  separation  ?  I'm  more 
or  less  up  in  the  law  on  that  subject.  As  a  parson  I  have  to  be,  you 
know.' 

'  No,  she  doesn't.  In  fact  the  very  reverse  is  the  case.  She 
seems  to  me  to  want  to  go  on  a  sort  of  second  honeymoon.' 

'  Well,  let  her.  I  don't  see  any  harm  in  that.  In  fact  I  regard 
it  as  a  very  fine  exhibition  of  proper  feeling  in  a  wife.  That  sort  of 
thing  is  rare  after  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  married  life.  But  perhaps 
Purvis  wants  to  get  off  the  trip.  Is  that  it  ?  If  so,  my  advice  to 
you  is  not  to  mix  yourself  up  in  the  matter.  Let  them  fight  it  out 
together.  There's  nothing  so  foolish  as  meddling  in  these  domestic 
broils.' 

4 1  wish  to  goodness,  J.J.,  you'd  stop  talking  for  one  instant 
and  let  me  tell  you  the  fix  I'm  in.  There's  no  domestic  broil  of  any 
sort.  Purvis  is  just  as  keen  as  Margaret  is  on  seeing  the  continent 
of  Europe.  That's  where  the  trouble  comes  in.  But  here  we  are 
at  Portsmouth  Lodge.  You'd  better  read  the  letter  for  yourself. 
That  will  be  more  satisfactory  than  talking  at  cross-purposes  in  the 
trap  and  my  not  being  able  to  explain  myself  on  account  of  the  way 
you  keep  interrupting  me.' 

CHAPTER  II. 

PORTSMOUTH  LODGE  is  utterly  unlike  any  other  house  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Ballymoy.  It  would  probably  win  first  prize  in  all 
Connacht  for  the  best  kept  homestead  if  such  rewards  were  offered 
by  social  reformers  for  competition  among  landlords  and  professional 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  763 

men.  Nowhere  out  of  England  itself  would  it  be  possible  to  find 
gravel  more  carefully  raked  than  Major  Kent's  ;  ivy  better  clipped  ; 
fences  with  more  rigid  wires  ;  gates  and  doors  which  glisten  with 
brighter  paint.  The  interior  of  the  house  is  quite  as  exquisite  as  its 
surroundings.  The  linoleum  which  covers  the  hall  is  always  slippery 
and  on  certain  days  in  the  week  smells  strongly  of  beeswax  and 
turpentine.  No  chair  is  allowed  to  remain  long  out  of  its  appointed 
place  in  any  room.  The  Times  and  the  local  paper,  which  supply 
the  Major  with  reading  matter,  are  laid  together  folded  into  correct 
parallelograms  on  a  polished  table  in  the  study.  Numerous  recep- 
tacles for  tobacco  ashes  are  to  be  found  in  every  room.  Fire  grates, 
even  in  winter  when  the  turf  is  blazing  in  them,  are  sacred  from 
cigar  ends.  The  havoc  occasioned  by  a  visit  from  Meldon,  a 
lamentably  untidy  person,  is  set  right  with  sweeping  brushes  and 
dusters  immediately  after  his  departure. 

Major  Kent  inherits  from  his  grandfather,  the  first  of  the  family 
who  settled  in  Ireland,  an  English  fondness  for  neatness.  It  took 
him  years  to  educate  his  housekeeper,  Mrs.  O'Halloran,  into  a 
proper  respect  for  his  ideas  of  household  management.  Being  a 
woman  of  strong  common  sense  she  had  a  great  contempt  for  her 
master's  fads  ;  but  she  yielded  to  him  and  was  compensated  for  the 
discomfort  of  the  unnatural  kind  of  life  she  was  obliged  to  live  by 
the  pleasure  she  found  in  making  generations  of  subordinate  hand- 
maidens acutely  miserable.  Fresh  from  their  pleasantly  untidy 
homes,  they  could  not  understand  what  Mrs.  O'Halloran  desired  of 
them,  and  suffered,  not  always  patiently,  in  the  effort  to  learn 
the  difference  between  a  thing  which  is  clean  and  a  thing  which  has 
been  given  a  '  rub  over.' 

Meldon  walked  into  the  Major's  study,  kicking  two  mats  crooked 
on  his  way.  He  disarranged,  before  sitting  down  in  it,  a  deep 
armchair.  He  stretched  out  his  legs  and  put  the  heels  of  his  boots 
on  the  brass  bar  of  the  fender,  a  grave  offence  which  would  hardly 
have  been  passed  over  without  a  hint  of  rebuke  if  it  had  been  com- 
mitted by  anyone  except  Meldon. 

'  Now,'  he  said,  '  bring  out  that  letter,  Major,  and  let  me  get 
at  this  mysterious  trouble  of  yours.' 

The  letter,  a  long  one,  written  closely  over  four  sides  of  a  sheet 
of  notepaper,  was  handed  to  him. 

'  It's  written,'  said  the  Major,  '  from  Melbourne,  but  you'll 
see  that  my  sister  expects  to  be  in  England  by  the  time  I 
get  it.' 


764  THE    MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

'  Thank  you,'  said  Meldon.  '  Your  sister,  I  suppose,  lives  in 
Australia  ?  ' 

'  She  does.  She  went  out  with  her  husband  and  has  been  living 
on  a  sheep  farm  for  the  last  twenty-two  years,  in  fact  ever  since  she 
was  married.  This  is  her  first  trip  home.' 

Meldon  read  the  letter  carefully,  spread  it  out  on  his  knee,  and 
proceeded  to  give  the  Major  an  abstract  of  its  contents. 

'  Your  sister,'  he  said,  '  is  coming  home.  She  proposes  to  spend 
a  month  or  perhaps  more  in  visiting  the  capitals  of  the  principal 
European  states  in  the  company  of  her  husband.  That's  all  clear 
so  far,  I  hope.' 

1  Yes,'  said  the  Major,  '  that's  clear  enough.  I'm  not  complain- 
ing of  any  difficulty  in  understanding  the  letter.  Margaret  wa^ 
always  able  to  make  her  meaning  quite  plain,  too  plain  sometimes.' 

'  She  brings  with  her  a  daughter,  of  whom  she  writes  as  "  Mar- 
jorie,"  and  occasionally  "  dear  Marjorie."  She  intends  to  send 
this  Marjorie  to  stay  with  you  here  in  Portsmouth  Lodge,  while 
she  enjoys  herself  in  Paris,  Vienna  and  Rome.  That,  in  a  few  words, 
is  the  news  which  her  letter  conveys.  Now  what  is  your  grievance  ? ' 

'  My  grievance  !  My  dear  J.J.,  what  am  I  to  do  with  a  girl  ? 
How  can  I  keep  her  here  ?  I'm  not  accustomed  to  girls.  I  am 
constitutionally  unfitted  to  deal  with  them.' 

1  In  my  opinion,  Major,  you're  an  uncommonly  lucky  man. 
Here  you  have  pressed  on  you  what  many  men  spend  half  their  lives 
trying  to  get,  the  companionship  of  a  really  charming,  quite  natural 
and  unaffected  young  lady.  Instead  of  dancing  with  joy  as  any 
ordinary  man  would,  you  go  about  with  a  face  as  long  as  if  the 
chestnut  filly  had  thrown  out  a  splint.' 

'  That's  all  very  fine  for  you.  You're  accustomed  to  charming 
young  ladies.  I'm  not.  Besides,  how  do  you  know  that  she  is  a 
young  lady  ?  For  all  Margaret  says  in  the  letter  she  may  be  a 
baby  in  arms,  or  a  long-legged  shy  creature  of  fifteen.  For  the 
matter  of  that,  what  ground  have  you  for  saying  that  she's  charm- 
ing, natural  and  unaffected  ?  ' 

'  I'll  take  your  points  one  by  one,  Major.  You  ask  how  I  know 
she's  a  grown-up  young  lady.  I  don't  actually  know  her  age,  but 
you  said  that  your  sister  had  been  twenty-two  years  married,  from 
which  I  infer  that  her  eldest  daughter  must  be  twenty  or  twenty- 
one.' 

*  How  do  you  know  that  Marjorie  is  the  eldest  daughter  ?  ' 

'  She  must  be.     There  may  be  an  elder  son,  though  that's  not 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  765 

likely.  If  there  had  been,  your  sister  would  have  brought  him 
home  with  her  instead  of  the  girl.  But  in  any  case,  even  if  there 
is  a  son,  Marjorie  must  be  at  least  nineteen,  and  a  girl  of  that  age  is 
always  considered  to  be  grown  up.  I  say  with  confidence,'  he  went 
on  in  an  explanatory  tone,  '  that  she's  the  eldest  daughter  because 
she's  obviously  called  after  her  mother.  If  there  had  been  an  older 
one  she'd  have  been  Marjorie,  which  is  an  abbreviation  of  Margaret, 
and  this  one  would  have  been  Susan  or  Millicent  or  something  else. 
That  disposes  of  your  first  point.  Next,  as  to  her  being  natural 
and  unaffected.  She  has  been  brought  up,  according  to  your 
account,  on  a  sheep  farm.  How  could  a  growing  child  have  a  more 
unaffected  companion  than  a  sheep  ?  Your  niece  has  probably 
played  with  dear  little  woolly  lambs  ever  since  she  was  old  enough 
to  play  with  anything.  She  can't  be  anything  else  but  natural. 
You  may  take  my  word  for  it  that  she'll  turn  out  exactly  like 
Lucy  in  Wordsworth's  poem,  who  "  dwelt  among  untrodden  ways, 
beside  the  streams  of  Dove."  Ballymoy  will  be  a  metropolis  to  her 
and  a  travelling  circus  a  wild  joy.  As  for  her  being  charming,  that 
follows  from  her  being  perfectly  natural.  Everything  natural  is 
charming.  Besides,  she  probably  takes  after  her  mother,  and  your 
sister  must  have  had  a  certain  amount  of  charm  or  else  Purvis 
wouldn't  have  married  her.' 

'  She  wasn't  in  the  least  charming,'  said  the  Major.  '  She  was 
what  I  should  call  dictatorial.' 

'  You  may  not  have  appreciated  her  charm,  but  it  was  there 
all  the  same.  Otherwise,  as  I  said,  Purvis  wouldn't  have  married 
her.  You  must  give  Purvis  credit  for  some  sense,  Major.  A  man 
like  that  who  has  shown  himself  capable  of  making  money  out  of 
sheep  farming,  which  is  a  difficult  business,  money  enough  to  go 
travelling  all  over  the  continent  of  Europe,  can't  possibly  have  been 
such  a  fool  as  to  marry  a  woman  who  didn't  attract  him.' 

'  Well,  supposing  you're  right,  and  you  may  be  for  all  I  can 
tell — supposing  she  is  all  you  say,  that  only  makes  things  much 
worse.  What  on  earth  am  I  to  do  with  a  charming  young  lady 
of  twenty-one  in  a  place  like  this  ?  How  am  I  to  entertain 
her?' 

'  Don't  let  that  get  between  you  and  your  sleep.  I'll  entertain 
her  for  you.  I'll  be  getting  my  holidays  almost  at  once,  and 
I'll  not  go  away  except  for  a  week  just  to  see  my.  own  little  girl. 
I'll  stay  here  in  Ballymoy  and  entertain  your  niece.' 

'  No,  you  won't,'  said  the  Major  firmly.     '  I  couldn't,  I  simply 


766  THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

daren't  face  Margaret  if  she  heard  that  I'd  allowed  the  girl  to  spend 
the  summer  flirting  with  the  curate.' 

'  She  might  do  a  great  deal  worse,'  said  Meldon.  '  But,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  I  don't  mean  to  flirt  with  her.  You  forget  that  I'm 
engaged  to  be  married.  I  wouldn't  flirt  with  any  one.  What  I 
propose  to  do  is  to  take  her  out  for  rides  and  get  up  picnic  teas 
and  boating  parties  and  play  lawn  tennis  with  her.  Don't  you 
fret  about  her,  Major.  She'll  enjoy  her  time  all  right.' 

'  I  haven't  a  room  in  my  house  fit  to  put  a  girl  into.  The  place 
is  furnished  for  men,  not  girls.  I  don't  even  know  what  a  girl 
would  want  in  a  bedroom.' 

'  A  girl  doesn't  want  anything  particular.  Give  her  any 
ordinary  furniture  and  she'll  manage  along.  I  know  girls  well.' 

1 1  thought,'  said  the  Major,  '  that  they  might  require  long 
looking  glasses,  and  patent  wire  frames  for  fitting  dresses  on  to,  and 
special  lamps  for  heating  curling  tongs  at.  I  know  I've  seen  those 
things  advertised.' 

'  She'll  bring  everything  of  that  sort  along  with  her.  She 
won't  expect  to  have  them  provided  for  her,  any  more  than  you'd 
expect  to  find  a  razor  strop  and  a  trousers  stretcher  laid  out  for  you 
in  the  bedroom  of  a  strange  house  in  which  you  happened  to  be 
staying.' 

'  Then  there's  Mrs.  O'Halloran.  I  don't  know  what  she'll  say. 
I  am  sure  she'll  object  strongly.  Perhaps  she'll  leave,  and  then 
where  should  I  be  ? ' 

'  If  you're  afraid  of  Mrs.  O'Halloran,  I'll  tackle  her  for  you. 
Ring  the  bell  and  I'll  do  it  at  once.  Or  wait,  is  there  any  point 
you'd  like  to  have  cleared  up  before  Mrs.  O'Halloran  comes  in  ? ' 

'  Margaret  says — where's  the  letter  ? — oh,  yes,  there  it  is  on 
the  floor  beside  you.  She  says,  "  Dear  Marjorie  won't  be  any 
trouble  to  you.  If  you  give  her  a  book  and  a  quiet  corner  she'll 
be  quite  happy."  Now  I  have  no  books  that  any  girl  could  read.' 

4  You  have  not,'  said  Meldon.  '  So  far  as  I  know  you  possess 
five  volumes  of  Spurgeon's  Sermons,  two  books  on  horses,  three 
on  yacht  building  and  an  old  encyclopaedia.  I  quite  agree  with  you 
that  no  girl  could  read  your  books.  But  I'll  bring  you  out  a  couple 
of  dozen  volumes — novels,  you  know,  and  poetry.  Gladys  Muriel 
reads  Tennyson  and  any  amount  of  novels.  They're  quite  the 
right  things  for  girls.' 

'  I  don't  know,'  said  the  Major  doubtfully.  '  Your  books  might 
not  be  the  sort  that  Margaret  would  like  her  daughter  to  read.' 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  767 

'  If  you  think  that  I'm  the  sort  of  man  who'd  give  improper 
books  to  a  girl  you're  utterly  mistaken.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I 
don't  read  books  that  have  anything  objectionable  in  them  myself, 
except  the  ancient  Fathers  of  the  Church.  But  if  you  like,  just  to 
make  your  mind  quite  easy,  I'll  write  to  my  little  girl  and  get  her  to 
draw  up  a  list  of  really  suitable  books,  her  own  favourite  reading. 
That  ought  to  satisfy  you.  Now  ring  for  Mrs.  O'Halloran.' 

The  housekeeper  appeared.  At  first  she  seemed  to  think  that 
an  untimely  demand  for  luncheon  was  to  be  made  on  her. 

'  It  was  only  this  morning,'  she  said,  *  before  you  made  out  after 
your  breakfast,  that  you  told  me  luncheon  was  for  half-past  one. 
The  chicken  isn't  in  the  pot  above  ten  minutes,  and  the  potatoes 
isn't  near  boiled  nor  won't  be  for  another  half  hour.' 

'That's  all  right,  Mrs.  O'Halloran,'  said  Meldon.  'It  isn't 
the  chicken  the  Major  wants.  He  quite  agrees  with  you  that  when 
a  meal's  ordered  for  one  particular  hour,  that's  the  hour  at  which  it 
ought  to  be.  What  he  wishes  me  to  speak  to  you  about  now  is 
something  quite  different.' 

'  If  it's  Mary  Garry  and  the  way  she  has  of  dropping  her  hair- 
pins out  of  her  head  in  the  morning  when  she  does  be  sweeping  out 
the  study  floor,  let  the  Major  try  and  cure  her  of  that  himself.  I'm 
tired  talking  to  her.  Many's  the  time  I've  said  to  her  :  "  Mary 
Garry,  the  master'll  be  raging  mad  ;  he'll  face  me,  and  he'll  kill 
you  so  as  you  won't  know  after  whether  it's  your  head  or  your 
heels  you're  standing  on,  if  you  drop  them  pins  about  the  floor, 
and  you  sweeping  it."  But  I  might  as  well  be  talking  to  the  wind 
or  to  one  of  them  horses  beyond  in  the  field  or  to  yourself,  Mr. 
Meldon,  as  to  that  same  Mary  Garry.  She's  got  the  notion  of 
America  in  her  head  this  minute,  and  she'll  never  settle  down  to 
a  decent  day's  work  till  she's  off  out  of  this,  if  she  does  then 
itself.' 

'  It's  not  Mary  Garry  I'm  talking  about  now,'  said  Meldon, 
'  but  another  girl  altogether.' 

'  And  what  will  the  Major  be  wanting  with  another  girl  ? 
Isn't  one  enough,  and  wouldn't  I  rather  work  my  fingers  to  the 
bone  cleaning  and  sweeping  and  cooking  and  mending  after  him, 
than  have  the  life  plagued  out  of  me  with  another  girl  ?     What 
does  he  want  with  another  girl  ?     Tell  me  that.' 

The  Major  had  got  the  better  of  Mrs.  O'Halloran  in  so  far  as  he 
had  induced  her  to  keep  his  house  as  no  other  house  in  Ballymoy 
was  ever  kept.  But  Mrs.  O'Halloran,  like  every  other  woman  who 


768  THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

ever  learned  to  polish,  had  also  learnt  to  tyrannise.  It  was  small 
wonder  that  Major  Kent's  courage  quailed  before  the  task  of 
announcing  the  visit  of  his  niece.  Fortunately  Meldon  was  made 
of  sterner  stuff.  Mrs.  O'Halloran's  tongue  had  no  terrors  for  him. 
He  actually  enjoyed  arguing  with  her. 

'  The  Major  doesn't  want  another  girl  any  more  than  you  do, 
Mrs.  O'Halloran.  The  point  is  that  he  can't  help  himself.  But 
the  girl  that's  coming  isn't  a  fresh  edition  of  Mary  Garry.  She's 
a  young  lady,  and  we  look  to  you  to  make  her  stay  here  pleasant  for 
her.' 

'  The  Lord  save  us  and  help  us  !  Is  it  a  young  lady  you're 
bringing  down  on  the  house  ?  ' 

'  It  is,'  said  Meldon  firmly,  '  a  young  lady  of  remarkable  charm 
and  personal  beauty.  A  young  lady  who  will  come  like  a  ray  of 
sunshine  into  Portsmouth  Lodge  and  make  all  your  lives  brighter. 
You'll  hear  her  all  day  long  singing  her  pretty  songs  as  she  goes 
tripping  up  and  down  the  stairs.  She  will  have  a  pleasant  smile  and 
a  kind  word  for  every  one.  Even  Mary  Garry  will  learn  to  look  up 
to  her  as  a  sort  of  angel  in  the  house.  You  know  that  sort  of 
young  lady,  don't  you,  Mrs.  O'Halloran  ?  ' 

1  Tell  me  now,'  said  the  housekeeper,  in  a  hoarse  whisper,  '  Is 
it  the  young  lady  that's  to  marry  you — and  the  Lord  help  her  when 
she  does — that's  coming  here  ?  For  if  so  be  that  you've  beguiled 
the  poor  Major,  who's  as  quiet  and  innocent  as  a  child  in  the  house, 
into  inviting  her ' 

1  Well,  it  isn't  her.  You  may  make  your  mind  easy  about 
that.' 

'  For  if  it  is,'  went  on  Mrs.  O'Halloran,  '  I  may  tell  you  this. 
There'll  be  no  carrying  on  between  her  and  you  in  this  house  while 
I'm  in  it.  The  Major's  a  respectable  man  and  always  was,  and 
I'm  a  respectable  woman,  and  Mary  Garry  comes  of  decent  people, 
and  as  for  carrying  on — 

'  Sorra  the  woman  or  the  girl  ever  attempted  to  carry  on  with 
me,'  said  Meldon,  '  except  yourself.  And  hard  enough  I've  found 
it  to  keep  you  at  arm's  length  more  than  once.  If  I  wasn't  a  man 
of  remarkable  strength  of  character,  you'd  have  married  me  twice 
over  before  now.' 

Mrs.  O'Halloran  snorted  with  indignation  and  delight.  She 
recognised  in  Meldon  a  man  who  could  get  the  better  of  her  in  a 
war  of  words,  and  she  appreciated  him  fully. 

'  But  any  way,'  he  went  on,  *  the  young  lady  who's  coming 


THE   MAJOR'S    NIECE.  769 

here  won't  want  to  carry  on  with  any  one.  She's  the  Major's 
niece,  and  her  name  is  Miss  Marjorie  Purvis.' 

'  And  who's  to  attend  on  the  like  of  her  ?  For  I  won't.  Maybe 
now  you  think  that  Mary  Garry  can  be  running  after  her  all  day, 
hooking  up  the  backs  of  her  dresses  for  her  and  doing  her  hair.' 

'  We  leave  all  those  details  to  you,'  said  Meldon.  '  Neither  the 
Major  nor  I  know  anything  about  the  backs  of  dresses,  and  we're  not 
barbers.  But  I'll  just  say  this,  that  unless  Mary  Garry  learns  to  do 
her  own  hair  better  than  she  does  at  present — I'm  relying  on  your 
account  of  her,  Mrs.  O'Halloran,  I  never  noticed  her  hair  one  way 
or  other — she'd  better  not  lay  a  hand  on  anybody  else's.  Just 
think  how  you'd  feel  if  you  found  yourself  tripping  over  two  lots 
of  hairpins  every  time  you  put  out  your  foot  in  front  of  you.' 

Mrs.  O'Halloran  realised  that  she  was  not  likely  to  produce 
any  impression  on  Meldon.  She  turned  to  the  Major. 

'  And  will  she  expect  me  to  be  carrying  up  a  cup  of  tea  to  her 
in  the  morning,  and  her  in  her  bed  ?  ' 

'  I  don't  know,'  said  the  Major.     '  Will  she,  JJ.  ?  ' 

'  She  will,'  said  Meldon.  '  Every  self-respecting  young  lady 
expects  that.  A  cup  of  tea  and  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter  along 
with  it,  served  on  a  small  tray  with  a  white  cloth  spread  over  it.' 

'  And  how  long,'  said  Mrs.  O'Halloran  desperately,  '  is  the  like 
of  that  work  to  be  going  on  ?  ' 

'  Six  weeks  at  least,'  said  Meldon.  '  Perhaps  longer.  But 
you'll  be  surprised  how  you'll  get  to  like  it.  What  you  and  the 
Major  want,  both  of  you,  is  some  sweet  and  civilising  influence  in 
this  house.  You  may  not  care  for  the  idea  beforehand,  but  you'll 
enjoy  being  refined  enormously  when  the  time  comes.  Just  think 
how  nice  it  will  be  to  have  flowers  settled  regularly  in  all  the  vases, 
and  pretty  little  bows  of  silk  ribbon  tied  on  to  the  antimacassars, 
and  beautiful  embroidered  teacloths  made  for  use  at  afternoon  tea, 
and  all  the  hundred  and  one  little  dainty  touches  added  to  life 
which  only  the  hand  of  a  highly  educated  and  cultivated  young 
lady  can  bestow.  I  shouldn't  wonder  a  bit  if  she  set  to  work  and 
made  chintz  covers  for  all  the  chairs  in  the  house  ?  You'd  like 
that,  wouldn't  you,  Mrs.  O'Halloran  ?  ' 

'  I  would  not  then.  The  covers  that's  on  the  chairs  this  minute 
is  good  enough.  But  what's  the  use  of  talking  ?  Whatever  is  to 
be  must  be,  surely  ;  and  the  thing  that's  before  us  is  what  we  have 
to  go  through  with,  be  the  same  easy  or  hard.  I  suppose  now  you'll 
be  eating  your  lunch  with  the  Major,  Mr.  Meldon  ?  ' 

VOL.  XXVIII.— NO.  168,  N.S.  49 


770  THE   MAJOR'S    NIECE. 

'  I  will.' 

'  And  you'll  be  wanting  coffee  or  the  like  after  it  ? ' 

'  We  will.' 

'  Well,  if  so  be  there's  nothing  more  to  be  said  about  the  young 
lady,  I'll  be  getting  back  again  to  the  kitchen  to  see  after  the 
chicken.' 

CHAPTER  III. 

MELDON  and  Major  Kent  spent  two  hours  after  luncheon  making 
plans  for  the  entertainment  of  Miss  Marjorie  Purvis.  The  Major 
agreed  to  rail  off  a  portion  of  the  paddock,  mow  and  roll  it.  He 
wrote  to  a  Dublin  firm  for  a  complete  supply  of  all  things  necessary 
for  the  playing  of  lawn  tennis  and  croquet.  Meldon  said  that 
every  girl  delighted  in  playing  either  one  game  or  the  other,  and 
that  both  must  be  provided  since  it  was  impossible  to  know  before- 
hand which  Miss  Marjorie  might  prefer.  He  proposed  to  instruct 
the  Major  in  the  games.  He  was,  he  boasted,  very  expert  in  lawn 
tennis  and  a  croquet  player  of  more  than  ordinary  ability.  Another 
letter  was  written  to  a  newsagent  and  a  cheque  was  enclosed  suffi- 
cient to  cover  six  weeks'  subscription  to  three  lady's  papers.  All 
women,  young  and  old,  married  or  single,  Meldon  said,  enjoyed 
lady's  papers  and  would  only  be  really  happy  if  kept  well  provided 
with  them.  The  manager  of  the  stores  at  which  the  Major  dealt 
was  asked  to  submit  an  estimate  for  a  supply  of  cakes  suitable  for 
afternoon  tea,  to  be  posted  regularly  twice  a  week.  Even  Meldon 
felt  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  ask  Mrs.  O'Halloran  to  make  cakes. 
The  Major  wanted  at  the  same  time  to  give  a  general  order  for  every 
kind  of  food  commonly  eaten  by  young  ladies.  Meldon  objected 
to  his  doing  this,  maintaining  that  girls  required  no  special  diet. 
After  some  discussion  a  compromise  was  arrived  at  and  an  order 
given  for  ten  pounds  of  chocolate  creams  mixed  with  fondants. 

The  Major  resolutely  refused  to  buy  a  side-saddle.  He  said  that 
he  would  not  run  the  risk  of  putting  an  inexperienced  niece  on  any 
of  the  horses  in  his  stables.  Meldon,  after  arguing  at  some  length 
that  high-spirited  girls  enjoy  running  risks,  discovered  suddenly 
that  the  Major's  anxiety  was  for  his  own  horses  and  not  for  Miss 
Marjorie's  neck.  Realising  that  this  was  a  reasonable  fear,  he  did 
not  press  for  the  purchase  of  the  side-saddle.  It  was  agreed  that  a 
bicycle  should  be  obtained  instead,  and  Meldon  promised  to  speak 
to  Doyle  about  it  at  once.  Doyle,  hotel  keeper,  grocer,  draper  and 
emigration  agent,  also  dealt,  when  opportunity  offered,  in  agricul- 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  771 

tural  machinery,  patent  fertilisers,  watches,  sewing  machines  and 
bicycles. 

A  fashionable  stationer  was  written  to  for  two  dozen  '  At  Home  ' 
cards  of  the  latest  design.  There  were  only  four  people  in  Ballymoy, 
including  Meldon  himself,  to  whom  these  could  possibly  be  sent ; 
so  it  was  calculated  that  the  two  dozen  would  suffice  as  summonses 
to  six  parties.  The  first,  as  Meldon  planned  them,  would  be  a 
simple  afternoon  tea  to  be  held  at  Portsmouth  Lodge  on  the  day 
after  the  niece's  arrival.  The  next  was  to  take  the  form  of  a  tea 
picnic  at  some  place  not  more  than  five  miles  distant  to  which  the 
guests  would  convey  themselves  on  bicycles.  This,  Meldon  said, 
was  a  particularly  fashionable  and  delightful  form  of  entertainment, 
of  which  all  young  girls  were  very  fond.  Major  Kent  got  out  a  note- 
book and  began  to  make  a  list  of  his  engagements.  The  tea  picnic 
was  to  be  followed  by  another  party  at  Portsmouth  Lodge,  devoted 
either  to  lawn  tennis  or  croquet ;  the  game  indulged  in  to  be  decided 
when  it  was  known  which  of  the  two  the  niece  preferred. 

4  That's  three,'  said  Meldon.     '  We  want  three  more.' 

'  Must  we  have  three  more  ?  ' 

'  We  must.  We  can't  have  less  than  one  every  week.  In  fact 
one  every  week  isn't  really  enough  for  a  high-spirited,  energetic 
young  girl.  But  I  think  we  may  count  on  the  other  people  giving 
a  few  parties  in  return.  Each  of  them  is  bound  to  ask  us  twice  at 
least  if  we  ask  them  six  times.  They  can't  well  do  less.  That  will 
make  six  more  parties,  two  at  the  rectory,  two  at  the  Fords',  and 
two  with  the  D.I.  I  tell  you  what  it  is,  Major,  we'll  make  Ballymoy 
hum ! ' 

'  We  will,'  said  the  Major  without  enthusiasm. 

A  picnic  on  one  of  the  islands  in  the  bay  was  Meldon's  next 
suggestion,  the  guests  to  be  taken  out  on  the  yacht.  The  Major 
objected  to  this  because  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Cosgrave  were  in- 
variably sick  when  they  went  on  the  sea.  Meldon  pointed  out  that 
as  the  object  of  the  party  was  to  give  pleasure  to  Miss  Marjorie 
Purvis,  the  sufferings  of  other  people  would  not  matter. 

'  In  fact,'  he  said,  '  if  Mrs.  Ford  and  Mrs.  Cosgrave  are  sick  it 
will  rather  increase  the  pleasure  of  the  rest  of  the  party.  I  don't 
know  if  you've  noticed  it,  Major,  but  nothing  gives  most  people 
such  a  feeling  of  solid  satisfaction  as  seeing  somebody  else  violently 
ill  at  sea.  I  expect  your  niece  will  enjoy  herself  all  the  more  when 
she  notices  that  Mrs.  Ford  is  turning  green  about  the  gills.' 

*  She  might  get  sick  herself.' 

49—2 


772  THE    MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

'  Not  she.  Is  it  likely  that  a  girl  who  has  voyaged  all  the  way 
from  Australia  would  get  sick  in  our  bay  ?  Besides,  from  what  I've 
heard  of  your  niece,  she's  not  at  all  the  sort  of  girl  who  gets  sick  on 
a  pleasure  party.' 

'  So  far  as  I  know,'  said  the  Major,  '  you've  not  heard  anything 
about  my  niece  except  what  you've  said  yourself.  I  wouldn't 
advise  you  to  build  too  confidently  on  that.' 

'  After  the  picnic  on  the  bay,'  said  Meldon,  '  we  could  get  up  a 
polo  match.  You  and  I  would  play  Ford  and  the  D.I.  The  rector 
could  umpire,  if  he's  well  enough.' 

'  On  my  ponies,  I  suppose  ?  ' 

'  Of  course.     Nobody  else  has  any  ponies.' 

'  Well,  then  you  may  scratch  that  entertainment  off  the  list. 
Make  what  arrangements  you  like,  J.J. — and  I  don't  deny  that 
you're  doing  well  so  far — but  leave  my  ponies  out.  I  won't  have 
them  destroyed.' 

'  Except  a  bicycle  gymkhana  and  a  display  of  fireworks,  I  don't 
know  that  there's  any  form  of  entertainment  left.' 

'  What  about  a  dinner  party  ?  ' 

'  No.  Girls  hate  dinner  parties.  They  don't  care  to  sit  for 
hours  stuffing  themselves  with  heavy  food.  But  we  might  have 
a  dance.  Doyle  was  telling  me  the  other  day  about  a  boy  who  plays 
the  melodeon  splendidly.  We'll  clear  out  your  dining  room,  polish 
the  floor  and  have  a  dance.  I'll  get  the  rector  to  allow  his  three 
eldest  children  to  come.  That's  three.  You  and  I  make  five — 

4 1  can't  dance.' 

'  You  can  if  you  like.  Don't  be  selfish,  Major.  You  mustn't 
expect  a  charming  niece  to  stay  with  you  and  cheer  you  up  and 
make  life  brighter  in  your  home  without  putting  yourself  out  a 
little  to  entertain  her.  You'll  dance  of  course.  It'll  do  you  a  lot 
of  good.  The  Fords  are  two  more.  That's  seven.  They  might 
bring  their  eldest  girl ;  she's  only  six,  but  I  suppose  she  can  dance 
more  or  less.  She'll  make  eight.  The  D.I.  and  his  wife,  ten.  And 
Miss  Marjorie  herself  eleven.  That's  an  odd  number,  but  it  can't 
be  helped.  There's  no  use  counting  on  the  rector  or  Mrs.  Cosgrave. 
They  may  come  and  look  on,  but  they  won't  dance.' 

Major  Kent,  with  a  sigh,  wrote  down  the  dance  on  his  list. 

'  As  a  wind  up,'  said  Meldon,  '  a  sort  of  grand  finale  of  the 
season's  entertainments,  we  might  have  a  paper  chase.  I  am  sure 
that  Miss  Marjorie  would  enjoy  a  paper  chase.  You  and  she  could 
be  hares.  I  would  lead  the  hounds  in  hot  pursuit.  I  rather  fancy 


THE   MAJOR'S  NIECE.  773 

myself  cheering  on  Mrs.  Ford  when  she  gets  entangled  in  a  barbed- 
wire  fence.  I  don't  think  now  that  we  can  improve  on  that  list.' 

'  I  suppose  that  all  this  is  quite  necessary.' 

'  Absolutely.  I'm  giving  you  the  irreducible  minimum.  You 
can't  entertain  a  girl  with  less.' 

*  And  I  suppose  that  we're  doing  quite  the  right  things  ? 
Kemember,  J.J.,  I've  no  experience.  I'm  relying  entirely  on 
you.  You  understand ^girls  and  I  don't.  You're  quite  sure  now 
that  she'll  really  enjoy  these  parties  ?  ' 

'  She  will.     It  may  seem  odd  to  you  that  she  should ' 

'  It  does.     In  fact  I  scarcely  believe  that  she  can.' 

'  All  the  same  she  will.  You  may  take  my  word  for  it,  Major, 
that  if  you  were  to  put  a  blank  sheet  of  paper  in  front  of  any  ordinary 
good-looking  girl  of  twenty  or  twenty-one,  and  were  to  ask  her  to 
write  down  exactly  the  things  she'd  like  best  to  do,  she'd  produce 
a  list  practically  identical  with  yours.  The  events  might  be  placed 
in  a  different  order,  but  they'd  all  be  there,  and  there'd  be  nothing 
else.  Of  course  it  is  understood  that  Ballymoy  is  Ballymoy.  If  we 
had  her  somewhere  else,  in  London  or  Dublin,  the  things  we'd  have 
to  do  would  naturally  be  different.' 

'  I  suppose  it's  all  right,'  said  the  Major  a  little  wearily.  '  I  wish 
to  goodness  Margaret  hadn't  insisted  on  dumping  her  daughter 
down  here.  But  she  always  did  things  of  that  kind.  When  I  was 
a  boy  she  used  to  bully  me  frightfully.  I've  never  known  her  show 
the  slightest  consideration  for  my  feelings.  Why  couldn't  she  have 
taken  her  daughter  round  Europe  ?  You'd  think  a  mother  would 
like  to  have  her  daughter  with  her  on  a  trip  of  the  sort.' 

i  She  has  good  reasons  for  not  taking  her.  You  may  be  sure  of 
that.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  lots  of  things  in  those  European 
capitals  which  a  careful  mother  wouldn't  at  all  like  her  daughter  to 
see.  She  may  intend  to  enjoy  herself  in  ways  which  wouldn't  be 
suitable  to  a  girl  of  twenty- one.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she  and 
Purvis  mean  to  run  a  bit  of  a  rig  now  they've  got  loose  from  the 

sheep  farm.  Monte  Carlo,  perhaps,  or '  Meldon  winked. 

'  You  know  the  kind  of  thing  I  mean.' 

The  Major  grinned. 

'  I  wish  Margaret  heard  you,'  he  said.  '  My  dear  J.J.,  she's 
absolutely  the  last  woman  in  the  world  you  can  imagine  going  on 
any  kind  of  spree.  I've  never  known  her  do  anything  that  the 
strictest  moralist  could  call  even  fast.' 

'  That's  just  the  most  dangerous  sort  of  woman  there  is.    When 


774  THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE. 

those  sober,  proper  ones  break  out  they  run  into  the  most  frightful 
excesses.  You  can't  altogether  blame  her  and  Purvis.  Just  fancy 
living  for  years  and  years  closely  surrounded  by  sheep,  seeing 
nothing,  day  after  day,  but  sheep,  hearing  nothing  but  bleats, 
eating  nothing  but  mutton.  The  sheep,  as  you  must  have  observed, 
is  the  most  appallingly  respectable  beast  there  is.  It  occupies  a 
sort  of  old-fashioned,  evangelical  position  among  the  other  animals. 
You  can't  imagine  a  sheep  voting  any  way  but  Conservative. 
Nobody  ever  heard  of  anything  but  a  staid,  quiet  sheep.  A  bull 
goes  mad  occasionally  and  runs  amok.  So  does  a  dog.  We  all 
know  that  horses  and  pigs  have  queer  tempers,  but  a  sheep  is  quite 
different.  If  you  had  lived  among  sheep  for  twenty-two  years,  you 
wouldn't  judge  your  sister  and  Purvis  as  hardly  as  you  do.  You'd 
be  more  ready  to  make  allowances.  I  daresay  she  isn't  going  to  do 
anything  really  very  bad  ;  but  I  respect  her  for  wanting  to  keep 
her  daughter  safe.  I  can  tell  you  a  girl  of  that  age  has  to  be  con- 
sidered. I  expect  that's  the  reason  your  sister  is  sending  Miss 
Marjorie  to  us.  She  knows  we'll  look  after  her.' 

'  She  didn't  actually  mention  you  in  her  letter.' 

'  No,  she  didn't.  But  I  expect  she  had  me  in  the  back  of  her 
mind.  She  realised  that  I  was  the  sort  of  man  who  understood 
girls  and  would  see  that  Miss  Marjorie  came  to  no  harm.' 

'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  don't  suppose  she  ever  heard  of  you. 
She  certainly  never  did  from  me.  I  don't  often  write  to  her,  and 
when  I  do,  I  don't  fill  up  the  letter  with  descriptions  of  your 
character.' 

' I  think,'  said  Meldon,  '  I'll  be  off  now.  I'll  take  those  letters  of 
yours  into  Ballymoy  and  post  them.  Let  me  see,  one  to  the  stores, 
one  to  the  newsagent — you're  sure  you  put  the  cheque  into  that  one  ? 
It  won't  do  to  expect  a  man  you  don't  deal  with  regularly  to  send 
you  the  papers  on  credit.  One  about  the  tennis  and  croquet  things, 
and  one  for  the  "  At  Home  "  cards.  When  they  come  I'll  give 
you  a  hand  at  filling  them  up.  If  your  niece  is  to  be  here  this  day 
week  we  ought  to  get  them  out  at  once.' 

'  We  send  them  out  in  both  our  names,  I  suppose,'  said  the 
Major.  '  "  The  Kev.  J.  J.  Meldon  and  Major  Kent  At  Home- 
Paper  Chase— K.S.V.P."  That's  the  kind  of  thing,  isn't  it  ?  ' 

The  Major  frequently  indulged  in  sarcasms  of  this  sort  in  con- 
versation with  his  friend.  They  glanced  quite  harmlessly  off 
Meldon's  coat  of  self-esteem.  He  very  rarely  took  any  notice  of 
them. 


THE   MAJOR'S   NIECE.  775 

'  I'll  see  Doyle  this  evening  about  the  bicycle/  he  said.  '  I  sup- 
pose I  may  run  to  10L  and  get  a  decent  one.  You  wouldn't  care  to 
see  your  niece  riding  about  the  country  on  a  cheap  machine.' 

'  Oh  yes,  spend  what  you  like.  Luckily  I  have  a  little  money  put 
by,  but  if  I  go  bankrupt  over  this  visit,  it  can't  be  helped.' 

'  Don't  be  a  screw,  Major.  You  ought  to  be  very  thankful  to 
get  off  with  a  bicycle.  If  you  happened  to  live  near  any  decent 
shops  you'd  have  to  buy  hats  and  dresses  and  gloves,  and  perhaps 
expensive  furs  for  every  single  niece  who  came  to  stay  with  you. 
I  knew  an  uncle  once  who  took  his  niece  into  a  shop  in  London  and 
told  her  to  choose  a  hat.  He'd  never  bought  a  thing  of  the  sort 
before  and  he  thought  fifteen  shillings  would  be  the  outside  figure. 
What  do  you  think  they  stuck  him  ?  Five  guineas  !  And  they 
very  nearly  had  him  run  in  for  another  guinea  for  half  of  a  stuffed 
bird.  The  girl  wanted  it,  but  the  uncle  said  he  belonged  to  the  Wild 
Birds'  Protection  Society  and  was  solemnly  pledged  not  to  buy  any 
dead  fowl  except  a  chicken.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  joined  the 
society  the  next  day  and  has  subscribed  to  it  ever  since.  He  says 
it's  one  that  ought  to  be  supported  in  the  interests  of  uncles.  Now 
you  see  how  cheap  you  get  off  only  having  to  buy  a  bicycle.  If 
there  was  a  hat  or  a  dress  in  Doyle's  drapery  store  that  Miss  Marjorie 
would  wear  on  a  desert  island  in  a  downpour  of  rain  you'd  have  to 
buy  it  for  her.  Luckily  for  you  there  isn't.' 


(To  be  continued.) 


776 


PASTELS    UNDER    THE   SOUTHERN  CROSS.1 
BY  MARGARET  L.   WOODS. 

II.— A   NIGHT   VIEW   OF   ST.  HELENA. 

No  one  in  the  Second  Class  would  fraternise  with  the  German 
Sergeant,  except  the  black  missionary,  and  as  the  Sergeant  spoke 
little  English  and  the  Negro  presumably  no  German,  their  conversa- 
tion must  have  languished.  Of  course,  no  one  else  talked  to  the 
black  man.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  methods  of  the  American 
Missionary  Society  which  was  sending  him  to  South  Africa  that, 
whereas  in  their  own  country  he  would  not  have  been  allowed  to 
travel  with  white  people  of  any  class,  on  board  an  English  ship 
they  introduced  him  to  the  second  ;  and  some  of  the  second-class 
passengers  were  South  Africans  with  their  own  feelings  about 
persons  of  colour,  plus  views  on  American  missionaries. 

I  dare  not  commit  myself  to  a  statement  as  to  the  particular 
regiment  of  the  Fatherland  which  was  mourning  the  Sergeant's 
absence,  but  it  must  have  been  even  such  a  one  as  our  own  Life 
Guards,  for  he  had  been  in  England  with  the  Emperor,  and  was 
now  on  his  way  to  join  a  German  Prince  in  West  Africa.  This, 
then,  was  a  chosen  sergeant  of  a  chosen  regiment.  The  English 
N.C.O.s  of  my  acquaintance  have  been  few  but  not  chosen.  Not 
one  of  them  could  compare  with  the  German  in  education  or  the 
kind  of  intelligence  education  gives,  and  he  could  not  compare 
with  one  of  them  in  fundamental  good  manners.  The  Englishmen, 
though  some  were  fresh  from  victorious  battlefields,  were  modest, 
courteous,  respectful ;  the  German  was  bragging,  swaggering, 
condescending.  Yet  it  was  out  of  pure  charity  that  I  first  made 
his  acquaintance.  He  would  stand  pressing  against  the  barrier 
which  divided  the  second-class  deck,  waiting  for  a  word  in  his 
native  tongue,  like  a  pony  waiting  for  its  oats.  I  can  see  him 
still,  his  broad,  well  set-up,  but  too  plump  figure,  his  round  head 
and  shiny  red-and-white  cheeks,  his  shiny  black  moustache,  his 
billiard-ball  eyes  rolling  in  search  of  conversational  prey.  He  was 
dressed  in  neat  civilian  costume,  with  binoculars  on  a  strap,  but 

1  Copyright,  1910,  by  Margaret  L.  Woods,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.         777 

my  memory  is  apt  perversely  to  exchange  it  for  a  tight  uniform, 
and  to  image  him  as  moving  to  a  clink  of  spurs  and  jingle  of  a 
sabre.  To  address  him  once  was  to  be  day  after  day  as  the  Wedding 
Guest  to  the  Ancient  Mariner.  The  young  man  who  wanted  to 
talk  German  took,  strangely  enough,  to  frequenting  another  part 
of  the  ship  ;  and  seeing  the  Sergeant  left  desolate,  I  insisted  on 
introducing  to  him  his  compatriot  on  our  side  of  the  barrier, 
Frau  B. 

Frau  B.  was  an  admirable  type  of  the  old-fashioned  German 
woman,  with  her  hair  still  blonde  and  abundant,  her  complexion 
still  pink  and  white  in  spite  of  her  sixty  years,  with  her  motherly 
figure  and  the  kind,  gentle  manners  which  were  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  her  kind  and  gentle  Wesen.  Such  women  of  the  past  were 
generally  well  educated  and  full  of  good  sense,  but  unavoidably 
narrow-minded.  Young  years  spent  in  Cape  Colony  had  widened 
Frau  B.'s  mental  horizon. 

It  was  to  Frau  B.  and  myself,  for  want  of  other  audience,  that 
the  Sergeant  described  the  sensation  his  appearance  had  produced 
in  London,  where,  as  I  remembered  with  real  regret,  his  Imperial 
Master's  had  fallen  so  flat.  He  and  '  another  very  handsome 
under-ofncer '  had  walked  along  Oxford  Street  in  their  uniform 
and  been  unable  to  proceed  because  of  the  crowd  which  collected 
round  them.  The  police  had  been  obliged  to  come  to  their 
rescue,  and  had  taken  him  and  his  comrade  away  in  a  cab.  Gentle 
Frau  B.  was  distressed  to  hear  it.  '  Were  the  Londoners  indeed  so 
hostile  ?  '  The  Sergeant  smiled,  his  red-and- white  cheeks  swelled, 
his  moustache  curled  and  curled,  his  billiard-ball  eyes  glowed  with 
amusement.  '  Hostile !  dear  ladies !  It  was  pure  admiration. 
Never,  never  before  had  those  Londoners  seen  two  such  handsome 
fellows.' 

Our  ship  had  twice  touched  at  a  port,  and  each  time  by  night. 
We  had  forgiven  her  easily,  for  Las  Palmas  is  of  little  interest,  and 
Ascension  of  none.  But  St.  Helena  was  another  matter.  She 
surely  could  not  be  so  perverse  as  to  give  us  no  chance  of  seeing 
the  island,  of  visiting  Longwood,  the  cage  of  the  captive  Eagle. 
It  was  perhaps  well  to  be  reminded  what  manner  of  Olympian  bird 
this  was  before  good  sense  was  overwhelmed  by  the  flood  of  senti- 
ment which  must  flow  from  and  about  St.  Helena  as  long  as  her 
two  hundred  streams  flow  into  the  ocean.  The  Sergeant,  judging 
by  his  accent,  came  from  some  remote  part  of  Eastern  Prussia. 
He  recounted  how  from  his  native  village,  in  the  year  of  the  Russian 


778         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

campaign,  Napoleon  swept  off  to  the  war  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
male 'population.  There  was  no  sparing  the  fathers  of  families, 
all  must  march  except  the  old  men,  the  cripples,  and  the  boys  ;  and 
very  few  returned.  The  Sergeant's  father  remembered  a  poor  legless 
old  fellow  who  used  to  drag  himself  about  the  village  on  crutches. 
He  had  been  one  of  those  who  had  waded  through  the  freezing  mud 
of  the  Beresina.  His  legs  had  been  frostbitten  and  he  had  lost 
them,  yet  somehow  he  had  lived  to  struggle  home  again.  I  could 
have  told  the  Sergeant,  had  listening  been  his  forte,  of  many  another 
poor  German  who  had  left  his  bones  amongst  the  Spanish  Sierras, 
while  in  their  turn  thousands  of  hapless  Spaniards  were  dragged 
far  from  their  country  of  the  sun  to  perish  for  their  enemies'  cause 
on  bitter  Russian  plains.  These  were  not  '  old,  forgotten,  far-off 
things '  to  the  Europe  of  1815  ;  they  were  all  fresh  and  blood- 
stained happenings.  There  was  no  sentiment  with  regard  to 
Napoleon  then  anywhere  in  Europe  except  in  France  and  among 
a  small  Whig  party  in  England.  Neither  was  there  any  sentiment 
about  Napoleon  when  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  English.  He 
knew  they  were  the  only  people  who  would  not  shoot  him.  We 
ask  why  he  did  not  choose  to  die — how  he,  the  master-intelligence, 
failed  to  see  that  his  meteoric  star  had  set  for  ever.  And  perhaps 
the  answer,  the  reason,  lies  in  the  unreason  of  the  great  fundamental 
Force  of  Nature  which  built  and  sustained  that  intelligence.  So 
tremendous  a  vitality  must  have  very  hardly  consented  to  accept 
its  negation — death. 

So  with  thoughts  ranging  for  a  while  beyond  the  daily  round 
of  our  shipboard  life  we  watched  the  faint  azure  peaks  of  St.  Helena 
rising  above  the  dull,  opaque  blue  of  the  horizon.  Diana's  Peak, 
Actaeon — a  fellow-passenger,  a  native  of  St.  Helena,  named  us  the 
ethereal  Presences.  The  sea  had  been  rough,  the  sky  cloudy  for 
several  days,  but  as  the  silhouette  of  the  mountain  island  grew  more 
and  more  substantial,  the  clouds  lifted  and  melted  away,  till  at  last 
the  evening  sky  lay  clear  and  translucent  behind  it,  while  to  the 
north-west  the  sun  went  down  all  golden. 

The  sun  went  down  ;  ay,  there  was  the  rub  !  Some  of  us  had 
determined  to  visit  Longwood  under  any  circumstances,  if  it  were  at 
all  possible.  There  was  a  young  lady  on  board  who  had  an  intro- 
duction to  the  French  Consul,  which  it  was  hoped  might  induce 
him  to  give  us  entrance  to  the  house,  even  at  an  undue  hour.  For 
the  house  and  estates  surrounding  it,  together  with  the  site  of 
Napoleon's  first  burial-place,  now  belong  to  the  French  nation. 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.         779 

But  night  was  falling,  and  our  St.  Helenian  fellow- passenger  assured 
us  that  the  mountain  road  to  Longwood  was  so  bad  that  no  sum 
would  induce  a  driver  to  take  us  over  it  in  the  dark. 

In  the  days  of  the  old  East  India  Company,  to  which  St.  Helena 
belonged,  the  harbour  of  little  Jamestown  would  be  full  enough, 
for  in  the  course  of  the  year  a  thousand  ships  cast  anchor  there. 
Now  it  lies  almost  deserted,  except  for  the  Cape  liner  which  calls 
monthly  on  its  outward  and  its  homeward  journey.  We  landed 
towards  eight  o'clock.  It  was  about  the  hour  at  which  Napoleon 
landed,  and  the  aspect  of  the  place  must  have  changed  little  since. 
The  town  runs  up  the  bottom  of  a  very  narrow  valley  between 
steep  and  barren  mountains.  A  cliff  which,  as  we  saw  it,  seemed 
very  dark,  overhangs  the  narrow  landing-place,  along  which  a 
chain  of  lights  pointed  the  way  to  the  hardly  more  thickly  clustered 
lights  of  the  town.  A  chattering  crowd  of  St.  Helenians  awaited 
us  :  touts  and  sellers  of  small  fancy  articles  of  the  kind  the  green 
unwary  traveller  buys,  presently  to  bury  in  the  obscurity  of  dusty 
drawers.  They  were  something  of  a  puzzle  these  St.  Helenians, 
with  their  soft  slave  voices  and  eyes,  their  perfect  English  speech, 
and  gentle,  gay,  un-English  manners.  White  they  were,  yet  plainly 
half-castes  of  some  kind,  and,  seeing  the  comparative  nearness  of 
the  African  continent,  one  doubtfully  surmised  black  blood.  It 
would  seem,  in  fact,  they  are  of  mixed  European,  Asiatic,  and 
Malay  descent,  with  scarcely  a  touch  of  the  negro  in  them. 

Escorted  and  impeded  by  this  crowd,  doing  its  unpleasant 
business  of  pushing  its  wares  with  an  alluring  pleasantness,  we 
reached  and  passed  through  the  gateway  of  the  town.  Immediately 
there  was  peace  ;  it  might  almost  be  said  there  was  a  desert.  Low 
wooden  houses  with  the  gnarled,  scant-foliaged  boughs  of  old 
eucalyptus  trees  casting  shadows  along  them,  seemed  like  stage 
fa9ades  ;  but  on  the  stage  there  was  no  play,  for  the  touts  and 
saleswomen  were  not  permitted  within  the  gate.  We  walked  on 
up  the  shabby  street,  and  still,  in  spite  of  the  earliness  of  the  hour, 
there  was  no  sign  of  life.  At  length  we  reached  an  open  and  lighted 
shop,  poor  and  bare  enough  in  all  conscience,  yet  our  one  apparent 
harbourage.  The  proprietor  was  superior  to  the  shop  :  something 
of  a  local  personage,  one  surmised,  and  very  certainly  a  man  of 
goodwill.  Things  now  began  to  move.  The  young  lady  with  the 
introduction  to  the  French  Consul  found  him,  and,  what  was  more, 
persuaded  him  to  go  out  and  meet  us  at  Longwood.  At  a  quarter 
to  nine  by  the  clock  three  two- wheeled  vehicles  stood  outside  the 


780         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

shop.  They  were  low  and  light  and  small,  evidently  built  for 
climbing  mountain  roads.  Two  couples  took  the  first  two  of  these. 
The  third,  which  luckily  was  drawn  by  a  mighty  steed  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  carriage,  was  assigned  to  Frau  B.,  her  daughter, 
and  myself.  Thus  we  were  already  one  more  than  the  carriage  was 
designed  to  hold  ;  nevertheless  the  German  Sergeant  was  obstinate 
to  get  in  too.  These  were  assuredly  not  the  only  carriages  in 
St.  Helena,  but  he  was  either  virtuously  resolved  to  spare  his 
country's  war-chest  or  feared  the  expenses  of  the  excursion  might 
be  disallowed.  That  not  one  of  the  three  ladies  in  question  desired 
his  company  was  an  '  unconsidered  trifle.'  At  the  outset  we  won. 
Off  we  set,  we  three  alone  in  the  carriage,  the  driver  running  by  the 
side,  as  the  custom  is.  In  a  few  minutes  we  had  left  Jamestown 
behind  us  and  were  climbing  the  precipitous  mountain  side  above 
it  by  the  steep,  sharp-cornered  zigzags  of  the  stony  road.  One 
passed  at  first  front  gates,  rough  shrubberies  as  of  suburban 
residences,  but  the  big  horse,  whose  powerful  strides  seemed 
positively  to  lift  the  little  carriage  over  the  stones,  took  us  up  and 
up  until  we  reached  a  region  that  by  the  dim  starlight  showed  almost 
as  arid  as  mountains  in  the  moon.  Tumbled  boulders  were  above 
us  and  about  us,  white  as  bleached  bone,  and  a  strange  growth  of 
flowering  aloes,  holding  up  their  bare  stalks  as  tall  as  trees. 
Beneath  us  was  the  narrow  cleft  in  the  mountains  up  which  wandered 
the  faint  and  scattered  lights  of  Jamestown.  In  their  smallness 
and  isolation  they  represented  just  so  much  of  human  life  and 
civilisation  as  might  have  been  expected  to  cling  to  these  rocks. 
But  immediately  at  our  feet,  at  the  head  of  the  ravine,  a  great 
quadrilateral  of  white  light  blazed  on  the  night.  This  was  the 
sky-lighted  building  of  the  Eastern  Telegraph  Company's  station, 
which  with  its  staff  of  forty  men  is  the  one  live  important  business 
left  in  the  once  busy  St.  Helena.  It  was  strange  to  look  down  on 
that  lonely  building  blazing  with  light  in  that  so  barren  spot  in 
so  remote  an  island  of  the  great  ocean,  and  to  know  that  all  the 
news  of  the  world  was  throbbing  through  it.  Neither  we  nor  the 
St.  Helenians  had  seen  a  newspaper  much  less  than  three  weeks 
old,  but  below  us  there  was  speeding  northward  and  southward  the 
news  which  would  be  read  perhaps  with  indifference,  perhaps  with 
keen  interest,  at  the  breakfast-tables  of  London  and  Cape  Town. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  that  we  had  reached  this  altitude  without 
further  molestation  from  the  enemy.  A  soldier  of  the  Fatherland 
is  not  so  easily  routed.  In  spite  of  the  size  and  strength  of  our 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN  CROSS.          781 

horse,  we  could  not  climb  the  mountain  road  rapidly,  and  we 
were  escorted  on  our  way  by  the  Sergeant,  holding  on  to  the  back 
of  the  carriage,  and  a  little  crowd  of  St.  Helenians  sprung  from  I 
know  not  where.  These  succeeded  in  explaining  to  him  that  they 
could  guide  him  to  Longwood  by  a  footway  shorter  than  the  way 
we  were  driving.  They  were  youths,  soft-voiced  and  slight,  no 
match  man  to  man  for  the  brawny  Sergeant,  but  it  is  true  that  had 
they  been,  as  he  opined,  bandits,  intent  on  assassinating  him  in 
some  solitary  spot  on  their  mountains,  they  might  have  accom- 
plished it.  He  laughed  their  lure  to  scorn.  I  have  since  learned 
that  in  this  peaceful  isle  the  crime  of  murder  is  unknown  and  the 
Chief  Justice  wallows  in  white  gloves.  However,  as  will  be  seen, 
the  Sergeant  lost  nothing  by  rejecting  their  guidance. 

Sometimes,  on  an  easier  stretch  of  road  than  most,  the  horse 
trotted.  He  trotted  too,  holding  on  to  the  carriage  like  grim  death. 
Again,  when  the  rise  became  almost  perpendicular,  Frau  B.  and  I 
left  the  carriage,  enjoying  the  fine  mountain  air  and  the  feel  of  the 
rough  earth  underfoot  after  the  smooth  hardness  of  the  deck.  At 
the  top  of  such  a  steep  pitch  the  horse  stood  still  to  rest.  The 
Sergeant  was  panting  heavily  and  '  larding  the  lean  earth '  with 
profusion,  and  we  felt  it  but  humane  to  offer  him  a  rest  in  the 
carriage,  occupied  only  by  Frau  B.  Unnecessary  to  add  that, 
once  there,  he  was  immovable.  He  jammed  us  remorselessly 
against  the  sides ;  he  weighed  down  our  fragile  craft  until  it 
groaned  again,  and  I  saw  disaster  drawing  near.  He  did  not 
know  French,  but  he  certainly  knew  the  meaning  of  J'y  suis,  fy 
reste.  On  board  ship  the  dear  Frau  B.  looked  coldly  upon  him, 
but  here  her  maternal  heart  could  not  resist  the  plea  of  his  pants 
and  perspiration.  Besides,  as  she  afterwards  confessed,  she  had 
only  come  with  us  because  she  was  nervous  at  the  prospect  of 
remaining  behind ;  and  although  she  tried  to  be  brave,  she  could 
not  help  from  time  to  time  imploring  the  driver  not  to  let  us  fall 
over  a  precipice.  It  is  true  there  were  no  precipices  to  fall  over, 
but  it  was  sufficiently  dark  to  imagine  them,  and  I  believe  she 
considered  the  presence  of  a  man  and  a  German  likely  to  avert 
such  a  catastrophe.  It  was  now  my  turn  to  tremble  at  the  possi- 
bility of  this  fourteen  stone  of  Teutonic  flesh  and  bone  breaking 
down  our  carriage  and  leaving  us  to  get  back  to  Jamestown  as  best 
we  could.  Our  ship  was  timed  to  sail  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and  ships  do  not  wait  for  errant  passengers. 

Once  atop  of  the  arid  mountain  road  the  barrenness  of  it  seemed 


782         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

much  less.  Half  the  heavens  were  now  covered  with  a  thin  veil 
of  cloud,  but  in  the  other  half  the  stars  were  bright,  set  in  the  deep 
velvet  darkness.  It  is  not  always  realised  that  if  the  tropic  night 
has  more  brilliant  lights  than  ours,  it  is  also  intrinsically  darker 
owing  to  the  bulge  of  the  earth  at  the  equator,  which  cuts  off  all 
reflected  light  from  the  sun.  Yet  by  the  radiance  of  half  a  heaven- 
full  of  stars  we  could  see  from  the  summit  of  the  hill  an  amphi- 
theatre of  mountains,  their  sides  sweeping  down  steeply  below  us 
towards  the  sea  coast ;  and,  dark  and  far  away,  the  high  horizon 
line  of  the  ocean. 

The  road,  which  was  no  better,  perhaps  worse  than  before,  ran 
now  past  thickets  of  harsh-leaved  willows  and  a  wood  of  weary- 
looking  Scotch  firs,  no  higher  than  the  giant  aloes.  As  we  went 
further  the  vegetation,  so  far  as  it  was  visible,  seemed  less  sparse. 
It  would  appear  indeed  that  the  interior  of  the  island  has  a  generous 
soil,  and  that  four  hundred  years  ago,  when  Joao  Da  Nova  dis- 
covered it,  the  coast  was  not  barren  as  it  is  to-day.  The  native 
trees,  gum- wood  and  ebony,  clothed  the  sides  of  the  gorges  and  tops 
of  the  cliffs,  and  explorers  lost  their  way  in  forests  where  now 
only  the  cactus  and  the  samphire  root  themselves  in  the  dry  rock. 
The  change  was  brought  about  first  by  the  cutting  down  of  trees, 
then  by  the  ravages  of  immense  herds  of  goats  which  incessantly 
devoured  the  young  plants,  so  that  at  last  the  soil,  which  their  roots 
protected  and  bound  together,  was  washed  from  the  surface  of  the 
lava. 

I  confess  to  forgetting  at  what  precise  point  in  our  drive  it 
was  that  we  passed  some  one-storeyed  wooden  houses,  which  the 
driver — always  running  beside  us — informed  us  had  been  the 
quarters  of  Boer  prisoners.  They  stood  among  low-growing  trees 
or  shrubs  and  looked  no  unpleasant  residences,  although  they 
had  been  standing  neglected  for  some  seven  years.  Our  lungs 
confirmed  the  statement  that  the  air  of  St.  Helena  is  superb  ;  it 
is  indeed  only  the  absence  of  accommodation,  and  above  all  com- 
munication, which  prevents  it  from  being  made  a  health-resort  by 
the  South  Africans.  We  most  of  us  remember  reading  accounts  of 
the  Boer  prisoners'  camp  on  the  high  and  healthy  plateau  called 
the  Deadwood  Plain,  where  such  arrangements  were  made  for  their 
comfort  and  amusement  that,  although  a  prisoner  can  seldom  really 
be  happy,  many  of  them  must  look  back  on  their  captivity  as  the 
most  civilised  time  of  their  lives.  But  from  their  camp  at  Paarde- 
berg,  first-comers  there  had  brought  the  germs  of  the  deadly  enteric 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.  783 

fever,  and  about  two  hundred  of  their  number  died  of  it.  This 
was  probably  the  one  real  fact  from  St.  Helena  which  the  German 
press  presented  to  its  readers,  and  accordingly  when  the  driver 
pointed  out  these  respectable  bungalows,  my  companions  sur- 
veyed them  with  a  murmuring  horror,  as  if  they  had  been  the 
piombi  of  the  Doge's  Palace,  still  containing  the  victims  of  the 
Ten. 

We  were,  I  supposed,  driving  towards  the  house  of  Longwood, 
and,  lost  in  I  know  not  what  dream  or  doze,  I  was  gazing  at  the  stars, 
when  suddenly  I  found  my  companions  were  leaving  the  carriage. 
I  jumped  out  hastily  to  plunge  after  them,  down,  down,  stumbling 
blindly  into  the  pitchy  darkness  of  a  tree-shaded  hollow,  full  of 
long  wet  grass,  mud,  cows.  Why,  in  the  name  of  wonder,  were  we 
coming  here  ?  Why  were  Frau  B.  and  her  daughter  frantically 
plucking  large  boughs  of  the  disagreeable  wiry  willows  ?  I  did  not 
audibly  ask  the  question,  but  the  answer  rolled  around  me  in  low 
enthusiastic  gutturals — '  The  Grave !  the  Grave  !  Ach  Gott ! 
Napoleon's  Grave ! '  One  of  the  other  carriages  had  preceded 
us,  and  its  occupants  had  found  a  man  and  a  lantern  in  a  neigh- 
bouring hut.  The  pale  wavering  light  of  the  lantern  flitted  over 
the  pale  wet  grass,  over  the  mud,  over  the  cows.  It  rested  on  some 
iron  railings,  and  within  them,  on  a  very  large  plain  slab  of  stone 
like  that  sometimes  placed  over  a  small  reservoir  or  water-supply. 
The  size  of  it,  and  the  absence  of  any  inscription,  made  it  quite 
unlike  a  tombstone.  Trees  stood  round  it,  but  scanty  and  stunted. 
On  three  sides  the  ground  dipped  sharply  to  the  burial  place,  but 
on  the  other,  between  thin  pine  stems,  floated  mist,  pale,  unsub- 
stantial. By  day  it  may  have  been  the  veil  of  a  pond,  a  garden, 
a  view.  By  night  it  was  Infinity  with  all  its  mysteries.  Here  on 
a  May  morning  in  the  year  1821  British  soldiers  fired  the  last  volley 
over  the  dead  Napoleon.  With  what  thoughts  and  feelings  did  the 
faithful  companions  of  his  captivity  stand  about  the  fresh  grave  ? 
One  remembers  his  own  question  when  he  was  at  the  height  of  his 
glory,  '  What  would  Europe  say  if  I  died  ?  '  and  his  own  answer  to 
the  question :  '  They  would  say ' — with  lifted  shoulders  and  a  mock 
sigh  as  of  immense  relief — '  Ouf !  '  To  Europe  he  had  been  dead 
since  Waterloo ;  but  each  and  all  of  those  who  followed  his  bier,  the 
chief  mourners  and  those  whose  mission  it  was  to  guard  him,  must 
in  their  different  way  have  been  uttering  their  '  Ouf  !  ' 

The  absence  of  an  inscription  on  the  tombstone  makes  it  a 
monument  to  the  pettiness  of  the  egregious  Hudson  Lowe.  The 


784         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

Frenchmen  would  have  inscribed  on  the  tombstone  the  single  name 
Napoleon.  Hudson  Lowe  insisted  on  the  addition  of  the  surname 
Bonaparte.  Neither  would  yield.  Nature  stepped  in  to  cover  the 
ugliness  of  human  perversity.  The  grave  had  been  made  between 
two  weeping  willows,  and  their  waving  tresses  lay  like  a  mantle 
over  the  coarse  iron  railings  and  the  plain  unsightly  stone.  In  the 
years  following,  when  the  East  Indiamen  used  still  to  touch  at 
St.  Helena,  English  ladies  in  ringlets  and  long  veils  used  to  do 
delicate  pencil  sketches  of  the  tomb  thus  kindly  clothed,  and  take 
cuttings  from  Napoleon's  willow  to  grow  in  English  gardens.  Twenty 
years  from  that  May  day  the  Prince  de  Joinville's  frigate  came  on 
its  solemn  errand  and  the  body  was  with  difficulty  exhumed,  to 
be  carried  far  away  from  this  quiet  spot,  and  laid  with  pomp  in  the 
unquiet  heart  of  Paris. 

We  found  the  carriages  had  left  us,  following  no  doubt  a  regular 
routine,  and  we  were  to  rejoin  them  by  a  bridle  path.  The  soil 
here  could  no  longer  be  blamed  for  southern  aridity  ;  we  hurried 
and  scrambled  up  muddy  banks  and  through  long  wet  grass  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  Oxfordshire.  Here  I  must  own  the 
Sergeant  had  his  uses,  for  without  the  help  of  his  arm  we  should 
have  had  trouble  in  getting  Frau  B.  quickly  along  so  rough  a 
road  in  the  darkness.  Darkness — yet  after  all  the  strange  thing 
was  that,  once  away  from  the  trees,  the  stars  gave  us  so  much 
light.  We  could  see  plainly  as  we  once  more  drove  along  the  road, 
the  seaward-sweeping  curve  of  the  mountain-side  above  which 
Longwood  stands  on  a  bare  plateau.  We  awaited  our  companions 
at  the  gateway  leading  into  the  plot  of  ground  about  the  house, 
where  a  faint  light  proclaimed  that  the  courteous  Consul — who 
had  passed  us  on  horseback  before  we  were  far  on  our  way — was 
prepared  to  receive  us.  The  low  boundary  wall  and  stone  gateway 
are  neat  enough,  and  there  is  a  garden  round  the  house  where, 
although  it  is  the  winter  season,  there  are  straggling  blooms  of 
geraniums  and  roses.  The  house  itself  is  a  poor  one-storeyed  build- 
ing with  a  projecting  wing  in  the  centre,  at  the  end  of  which  is 
the  main  entrance.  It  is  decently  kept  now,  as  doubtless  it  was 
when  Napoleon  lived  there,  but  in  the  interval  it  has  been  used 
as  a  stable.  At  best  it  was  a  wretched  place  in  which  to  house  the 
man  who  had  dwelt  as  master  in  the  palaces  of  Paris  and  Berlin, 
of  Vienna  and  Moscow  and  Madrid — a  smaller,  less  dignified  house 
than  that  in  Ajaccio  in  which  he  had  been  born.  Yet  it  was  the 
best  house  to  be  had  in  St.  Helena  at  the  time  of  his  arrival. 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.         785 

Another  had  been  built  for  him  before  his  death,  but  he  was  too 
ill  to  care  for  the  exertion  of  moving  into  it. 

The  front  entrance  led  through  an  ante-chamber  into  a  narrow 
room  which  the  Consul's  one  candle  showed  us,  dingy  and  sad, 
with  its  dark  ragged  wall  paper,  which  had  seen  strange  vicissi- 
tudes. This  room  had  been  a  salon  and  a  stable;  it  had  been 
the  death-chamber  of  an  Immortal.  On  that  small  bed  which  stood 
with  its  head  to  the  wall,  its  foot  to  the  mean  mantelpiece,  Napoleon 
died.  On  the  mantelshelf  the  Consul  showed  us  a  little  plaster 
bust  of  a  child  ;  such  a  coarsely  modelled  bust  as  formerly  Italians 
carried  about  the  streets  in  England.  It  was  a  bust  of  the  King  of 
Rome,  which  the  Emperor  had  bought  from  an  English  sailor  ; 
and  there  it  had  stood  fronting  the  bed  of  his  last  agony,  lighting 
it  with  the  faint  ignis  fatuus  gleam  of  a  hope  for  the  future,  which 
happily  indeed  for  him  he  would  never  see. 

In  the  inner  salon  and  dining-room  also  the  walls  have  retained 
their  century- old  decorations  ;  never  surely  pretty  or  gay  and 
begrimed  with  the  subsequent  years  of  dirt  and  neglect.  Thus  they 
cannot  truthfully  be  said  to  be  the  same  as  they  were  in  Napoleon's 
time,  yet  in  their  sordidness  they  seem  the  more  in  harmony  with 
the  gloom,  the  often  petty  misery,  of  those  old  days  and  nights 
at  Longwood.  The  Emperor  usually  dined  alone,  in  the  very 
small  room  where  he  dictated  his  memoirs,  carefully  building  up 
that  Napoleonic  myth  which  was  to  have  set  his  own  son  on  the 
throne  of  France  and  only  served  to  set  there  the  son  of  Hortense. 

Round  the  cheerless  table  in  the  dining-room  sat  night  after 
night  the  companions  of  his  exile,  Montholon  and  his  wife,  Gour- 
gaud,  Las  Casas,  sometimes  the  Bertrands.  One  would  have 
supposed  that  these  self-devoted  exiles  would  cling  together  for 
heart- warmth  in  their  sad  isolation  ;  that  the  party  which  gathered 
here  if  dull,  would  at  least  be  friendly.  Not  so.  This  little  dining- 
room  was  as  full  of  envy  as  an  anti-chamber  at  Versailles,  and 
only  fear  of  the  Emperor  and  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  second, 
withheld  Gourgaud  from  challenging  Montholon. 

Napoleon  did  not  dine  until  eight  o'clock,  sometimes  not  until 
nine.  From  six  o'clock  until  dinner  he  would  sit  here  in  the 
drawing-room  playing  chess  evening  after  evening  ;  he  who  had 
had  Europe  for  his  chess-board ;  or  he  would  read  to  Montholon 
and  scold  him  for  falling  asleep,  or  be  read  to  himself  and  fall 
asleep.  Corneille  they  read  and  Beverley  and  many  another 
forgotten  novel,  such  as  he  had  been  used  to  take  with  him  in  his 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  50 


786         PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS. 

travelling-carriage,  and  throw  out  of  the  window  when  he  had 
finished  it.  Now  and  again  the  mortal  ennui  lifts,  he  has  a  touch 
of  his  old  mood  of  vulgar  jocularity  and  gallantry.  He  dines  with 
the  others  ;  Madam  Bertrand,  the  charming  half  Irish  Creole,  sits 
by  his  side.  He  pays  her  compliments,  admires  her  dress,  her 
height ;  after  dinner  he  insists  they  shall  all  be  measured  against  the 
wall.  Madam  Bertrand  is  tall,  and  her  mark  comes  some  five 
centimetres  above  the  Emperor's.  Here  somewhere  on  those 
grimy  walls  they  may  yet  remain,  those  marks,  but  the  Consul's  one 
candle  gives  a  feeble  light  and  time  fails  to  look  for  them.  The 
Imperial  bed-chamber  has  since  sheltered  horses  and  cows.  Outside 
we  are  shown  the  wooden  fence  erected  to  baffle  the  curiosity  of 
visitors  who  would  come  and  stare  even  into  the  windows  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  famous  Bonaparte,  and  there  is  the  garden  where 
he  used  to  work,  surrounded  by  Chinese  labourers.  He  toiled  there 
and  dug  and  threw  up  miniature  earthworks  until  Hudson  Low 
suspected  some  plot  in  his  gardening,  and  put  a  stop  to  his  activi- 
ties. Also  he  shot ;  shot  a  bullock  which  presumed  to  trespass 
on  his  flower-beds  and  Madam  Bertrand's  pet  kids. 

A  wing  was  added  at  the  back  of  the  house  to  accommodate 
his  followers,  but  we  did  not  go  beyond  the  five  rooms  Napoleon 
himself  inhabited.  We  returned  to  the  outer  salon  with  its  small 
bed  and  childish  bust.  While  the  corpse  lay  there  Dr.  Burton 
took  a  cast  of  the  head.  It  was  not  possible  to  do  it  until  two 
days  after  death  because  plaster  was  wanting.  Burton  borrowed 
a  boat  from  the  Admiral  and  procured  a  kind  of  white  clay  from 
a  cliff,  which  he  had  noticed  previously  and  believed  would  answer 
the  purpose.  When  the  cast  had  been  taken  the  face  part  of  it 
was  removed,  without  his  knowledge,  by  the  Bertrands  and 
Antonmarchi,  the  Corsican  surgeon,  who  after  the  death  of  Burton 
claimed  the  credit  of  it  for  himself.  Such  an  atmosphere  of  petty 
meanness  and  dishonesty  was  destined  to  cling  about  Napoleon  to 
the  last,  as  though  his  own  littlenesses  had  materialised  and  stood 
round  his  death-bed  and  walked  in  his  funeral  procession. 

But  suddenly  while  the  Consul,  learned  in  Napoleonic  lore  is 
talking  to  us,  an  interested  circle,  someone  looks  at  his  watch  and 
says,  '  half  past  eleven.'  With  a  Cinderella  precipitation  we  rush 
out  to  find  our  vehicles. 

It  had  taken  us  fully  two  hours  to  reach  Longwood,  and  we  had 
now  only  an  hour  and  a-half  in  which  to  reach  the  ship,  the  way 
would  be  shorter,  omitting  the  Grave,  and  we  should  be  going  down 


PASTELS   UNDER   THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS.         787 

hill.  But  then  how  bad  it  was !  And  more  and  more  our  little  craft 
seemed  sinking  with  the  weight  of  the  Sergeant ;  that  representa- 
tive of  the  modern  militarism  which  is  the  direct  offspring  of 
Napoleon's.  In  vain  I  implored  him  to  get  out  in  places  where  the 
boulders  we  passed  over  actually  knocked  against  the  bottom  of 
the  carriage.  Frau  B.  in  her  gratitude  for  his  assistance  had  paid 
him  the  delicate  but  far-fetched  compliment  of  suggesting  that  he 
was  the  sort  of  man  who  would  be  likely  to  get  inflammation  of  the 
lungs  in  consequence  of  having  overheated  himself.  He  had  taken 
it  seriously,  and  as  he  buttoned  his  overcoat  round  him  I  heard 
him  mutter  anxiously  to  himself — '  Lungenentziindung'  Bump  ! 
Would  it  be  possible  to  lift  Frau  B.  on  to  the  horse  if  the  carriage 
broke  down  ?  How  many  hours  would  it  take  us  to  walk  to  James- 
town ?  Bump,  bump !  Are  we  to  spend  a  month  on  St.  Helena, 
and  all  for  the  sake  of  a  German  Sergeant  ?  Suddenly  I  remem- 
bered the  moral  of  Kopenick,  and  resolved  to  try  if  commands 
would  be  more  successful  than  prayers.  They  worked  like  magic. 
The  Sergeant  got  out  and  walked  over  the  worst  places,  his  manner 
became  respectful.  He  consented  to  pay  the  driver  for  his  intrusive 
weight  in  the  carriage,  and  to  pay  him  again  when  told  by  his 
temporary  commanding  officer  that  the  sum  he  had  given  was 
insufficient.  I  was  informed  he  subsequently  grumbled  at  this 
raid  on  his  country's  war-chest. 

The  night  air  blew  chill  and  chillier  and  the  big  horse  hurried 
on,  his  hind-quarters  gleaming  with  sweat.  The  young  driver  ran 
and  ran,  bounding  from  stone  to  stone,  as  though  insensible  to 
fatigue.  When  we  reached  the  ridge  above  the  harbour,  we  saw 
far  out  the  lights  of  the  ship,  and  her  loading-light  was  still  on. 
That  meant  that  her  cargo  was  not  yet  all  aboard,  so  with  easier 
minds  we  drove  down  the  zigzags  of  the  road.  The  Eastern 
Telegraph  Company's  Station  still  blazed  with  light,  but  of  the 
lights  of  Jamestown  there  survived  but  a  thin  trickle  of  street 
lamps.  We  parted  from  our  carriage  where  we  had  taken  it  up.  It 
was  now  close  on  one  o'clock,  and  the  shop  was  closed,  but  other- 
wise the  street  was  not  more  deserted  than  on  our  arrival.  On 
the  landing  stage  the  change  was  more  noticeable,  the  merry 
cajoling  crew  of  vendors  had  vanished,  the  lights  were  few  and 
faint.  Yet  there  was  our  boat  with  our  sweet-smiling  boatmen  still 
waiting  for  us,  as  though  the  five  hours  of  our  absence  had  been  as 
many  minutes. 

50—2 


788 


CIRCE   AND    THE  PIG. 

NOWADAYS  if  you  open  a  modern  illustrated  paper  you  meet  each 
week  the  charming  faces  and  figures  of  new  goddesses  of  the  stage 
lightly  clad  to  sun  themselves  in  the  warm  light  of  popular  favour 
during  the  few  butterfly  days  of  their  reign.  A  dozen  light  operas 
and  similar  entertainments  challenge  your  wayward  fancy  after 
dinner,  often  leaving  you  derelict  and  smoking  in  the  modern 
enervating  lounge  out  of  sheer  inability  of  right  decision.  But 
in  the  seventies  it  was  otherwise.  Then  we  had  but  one  entertain- 
ment fit  for  the  connoisseur — Burlesque.  Burlesque  wittily 
written,  humorously  acted  and  presided  over  by  only  one  god- 
dess— a  woman  beautiful  to  look  on,  with  a  voice  in  speech  or  song 
that  echoed  in  your  heart  through  dull  days  of  dusty  work,  whose 
feet  were  so  eloquent  in  the  dance  that  it  were  no  hyperbole  to  say 
with  Sir  John, '  no  sun  upon  an  Easter  Day  was  half  so  fine  a  sight.' 
And  the  inspiration  came  from  the  gods  to  call  their  goddess  Circe. 
For  then  as  now  the  occupants  of  stalls  and  boxes  learned  their 
classics  painfully  at  school  to  forget  them  easily  abroad  ;  but  the 
'  gods,'  who  read  these  things,  read  them  in  thumbed  editions 
picked  out  of  the  boxes  of  Holywell  Street  at  the  cost  of  a  few 
pence,  and  studied  them  for  the  fun  of  the  thing  as  all  real  study 
is  done.  And  when  the  genius  of  the  gallery  had  once  shouted 
'  Brava,  Circe  !  '  in  the  midst  of  the  fervent  enthusiasm  of  a  suc- 
cessful first  night,  it  stamped  itself  at  once  in  the  mind  of  the  town 
as  the  just  word  ;  and  within  a  week  it  was  in  all  the  shop  windows, 
in  the  shape  of  '  Circe  '  collars,  '  Circe  '  gloves,  hats,  hairpins,  shoes, 
stockings  and  all  those  mysteries  hidden  from  male  imaginings 
under  the  modest  pseudonym  of  lingerie. 

It  is  true  that  the  pedantic  mind,  particularly  one  pedantic 
mind  belonging  to  a  pedant  who  wrote  dramatic  criticism  because 
the  world  would  not  read  his  novels,  made  objections,  founded 
doubtless  on  recent  reference  to  Lempriere,  that  Circe,  daughter 
of  Sol  and  Perseis,  was  celebrated  for  the  use  of  magic  and  venomous 
herbs  and  the  inhospitable  changing  of  her  guests  into  brutish 
shapes.  But  there  is  no  convincing  a  whole  city  that  they  are 
wrong  when  they  seize  upon  the  very  word  that  they  know  expresses 


CIRCE   AND  THE   PIG.  789 

the  idea  in  their  usually  dumb  minds.  Circe  had,  if  one  may  write 
American  for  the  moment,  '  come  to  stay,'  both  in  her  own  pre- 
sence and  in  her  name.  No  amount  of  pedantry  could  alter  the 
affair  which  had  been  settled  for  ever  by  the  higher  powers.  It  was 
the  Prime  Minister  himself  at  the  Theatrical  Fund  dinner  who 
perhaps  put  it  better  than  another  when  he  said,  amidst  enthu- 
siastic cheers,  '  We  English  love  paradox  and  hence  have  named 
our  most  beautiful  actress  of  to-day,  Circe  ;  but  Circe  of  old  changed 
men  into  swine,  whereas  our  Circe  eliminates  all  that  is  brutal  and 
gross  from  her  audience  and  her  voice  is  always  cheering  and 
strengthening  the  better  element  in  the  psychomachy  of  mankind.' 
We  had  Prime  Ministers  in  those  days  who  could  praise  art  on  the 
stage  in  many  syllables  and  still  retain  the  Nonconformist  vote  ; 
but  we  were  all  more  spacious  then. 

Circe's  father,  Herbert  England,  had  been  a  schoolmaster  at 
a  big  school  in  the  City,  her  mother  had  been  a  singer,  not  unknown 
on  provincial  platforms,  in  oratorios  and  ballad  concerts.  Their 
daughter,  Violet,  was  educated  at  home.  Her  father  read  with 
her,  English  literature  for  the  most  part,  and  taught  her  to  read 
with  clear  enunciation,  her  mother  taught  her  music  and  rejoiced 
to  find  in  her  daughter  powers  she  herself  had  never  possessed. 
What  might  have  come  to  Circe  had  her  father  lived,  who  can  say  ? 
But  by  his  sudden  death  it  became  necessary  for  Circe's  mother 
to  take  lodgers,  and  one  of  their  first  lodgers  was  Killingham,  the 
well-known  comedian.  It  was  he  who  brought  out  Circe  when 
she  was  sixteen,  in  a  farce  called  '  The  Gingerbread  Nut ' ;  a 
servant  with  a  singing  part.  She  did  not  spring  into  fame  on  the 
moment  as  actresses  do  to-day,  on  the  contrary  she  worked  hard 
in  London  and  Manchester  and  Dublin,  at  anything  that  came  to 
hand,  earning  her  living  scantily  and  cheerfully,  and  learning  her 
business  very  thoroughly.  Francis,  that  prince  of  managers, 
engaged  her  for  the  Frivolity,  at  a  very  considerable  salary  for 
those  days,  but  would  only  allow  her  small  parts  with  but  a  single 
unimportant  song  during  the  first  two  years  of  her  engagement. 
When  she  grumbled  to  him,  as  stage  ladies  do  and  did  even  in  that 
golden  age,  he  told  her,  as  he  told  every  young  aspirant,  to  watch 
and  work  and  wait,  and  the  day  would  come.  And  at  last  when 
poor  Fanny  Witney  fell  ill,  the  day  came,  and  Circe  danced  joyously 
into  her  island  kingdom  and  found  there  more  palaces  and  atten- 
dants and  purple  and  fine  linen  than  she  had  ever  imagined  in  her 
wildest  dreams.  And  not  only  were  there  nightly  cheers  to  greet 


790  CIRCE   AND  THE   PIG. 

her  when  she  stepped  on  the  boards,  but  nightly  ovations  calling 
her  before  the  curtain  to  those  slaves  of  hers  who  could  not  bear 
to  see  the  last  of  her  when  the  piece  was  over.  And  outside  in  the 
street,  waiting  round  her  little  brougham,  in  rain  or  snow,  stood 
a  gallant  band  of  young  and  ardent  servants,  all  eager  for  a  glance 
as  she  darted  into  her  carriage  and  whirled  away  into  the  night. 

Stated  in  prose  fact  Circe's  palace  was  a  lodging  near  Tottenham 
Court  Road,  where  she  lived  with  Eliza,  an  old  servant  of  her 
mother's,  and  Mr.  Wegg,  the  bulldog  Alec  had  given  her.  She 
had  named  him  Wegg  because  his  off  foreleg  was  very  stiff,  and 
he  had  a  habit  of  dropping  into  howls  whilst  she  was  practising 
her  songs. 

'  Why  Wegg  ?  '  Alec  had  said — but  he  was  educated  at  Eton. 

Another  of  Circe's  palaces  was  a  little  house  with  an  old  garden 
on  the  edge  of  Wimbledon  Common  where  her  mother  lived.  Circe 
used  to  drive  over  there  on  Sunday  with  Wegg,  and  sometimes, 
if  there  were  no  rehearsals,  stay  until  Monday  morning.  She 
generally  hired  a  carriage  and  pair  from  the  jobmaster,  the  one  who 
provided  her  with  the  little  brougham.  Last  Sunday,  however, 
she  had  allowed  Alec  to  drive  her  down.  It  was  a  beautiful  May 
morning,  and  he  had  arrived  about  eleven,  to  the  delight  of  Blooms- 
bury,  with  two  high-stepping  chestnuts  drawing  a  bright  yellow 
mail  phaeton.  And  when  Circe  came  to  the  door  clad  in  a  saffron 
gown  with  the  daintiest  bonnet  and  long  strings  to  match  and 
leaped  beside  him  on  to  the  high  seat  of  the  phaeton,  Alec  felt 
that  he  would  like  to  gallop  with  her  right  away  to  Gretna  Green, 
and  would  have  done  it  too  if  he  had  ever  learned  enough  geography 
to  know  where  it  was. 

James,  with  his  arms  folded,  and  Wegg,  with  his  stiff  leg,  sat 
impassively  behind  them.  In  their  way  they  were  proud  of  serving 
so  much  youth  and  beauty,  and  their  faces  wore  that  air  of  calm 
satisfaction  that  is  seen  only  among  the  servants  of  the  great. 
It  is  good  to  minister  to  those  who  are  joyous  and  happy  and 
smiling  ;  and  it  is  good  to  be  a  boy  of  three- and- twenty,  and 
drive  a  pair  of  fine  horses  with  the  only  girl  you  ever  loved  at 
your  side.  Possibly  it  is  better  still  to  be  three-and-twenty  and  to 
be  the  only  girl. 

If  you  are  old  and  rheumatic  it  is  good  to  look  on  and  see  three- 
and-twenty  enjoying  itself.  That  is  what  the  old  crossing-sweeper 
thought  at  the  end  of  Great  Russell  Street  as  he  limped  out  of  the 
way  and  picked  up  a  sixpence  Circe  had  thrown  to  him.  He 


CIRCE  AND  THE   PIG.  791 

laughed  aloud  at  the  fine  horses  ;  he  laughed  back  again  at  the 
young  couple,  and  he  laughed  all  on  his  own  at  the  radiant  dignity 
of  James  and  Wegg.  '  My  word,'  he  said  to  himself  as  he  cleaned 
the  sixpence  carefully  with  his  coat-tail,  '  that  show  is  as  good 
as  a  circus.' 

And  so  it  was  to  a  man  and  a  philosopher  who  knew  how  to 
enjoy  life.  But  Circe's  mother,  very  properly,  wanted  to  know 
more  in  detail  about  this  sort  of  thing,  and  though  she  welcomed 
Alec  as  she  welcomed  all  Circe's  friends  with  a  sweet  and  kindly 
manner  that  charmed  that  young  gentleman  very  greatly,  yet  she 
was  not  sure  whether  it  was  wise  for  Circe  to  be  seen  driving  about 
with  him  even  on  occasion,  so  different  were  the  standards  of  the 
seventies  from  those  of  to-day. 

The  chief  objection  that  Circe's  mother  had  to  Alec  was  the 
purely  practical  and  maternal  objection  that  he  did  not  come  into 
his  property  until  he  was  five-and- twenty,  and  therefore,  from 
Circe's  mother's  point  of  view,  was  not,  as  we  say  of  lovers  and 
mansions,  eligible. 

To  understand  this,  if  you  are  so  out  of  the  world  as  not  to 
know  about  it,  look  at  your  peerage  under  the  title  Greathead. 
You  will  find  Alec  to  be  Alexander  Wellington  Ulysses  Greathead, 
third  Baron  Bermondsey.  The  first  Baron  had  made  a  fortune 
as  a  contractor  in  the  early  days  of  railway  building,  and  subscribed 
freely  to  party  funds.  The  second  Baron  was  a  keen  business  man 
of  a  superior  type.  He  looked  down  on  the  old  business  and 
saddened  his  father  by  filling  up  a  census  form  of  occupation  as 
'  muck-shifter '  instead  of  railway  contractor.  '  For  what  else 
is  it  ?  '  he  said.  '  We  exploit  the  simplest  of  muscles  and  machinery 
in  the  removal  of  dirt.  I  hope  to  live  to  exploit  the  very  brains 
and  lives  of  men  in  the  manifestation  of  new  ideas.'  And  so  he  did. 
He  began  with  the  building  and  making  of  the  tools  and  machinery 
of  his  own  business,  and  from  that  to  newer  industries,  and  so  to 
banking  and  finance,  in  which  pursuit  he  found  that  under-current 
of  poetry  and  imagination  that  his  nature  thirsted  for.  He  could 
think  in  millions.  He  could  produce  schemes  which  glistened  with 
dividends  and  sparkled  with  bonuses,  the  foundation  of  which  was 
a  well-woven  fabric  of  commercial  honesty.  Such  a  rare  spirit 
must  needs  grow  wealthy,  and  in  truth  he  waxed  very  rich.  The 
peerage  will  tell  you  of  his  marriage  with  Rosalie  Felicia,  daughter 
of  Lieutenant  General  O'Dowd,  the  famous  soldier,  and  of  the 
birth  of  their  only  son,  the  'Alec'  of  this  story,  and  of  his  mother's 


792  CIRCE   AND   THE    PIG. 

early  death.  Some  day  I  will  write  her  story,  which  is  but  a  sad 
one.  It  was  her  pleasure  to  give  her  son  the  names  of  many 
warriors  and  to  dedicate  him  to  the  service  of  her  father  and  her 
nation,  and  her  last  wish  to  her  husband  was  that  her  infant  son 
should  be  brought  up  as  a  soldier  in  an  Irish  regiment.  After  her 
death,  however,  Lord  Bermondsey  left  little  Alec  in  the  care  of 
servants  in  his  beautiful  home  in  Suffolk  and  he  himself  plunged 
deeper  into  the  financial  rapids  of  the  City,  to  keep  his  mind  from 
brooding  over  his  sorrow. 

It  was  in  this  old  country  house  that  Alec  grew  to  love  and  to 
know  the  ways  of  animals  and  to  become  a  keen  hunter  and  lover 
of  the  outdoor  life,  knowing  the  signs  of  wind  and  weather  as  the 
wild  animals  themselves  do,  by  instinct.  And  his  education  at 
Eton,  without  teaching  him  a  love  of  any  other  literature,  at  least 
did  not  steal  from  him  his  love  and  knowledge  of  the  book  of  nature. 
Thus  when  he  came  to  Sandhurst  it  fell  out,  as  Lord  Bermondsey 
would  have  foreseen  if  his  son  had  been  one  of  his  business  ventures, 
that  there  were  examinations  to  pass  quite  beyond  the  ken  of 
Alexander  Wellington  Ulysses.  And  the  pity  of  it  was  that  here 
was  a  young  fellow,  the  ideal  of  a  soldier  for  the  real  work  of  the 
camp  on  the  hillside,  and  here  were  examiners  paid  to  discover 
such  a  person.  But  the  system  stood  in  the  way.  The  things 
Alec  knew  were  unknown  to  the  examiners,  and  the  things  that 
the  examiners  knew  Alec  could  not  tell  them  ;  and  examiners  are 
brazen  idols  only  to  be  worshipped  by  constant  repetitions  of  the 
same  prayers  that  they  have  heard  through  ages  past. 

At  the  third  failure  at  Sandhurst,  Lord  Bermondsey  made  his 
will,  and  Alec  went  to  Oxford,  spending  all  his  vacations  in  Suffolk . 
At  Oxford  he  came  across  Professor  Aldred,  F.R.S.,  who  interested 
him  in  zoology,  and  he  became  a  student  in  the  laboratories,  finding 
in  the  text-books  of  science  a  language  he  could  understand.  Then 
came  the  sudden  death  of  his  father  ;  the  discovery — humiliating 
him  at  the  moment — that  he  was  not  heir  to  his  fortune  until  he 
was  five- and- twenty,  and  that  his  sole  trustee  and  guardian  was 
the  Pig. 

The  Pig  was  Alec's  name  for  Mr.  Harvey  Mutch,  the  head 
partner  in  the  well-known  firm  of  solicitors,  Mutch,  Twining  and 
Slack.  Harvey  Mutch  was  as  well  known  in  the  City  as  the  late 
Lord  Bermondsey  himself.  He  had  been  the  legal  Jonathan  to  his 
lordship's  financial  David.  The  present  Lord  Bermondsey  had 
hated  him  from  childhood  with  the  intense  hatred  that  children 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  793 

and  animals  have  for  human  beings  who  have  the  bad  taste  not 
to  love  them. 

And  Harvey  Mutch  not  only  did  not  love  children,  but,  except 
for  his  strong  affection  for  power  over  others  and  the  things  of  this 
world  that  power  can  bring  to  you,  he  had  no  love  to  spare  from 
his  work  and  himself.  He  was  a  man  of  sixty,  looking  about  forty- 
five,  tall,  well-preserved,  proud  of  his  good  looks,  his  ample  grey 
locks  and  his  shapely  hands.  Alec,  who  could  never  see  even  his 
outward  virtues,  always  described  him  to  his  friends  as  an  ugly 
man,  with  a  fat  snout  and  pink  complexion,  who  wore  stays.  This 
was  true,  but  it  was  not  the  whole  truth. 

The  origin  of  his  nickname  the  Pig  went  far  back  into  the  pre- 
historic days  of  Alec's  childhood  when  Lord  Bermondsey  first 
brought  Mr.  Mutch  down  to  Suffolk  and  Alec  had  instinctively 
hated  him.  Alec  could  never  remember  any  time  when  he  had 
called  him  anything  else,  and  recollected  well  that  his  father  had 
only  laughed  when  the  name  came  to  his  ears,  and  indeed  on  occa- 
sion had  used  it  himself.  And  from  Suffolk  it  had  floated  up  to 
London,  and  among  law  clerks  in  the  City,  articled  and  otherwise, 
the  Pig  was  a  name  of  affectionate  respect  for  a  leader  in  the  pro- 
fession. 

At  the  moment  of  this  particular  story  the  Pig  was  very  much 
out  of  the  good  graces  of  both  Alec  and  Circe.  Circe  had  resolutely 
refused  to  leave  the  stage  until  Alec  came  into  his  fortune,  as  his 
present  allowance  was  quite  insufficient  for  the  maintenance  of 
herself  and  her  mother,  and  the  Pig  had  not  only  refused  to  find 
more  but  had  spoken  strongly  to  Alec  about  the  inadvisability  of 
his  friendship  with  Circe,  upon  which  Alec  had  retorted  undutifully 
and  left  the  sty  in  anger.  This  was  how  matters  stood  on  that 
memorable  Sunday  afternoon  in  Wimbledon  when  Alec  had — what 
he  always  called  in  after  life — his  one  great  idea.  '  Supposing,'  he 
said  to  Circe's  mother,  '  supposing  the  Pig  advances  me  five 
thousand  pounds  down  to  last  us  between  now  and  my  twenty- 
fifth  birthday.' 

'  You  can't  suppose  things  like  that  about  the  Pig,'  said  Circe 
pouting. 

'  You  know  you  always  have  told  us  that  it  is  impossible,'  said 
Circe's  mother  knitting  placidly.  She  allowed  herself  to  knit  on 
Sundays  not  without  misgivings.  '  My  dears,'  she  continued, 
'  there  is  only  one  thing  for  it,  and  that  is,  patience.' 

It  is  one  of  the  mad  things  of  the  world  that  the  beautiful 


794  CIRCE   AND   THE    PIG. 

quality  of  patience,  constantly  referred  to  by  the  elders,  is,  like 
the  precious  substance  radium,  so  scarce  as  to  be  almost  non- 
existent in  any  commercial  sense.  Circe's  mother,  for  instance, 
was  always  being  advised  by  her  daughter  to  have  patience  with 
her  maids,  but  Circe's  mother  had  no  patience  with  servants  and 
still  less  patience  with  their  careless  heedless  ways.  In  the  same 
way  Alec  had  no  patience  with  the  Pig,  and  Circe  had  very  little 
patience  with  her  mother  when  she  cheerfully  counselled  a  two 
years'  engagement  with  Lord  Bermondsey,  and  the  advisability 
of  waiting  for  the  consent  and  approbation  of  the  Pig. 

'  Why  patience,  mother  ?  '  she  asked,  with  a  pleasant  laugh. 
'  Were  you  and  father  patient  ?  ' 

Circe's  mother  shook  her  head  reprovingly  at  her  delightful 
daughter.  She  had  often  told  her  the  story  of  their  love  at  first 
sight,  their  marriage  in  haste  that  had  given  the  lie  to  the  stale 
proverb  in  the  sweet  leisure  of  their  happy  married  life. 

'  Your  father  and  I  were  different,'  said  her  mother  with  thi 
dignity  of  age  that  is  so  supremely  amusing  to  youth. 

Circe  laughed  gaily,  but  Alec  stood  impatiently  awaiting  an 
answer  to  his  supposition,  and,  big  with  his  great  idea,  repeated 
the  question. 

'  Supposing,  I  say,  that  the  Pig  will  advance  me  five  thousand 
pounds,  what  then  ?  Are  we  still  to  have  patience  ?  ' 

'  Of  course,  if  you  could  suppose  such  a  thing  it  would  make  all 
the  difference.  My  daughter  could  then  give  up  the  stage,'  said 
Circe's  mother. 

'  But  what  about  Circe  ?  '  asked  that  young  lady,  '  and  what 
about  the  public  ?  Shall  we  put  it  to  the  vote  of  the  Frivolity 
pit?' 

'  We  will  put  it  to  one  vote  only,'  said  Alec  quietly,  '  your  own.' 

'  I  have  given  you  my  answer,'  she  said  reaching  out  her  hand 
to  place  it  upon  his,  '  long  ago.  I  am  not  going  to  do  anything 
but  appear  on  the  bills  every  night  until  you  can  afford  to  carry 
me  away  and  keep  mother  and  Wegg  and  old  Eliza  just  as  we  are 
now.  And  I'm  not  going  to  let  you  run  off  to  the  money-lenders, 
and  I'm  not  going  to  let  you  talk  any  more  nonsense.  I'm  going 
to  borrow  some  of  mother's  patience  and  learn  how  to  play  at  it.' 

'  Circe,'  said  Alec,  stopping  her, '  I  know  all  we  have  agreed,  and 
I'll  stick  to  it,  but  I've  got  a  great  idea  ;  I  can  see  the  Pig  giving 
you  five  thousand  of  the  very  best — of  my  very  best  of  course — so 
that  we  can  get  married.  It  all  depends  on  one  thing.' 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  795 

'  And  what  is  that  ? ' 

*  Can  you  play  comedy  lead  in  a  serious  modern  drama  ?  ' 

'  What  do  you  mean,  Alec  ?  '  cried  Circe,  full  of  interest. 

'  Ha  ! '  said  Alec,  shaking  his  head  and  laughing.  '  The  great 
idea  is  beginning  to  interest  us,  is  it  ?  Well,  here  come  the  horses. 
I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  on  the  way  home.' 

And  driving  along  Alec  unfolded  his  great  idea  to  Circe,  who 
first  of  all  laughed  at  it  with  scorn,  and  then  said  it  was  impossible, 
and  then  admitted  it  was  clever  but  impracticable,  and  then  began 
to  wonder  if  it  would  come  off,  and  then  offered  suggestions  for  new 
scenes,  and  added  characters  in  the  drama  of  it,  and  finally,  to  the 
delight  of  Alec,  she  agreed  that  it  was  '  jolly  clever,'  and  would  take 
a  real  rise  out  of  the  Pig.  Only — and  there  is  always  an  only  in  a 
woman's  decision — she  was  not  quite  sure  that  it  was  fair. 

Alec  argued  that  fairness  to  the  Pig  was  a  work  of  supereroga- 
tion. That  the  Pig  must  be  done  by  as  he  did,  and  that  really  Provi- 
dence intended  him  to  be  done,  and  done  brown.  And  although  no 
conclusion  was  arrived  at  when  he  left  her  at  her  lodgings  in  Blooms- 
bury,  yet,  as  he  drove  to  his  club,  Alec  felt  sure  he  was  going  to 
have  his  way.  He  would  have  been  the  more  certain  of  this  if  he 
could  have  seen  Circe  fling  her  arms  round  old  Eliza  and  tell  her  that 
she  was  going  to  be  married  in  a  month,  and  that  Alec  was  the 
cleverest  darling  that  ever  was. 

At  the  Club  Alec  found  Charlie  Levinson,  junior  partner  of 
Levinson  &  Levinson,  solicitors,  whose  name  is  endorsed  on  some 
brief  or  other  in  every  society  case  of  those  days.  Charley  and  Alec 
had  been  at  Eton  at  the  same  time,  and  were  friends.  They  dined 
together,  and  after  dinner  in  the  smoke-room  Alec  told  Charley  the 
great  idea  and  invited  his  assistance  in  carrying  it  out. 

'  It's  no  good,  Alec,'  said  Charley,  '  the  old  man,'  meaning 
Charley  senior, '  would  not  like  it,  and  I  could  not  take  any  business 
into  the  office  without  telling  him  exactly  what  it  is.' 

'  But  why  wouldn't  the  old  man  do  it  ?  '  persisted  Alec. 

'  Well,  he's  old-fashioned.  He  would  call  it  a  sort  of  conspiracy, 
and  say  it  wasn't  playing  the  game.  And  we  do  a  lot  of  business 
with  your  friend  the  Pig,  and  he  and  the  old  man  are  great  friends.' 

'  Then  if  you  won't  help  me,  what  am  I  to  do  ?  '  said  Alec 
dismally. 

'  There  are  plenty  of  men  who  will,'  said  Charley  laughing, 
'  and  I  will  put  you  up  to  a  wrinkle.  Whoever  you  do  employ,  let 
Circe  manage  the  thing  herself,  and  don't  let  him  understand  the 


796  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG. 

game  that  is  being  played.  Believe  me,  if  you  want  to  catch  the 
Pig  dozing  you  have  to  get  up  very  early  indeed.  And  if  he  gets 
talking  to  Circe's  solicitor  he  will  soon  find  out  that  something  is 
wrong.' 

'  I  had  never  thought  of  that,'  said  Alec  gratefully. 

'  Yes,'  continued  Levinson,  '  whoever  appears  for  Circe  should 
really  think  he  is  at  work  on  the  real  thing.  There  is  an  awfully 
nice  young  fellow  named  Jameson,  a  Scot,  he  hasn't  an  ounce  of 
imagination,  and  he'll  go  through  with  it  for  Circe  admirably.  I'll 
just  write  her  a  note  of  introduction  to  him.  His  place  is  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.' 

'  Thank  you,  Charley,  and  of  course  you — 

'  Must  be  as  silent  as  the  grave  about  it,'  interrupted  Levinson 
laughingly  as  he  crossed  to  the  writing  table.  '  Why,  certainly. 
But  remember  you've  got  a  tougher  job  than  you  think,  young  man, 
though  of  course  Circe  could  bewitch  any  man  living.  Still  the  Pig, 
as  you  call  him,  is  as  tough  and  as  devilish  sly  as  the  immortal  Major 
himself.  When  once  the  game  is  started  you  keep  clear  of  Miss 
Circe's  dwelling  until  you  have  won  the  stakes.' 

'  What  for  ?  '  asked  the  guileless  Alec. 

'  Harvey  Mutch,'  replied  Charley,  looking  up  from  the  writing 
table,  '  is  a  man  who  gets  to  know  all  about  everybody.  Some  say 
he  puts  detectives  on  to  his  own  clients,  but  that  story  is  nonsense. 
He  has  a  wonderful  power  over  men.' 

'  I  know  exactly  what  you  mean,'  assented  Alec.  '  He  doesn't 
say  much  to  you,  but  he  seems  so  interested  in  what  you  are  saying 
that  you  go  on  telling  him  more  and  more  about  things.' 

'  It  would  take  an  artist  to  deceive  Harvey  Mutch,'  said 
Levinson,  handing  him  the  letter. 

'  Circe  is  an  artist,  a  great  artist,'  murmured  Alec  with  lover's 
fervour. 

A  few  days  afterwards  the  game  began  with  the  familiar  opening. 
Mr.  Jameson,  without  knowing  it,  being  merely  a  pawn  in  the 
game,  was  moved  along  two  squares  to  King's  fourth  in  the  orthodox 
way.  Lord  Bermondsey  was  breakfasting  in  his  chambers  in  St. 
James's  Street  when  his  man  brought  him  in  his  letters,  and  among 
them  one  from  Andrew  Jameson,  solicitor,  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields, 
which  ran  as  follows  : 

MY  LORD,— I  am  instructed  by  Miss  Violet  England,  of  34  Blank  Street,  VV.C. 
to  take  proceedings  against  your  Lordship  for  breach  of  promise  to  marry.  Before 
issuing  a  writ  I  shall  be  obliged  if  your  Lordship  will  intimate  whether  it  is  your 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  797 

Lordship's  intention  to  defend  the  case.  I  can  hardly  believe  from  the  letters  and 
evidence  that  my  client  has  placed  before  me  that  your  Lordship  will  wish  to  take 
that  course.  My  client  has  instructed  me  to  demand  as  damages  £10,000,  and 
perhaps  the  most  convenient  course  will  be  for  your  Lordship  to  give  me  the  name 
of  your  solicitors  with  whom  I  can  negotiate  in  this  matter  or  who  will,  if  necessary, 
accept  service. 

I  remain,  your  Lordship's 

Obedient  Servant, 

ANDREW  JAMESON. 

'  Hurrah  ! '  shouted  Alec.  '  Capital !  I  wonder  why  Circe 
started  on  10,OOOZ.  I  thought  it  was  to  be  5,OOOZ.  However  the 
game  has  begun.  Now  to  see  what  the  Pig  has  to  say.' 

Within  an  hour  he  was  at  2lA  Leadenhall  Street,  the  City  office 
of  Mutch,  Twining  &  Slack.  One  of  the  things  that  annoyed 
Lord  Bermondsey  about  the  Pig  was  that  he  always  kept  him 
waiting.  True  it  was  that  Mr.  Slack  asked  him  into  his  room  to 
wait  his  guardian's  convenience,  but  Mr.  Slack  was  a  conveyancer, 
with  a  thin  freckled  face  and  red  hands,  and  his  conversational 
powers  with  a  peer  were  limited  to  the  words  '  Oh,  indeed !  ' 
expressive  of  admiring  surprise  at  Lord  Bermondsey's  most  common- 
place commonplaces.  This  '  waiting  to  come  on  '  always  made  Alec 
feel  nervous  and  irritable,  and  by  the  time  a  deferential  small  boy, 
with  a  piece  of  paper,  called  for  him  and  carried  him  like  a  captive 
into  the  presence  of  the  Pig,  he  felt  that  he  and  the  Pig  had  already 
fought  one  round  with  each  other  and  the  Pig  had  come  up  smiling 
whilst  he  was  winded.  He  was  the  more  impatient  to-day,  for  his 
whole  life  and  happiness  depended  on  the  interview  that  was  to 
come.  And  the  more  he  tried  to  keep  calm  and  collected  the  more 
nervous  and  fidgety  he  grew.  As  last  the  inevitable  boy  came,  and 
away  he  sped  in  his  wake  through  dusty  channels  of  law  to  a  green 
baize  door  behind  which  sat  his  guardian  and  enemy,  the  Pig. 

'  Good  morning,  my  Lord,'  said  the  great  man,  rising  deferen- 
tially from  a  mass  of  papers  on  his  wide  table  and  coming  forward  to 
greet  him.  '  Why  such  an  early  visit  ?  ' 

'  I've  had  a  very  unpleasant  letter,  sir,'  said  Lord  Bermondsey, 
handing  him  Jameson's  communication  and  turning  away  his  face 
as  he  did  so. 

Lord  Bermondsey  was  not  an  artist,  and  truth  was  with  him  an 
hereditary  hobby. 

The  Pig  looked  at  him  curiously,  and  then  sat  down  and  read  the 
letter  slowly. 

'  Andrew  Jameson,'  he  said  reflectively,  '  a  very  honest  gentle- 


798  CIRCE   AND   THE  PIG. 

man.     The  young  lady  is  in  safe  hands.     Well  ? '    He  looked  at 
Lord  Bermondsey  interrogatively. 

Alec  was  at  a  loss  how  to  begin.  '  What  am  I  to  do  ?'  he 
stammered  feebly. 

'  The  first  thing  is,  have  you  promised  marriage  ? ' 

Lord  Bermondsey  nodded  his  head. 

'  Then  we  can't  fight.  Of  course  you  are  tired  of  the  girl  ?  '  he 
asked,  rather  contemptuously. 

Alec  flushed  up  and  half  started  from  his  chair,  and  then, 
remembering  the  game,  said  solemnly,  '  You  may  take  it  from  me 
that  it  is  all  over  between  us.' 

'  Did  she  care  for  you  at  all  ?  '  asked  the  Pig  lightly. 

'  I  believe  so,'  muttered  Alec. 

'  Pity,'  said  the  Pig  sympathetically,  '  Pity.  What  sort  of  a  girl 
is  she  ?  One  of  those  fast,  sentimental,  underbred  beauties  I 
suppose.' 

Alec  could  have  knocked  him  over,  but  he  contented  himself 
with  an  earnest  and  eloquent  description  of  Circe's  beauty  and 
discretion,  and  a  noble  tribute  of  praise  to  the  honour  and  character 
of  her  mother.  The  Pig  watched  him  carefully,  and  when  he  had 
run  down  took  up  Jameson's  letter  and  re-read  it  carefully. 

'  I  had  better  see  Jameson,  and  have  a  talk  with  him.  If  your 
view  of  the  girl  and  her  mother  is  correct  we  shall  readily  settle. 
The  girl  will  not  want  to  go  into  the  box,  and  I  should  say  she  will 
jump  at  a  thousand.' 

'  It  isn't  enough,'  said  Alec  eagerly. 

'  Not  enough ! '  repeated  the  Pig.  '  Not  enough.  Your 
Lordship  wants  it  settled  as  cheaply  as  possible  I  suppose.' 

'  I  want  to  do  the  right  thing,'  said  Alec  sulkily.  '  And  I'm  sure 
she  won't  take  less  than  five  thousand.' 

The  Pig  shook  his  head  gloomily.  '  What  makes  you  think 
that  ? '  he  asked. 

Alec  could  not  think  of  an  answer  to  that  riddle  except  the  true 
one,  so  he  made  no  reply. 

The  Pig  sniffed  uneasily.  He  seemed  to  be  aware  that  something 
was  not  straightforward,  and  he  read  Jameson's  letter  a  third  time. 

'  By  the  bye,'  he  said,  looking  up  from  the  letter,  '  you  have 
not  told  me  how  you  came  to  break  it  off.' 

Alec  had  not  written  this  scene  in  the  drama,  so  he  replied 
impressively  that  it  was  one  of  those  things  he  did  not  care  to  talk 
about. 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  799 

'  Hm  !  Very  well,'  answered  the  Pig.  '  As  you  please,  but  I 
suppose  I  may  take  it  that  it  is  finally  broken  off.  You  would  not 
consider  the  best  mode  of  settlement — marriage.  You  still  seem  to 
have  some  respect  for  her  and  her  mother.  What  do  you  say  ?  ' 

The  game  was  taking  such  unexpected  turns  that  Alec  was  fast 
growing  intellectually  out  of  breath. 

'  You  remember  what  you  said  to  me,  sir,  about  six  months  ago 
when  I  suggested  to  you  that  I  intended  to  ask  the  lady  to  become 
my  wife  ?  ' 

'  Very  well  indeed,  my  Lord,'  replied  the  Pig  placidly.  '  As 
your  guardian  and  trustee  I  refused  to  give  you  any  assistance  in 
so  unwise  a  project.  I  had  hopes  that  you  would  have  seen  the 
matter  in  a  different  light  and  taken  my  advice.  Now,  of  course, 
things  are  otherwise.  You  have  made  a  promise  and  wish  to  break 

it — at  least  I  understand  you  wish  to  break  it '  he  stopped 

and  looked  inquiringly  at  Alec. 

'  I've  told  you  so  once,'  he  said  angrily. 

'  I  beg  your  Lordship's  pardon,'  said  the  Pig  with  polite 
emphasis ;  '  but  though  no  doubt  you  have  intended  to  say  so,  it  is 
the  one  thing  you  have  hitherto  omitted  to  say.  However,  I  will 
take  it  as  said.' 

'  And  act  upon  it  as  quickly  as  possible,'  added  Alec,  rising  from 
his  chair. 

'  You  leave  the  payment  to  my  discretion  ?  '  asked  the  Solicitor. 

'  I  wish  you  to  act  generously,'  replied  Lord  Bermondsey. 

'  It  shall  be  as  your  Lordship  pleases,'  said  the  Pig,  rising  from 
the  table  to  ring  a  bell  and  open  the  door  for  his  departure. 

Alec  walked  westward  with  the  uncomfortable  feeling  of  a  man 
who  has  been  dealt  a  good  hand  and  played  it  badly.  He  kept 
saying  to  himself  that  no  one,  not  even  the  Pig,  could  suppose 
any  man  to  be  such  a  fool  as  not  to  marry  Circe  if  he  had  the 
chance. 

The  great  idea,  like  so  many  great  ideas  when  you  take  them 
from  the  airy  realms  of  fancy  and  plant  them  in  the  clay  garden  of 
sticky  fact,  seemed  to  be  withering  rather  than  flourishing.  He 
met  Charley  Levinson  at  the  bottom  of  Chancery  Lane,  who  spared 
him  a  valuable  half-hour  over  a  glass  of  sherry  to  hear  his  report  of 
the  first  round  with  the  Pig. 

Levinson  reassured  him.  '  The  old  man  is  puzzled.  That's  all. 
I  think  you  did  rather  well  considering  his  fighting  weight  at  the 
game.  You  haven't  absolutely  given  yourself  away,  and  that 


800  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG. 

is  something.  Leave  the  rest  to  Circe.  She  will  pull  it  off,  I 
believe.' 

With  such  encouragement  Alec  had  to  be  content,  and,  as  he 
had  sworn  not  to  go  near  Tottenham  Court  Road  until  the  case  was 
settled,  he  walked  down  to  the  Frivolity  to  get  a  stall  for  the 
evening.  That  at  least  was  permitted.  As  he  entered  the  theatre 
a  small  boy,  who  was  coming  out,  held  open  the  door  for  him  and 
took  off  his  hat  respectfully.  It  was  the  Pig's  office  boy. 

As  soon  as  Lord  Bermondsey  had  left  the  office  the  Pig  put  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  screwed  up  his  mouth,  thrust  his  snout  in  the 
air  and  looked  out  of  the  window  for  some  five  minutes.  If  he  was 
looking  for  ideas  they  did  not  seem  to  come.  He  returned  to  his 
desk,  wrote  a  letter,  and  then  rang  a  bell :  '  Ask  Mr.  Gainty  to  step 
up,'  he  said  to  the  boy,  '  and  see  this  is  sent  across  to  Mr.  Jameson 
without  delay.  And  wait  for  an  answer.' 

Mr.  Gainty  was  Harvey  Mutch's  confidential  clerk.  The  only 
occasions  on  which  his  principal  did  not  take  him  into  his  confidence 
was  when  he  was  puzzled.  By  such  means  do  the  great  men  of  this 
world  seek  to  keep  up  their  reputation  before  those  who  know  them 
best.  His  only  order  to  Mr.  Gainty  was  to  send  for  a  box  at  the 
Frivolity  for  that  night  in  his  own  name,  and  not  to  mention  to 
anyone  whom  it  was  for.  This  done,  he  waited  for  Mr.  Jameson. 

The  Scotsman  arrived  in  about  an  hour.  He  was  very  business- 
like. Harvey  Mutch  liked  him,  and  paid  him  the  compliment  of 
coming  straight  to  business. 

'  We  admit  the  promise,'  he  said,  at  the  very  opening  of  the 
interview,  '  and  the  only  question  is  amount.' 

'  My  figure  was  a  nominal  one,  of  course,'  said  Jameson. 

'  So  I  suppose,'  said  the  other.  '  My  client  wishes  to  do  the 
right  thing,  and  I  think  you  and  I  will  very  easily  come  to  an 
agreement.  Do  you  know  much  of  the  lady  ?  ' 

'  To  tell  you  the  truth,  Mr.  Mutch,  I  have  only  seen  her  once, 
and  that  was  when  she  came  to  consult  me  yesterday.' 

'  Indeed.' 

1  Yes,'  continued  Mr.  Jameson,  '  Mr.  Charles  Levinson  sent  me 
a  letter  of  introduction  which  Miss  England  brought  herself.  She 
seems  a  most  matter  of  fact,  business-like  young  lady.' 

'  Charley  Levinson  sent  her,'  murmured  Mr.  Mutch. 

'  I  was  articled  to  Levinson,  you  know.' 

'  Of  course,  that  accounts  for  it.  Naturally  !  And  did  this 
business-like  young  lady  tell  you  the  lowest  figure  ?  ' 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  801 

*  She  did,'  said  Jameson. 

'  And  you  doubled  it  in  your  letter  ? '  said  Mr.  Mutch. 

Jameson  looked  surprised.  '  You  see,'  he  said  apologetically, 
'  I  did  not  know  with  whom  I  should  have  to  deal.' 

'  You  did  quite  right,  my  dear  sir,  if  I  may  say  so.  I  should 
have  done  the  same  myself.  And  so  we  shall  settle  the  case  for 
five  thousand  pounds.  It  is  a  most  extraordinary  case,  most 
extraordinary.' 

'  The  most  extraordinary  part  of  it  is  the  way  you  guessed 
my  client's  figure,  sir,'  said  Jameson,  looking  at  him  with 
admiration. 

'  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  nothing  in  that  at  all.  It  was  my 
own  figure,'  said  Mr.  Mutch,  taking  a  sheet  of  paper  and  noting  down 
some  hurried  memoranda.  '  And  now,  Mr.  Jameson,  before  we 
actually  settle  this  remarkable  case  for  five  thousand  pounds  I  make 
one  condition.  I  have  set  down  here,'  he  continued,  '  the  terms 
upon  which  I  settle.  You  will  see  I  say  the  money  is  to  be  paid 
within  twenty-four  hours.  In  any  case  your  costs  are  to  be  paid  at 
your  own  figure,  which  I  know  will  be  a  just  one.' 

Jameson  bowed  in  acknowledgment  of  the  compliment. 

'  The  only  condition  I  make  is,  that  Miss  England  comes  here 
to-morrow  with  you  and  gives  me  her  word  that  there  was  a  promise 
to  marry  and  that  it  has  been  broken.' 

4  There  certainly  was  a  promise.  I  can  show  you  the  letters,' 
said  Jameson. 

He  handed  a  few  letters  of  Lord  Bermondsey's  to  Harvey  Mutch, 
who  ran  his  eyes  over  them. 

'  Have  you  got  the  envelopes  ?  '  he  asked. 

Jameson  shook  his  head. 

Harvey  Mutch  smiled  the  smile  of  superior  experience.  '  May 
an  old  practitioner  remind  you  that  in  cases  of  this  sort  there  is 
often  more  in  an  envelope  than  its  contents  ?  An  envelope  can 
always  call  one  witness  to  character — a  postmark.' 

Jameson  made  a  mental  note  of  this  advice,  and  Harvey  Mutch 
continued  :  '  Well,  I  agree  those  three  letters  promise  marriage  in  a 
most  bald  matter-of-fact  way,  but  they  are  hardly  what  I  call  love 
letters.' 

4  But  surely  any  jury '  began  Jameson. 

'  Certainly,'  replied  Mutch,  '  the  evidence  of  the  promise  is  from 
that  point  of  view  perfect.  What  is  this  other  letter  ?  ' 

'  Oh,  that  is  Levinson's  note,'  replied  Jameson. 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  51 


802  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG. 

Harvey  Mutch  handed  them  back  across  the  table  and  then 
repeated  his  conditions. 

'  I  will  pay  you  the  money  as  agreed  if  your  client  will  tell 
me  that  the  promise  has  been  broken.  That  is  my  ultimatum, 
Mr.  Jameson.  You  may  call  it  an  old  man's  whim  or  his  fancy, 
but  there  it  is.' 

'  I  confess,  Mr.  Mutch,  I  cannot  follow  your  mind  in  the  matter. 
The  lady  has  instructed  me,  your  client  has  admitted  the  breach ' 

'  Your  pardon,'  replied  Harvey  Mutch  sternly.  '  My  client  has 
admitted  nothing  of  the  sort,  nor  I  on  his  behalf.  I  have  said  I 
will  pay  five  thousand  pounds.  I  have  not  heard  yet  the  details  of 
the  alleged  breach.  Has  your  client  given  you  any  particulars  ?  ' 

'  None  whatever,'  replied  Mr.  Jameson. 

'  I  did  not  suppose  she  had,'  said  Harvey  Mutch.  '  Well,  do 
you  agree  ?  Bring  the  lady  here  at  11.30  to-morrow  and  no  doubt 
she  will  satisfy  me  of  all  I  wish  to  know.' 

4 1  have  not  the  least  objection  for  my  part,'  said  Jameson. 
'  I  agree  that  the  matter  should  be  settled  amicably  and  quietly  in 
the  interests  of  both  parties.  If  Miss  England  will  come  I  will  be 
here  with  her  to-morrow  at  11.30.' 

'  Miss  England  will  undoubtedly  come,'  said  Harvey  Mutch  with 
certainty.  '  And  allow  me  to  thank  you  on  behalf  of  Lord  Ber- 
mondsey  for  the  courteous  and  self-sacrificing  way  you  have  dealt 
with  this  matter.' 

Jameson  bowed  himself  out  with  blushes,  knowing  that  appro- 
bation from  Harvey  Mutch  was  worth  more  than  many  guineas  of 
reluctantly  paid  costs. 

Left  to  himself  again  the  Pig  behaved  in  a  most  extraordinary 
fashion.  He  ran  his  fingers  through  his  hair,  he  pulled  his  snout 
vigorously  with  finger  and  thumb,  and  pinched  his  ears.  He  could 
not  stimulate  his  thoughts  to  a  solution  of  the  puzzle  by  these 
physical  exercises,  so  he  threw  himself  into  an  arm-chair,  put  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  thought.  He  had  never  been  beaten  yet, 
and  he  was  not  going  to  be  done  by  a  simple  domestic  affair  of  this 
kind.  He  went  over  the  events  in  his  mind.  He  knew  that  this 
was  not  a  mere  ordinary  breach  of  promise  case.  There  was 
certainly  something  behind  it.  He  marshalled  his  facts  carefully, 
in  'order  of  date.  Charley  Levinson  had  written  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  Circe  introducing  her  to  Jameson.  That  was  the 
earliest  fact  he  knew.  He  hesitated  to  accept  the  letters  of  Lord 
Bermondsey  promising  marriage.  There  were  no  envelopes  to  them 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  803 

and  they  were  not  love  letters.  No  doubt  there  were  real  love  letters 
somewhere,  but  the  three  produced  he  did  not  consider  proved, 
though  they  were  undoubtedly  written  by  his  Lordship.  He  put 
them  aside  and  returned  to  Levinson's  letter.  It  was  written  in  the 
Addison  Club  last  Saturday  night.  Now  why  did  not  Levinson  take 
up  the  case  ?  It  was  quite  in  their  line,  and  they  were  as  keen  about 
business  as  anyone.  Old  Charles  would  not  have  been  as  open  in 
his  methods  as  young  Jameson.  '  That  young  fellow  is  a  brick,' 
said  the  Pig  to  himself,  '  and  we  must  see  what  we  can  do  for  him.' 
Then  Charley  Levinson  was  a  friend  of  Lord  Bermondsey.  Why 
should  he  help  Circe  in  any  way  ?  There  might  be  many  reasons. 
He  went  over  his  interview  with  Lord  Bermondsey  and  Mr.  Jameson, 
and  then  he  too  arrived  at  a  great  idea.  The  Tightness  of  his  theory 
depended  on  the  answer  to  two  questions.  Did  old  Charles  Levinson 
know  about  the  case  and  refuse  to  take  it  ?  and  was  Lord  Bermondsey 
in  the  Addison  Club  on  Sunday  ? 

Harvey  Mutch  got  up  and  went  out  of  his  office,  leaving  the 
confidential  Gainty  to  explain  confidentially  to  several  important 
clients  that  the  Pig  was  called  away  suddenly  on  important 
business.  He  drove  to  the  Addison  Club  and  asked  for  Lord 
Bermondsey.  His  Lordship  was  not  in  the  Club.  Was  he  in  town  ? 
The  porter  was  sure  he  was  in  town.  He  had  dined  there  on  Sunday 
evening — with  Mr.  Levinson.  Harvey  Mutch  thanked  the  porter 
with  the  gratitude  of  a  prophet  who  has  just  received  fifty  per  cent, 
in  advance  of  a  realised  prophecy.  Then  he  drove  to  a  City  Club 
and  lunched  with  old  Charles  Levinson.  Old  Charles  knew  a  great 
deal  about  Circe,  and  was  very  ready  to  talk  of  her.  He  remembered 
her  father,  and  had  heard  her  mother  sing  in  Birmingham  in  old 
days.  He  was  a  man  well  versed  in  theatrical  affairs  and  fond  of 
the  theatre,  which  was  outside  the  ring-fence  of  Harvey  Mutch's 
world,  and  he  had  a  high  opinion  of  Miss  England's  ability  and 
character.  He  volunteered  to  his  old  friend  Harvey  the  hope  that 
there  was  nothing  in  the  suggestion  that  Circe  was  to  be  made 
captive  by  some  Ulysses  and  carried  from  the  stage.  At  these 
words  the  remainder  of  the  Pig's  prophecy  fell  in  and  the  prophet 
came  into  his  kingdom.  He  returned  to  his  office  almost  in  a  state 
of  excitement.  He  rang  for  Gainty,  saying  to  himself  with  a  laugh, 
'  I  will  play  my  part  in  their  comedy  and  we  will  all  enjoy  it.' 

Gainty  arriving,  he  asked  him  suddenly  whether  there  was 
anyone  in  the  office  who  was  an  expert  on  theatricals. 

Gainty  regarding  his  master  with  confidential  anxiety,  as  if  he 

51—2 


804  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG 

were  suffering  from  incipient  brain  trouble,  mentioned  young  Mr. 
Villiers,  one  of  the  articled  clerks. 

'  Ah  !  Villiers — a  very  nice  boy.  Ask  him  to  come  up.  How 
long  has  he  been  with  us  ?  ' 

'  Eight  or  nine  months,  sir.' 

'  Dear  me.  And  I  have  only  seen  him  twice.  Ask  him  to  step 
up.  I  want  to  have  a  talk  with  him.' 

On  Villiers'  arrival  the  chief  was  most  polite  and  explicit. 
Having  cross-examined  him  on  the  subject  of  theatrical  properties 
he  expressed  a  desire  for  a  bundle  of  theatrical  notes,  hundred  pound 
notes  for  choice,  fifty  of  them.  Villiers  knew  the  place  where  these 
could  be  obtained.  Would  the  chief  like  the  whole  fit  up  with  the 
green  porte-monnaie  in  which  the  rich  uncle  of  melodrama  carries 
the  fortune  inside  the  breast-pocket  of  his  frock  coat  ?  The  chief 
smiled  at  the  suggestion.  '  An  admirable  one  !  ' 

Mr.  Villiers  was  requested  to  carry  out  this  commission  without 
a  word  to  any  man,  and  to  return  with  the  notes  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning. 

The  next  morning  Harvey  Mutch  came  down  to  his  office  in  great 
spirits.  He  had  seen  Lord  Bermondsey  in  the  stalls  at  the  Frivolity, 
and  he  had  been  charmed  with  Circe's  performance,  but  he  was 
more  than  charmed  with  the  simple  way  in  which  the  facts  of  the 
case  fitted  in  to  his  theory.  He  opened  Jameson's  letter,  and,  as  he 
suspected,  Circe  was  ready  and  willing  to  come.  Then  he  sent 
Gainty  to  the  Bank  with  a  letter  to  the  manager,  asking  him  to  bring 
back  Lord  Bermondsey's  pass-book.  At  the  same  time  he  tele- 
graphed for  his  Lordship  to  be  at  the  office  at  twelve  to  meet  Miss 
England  and  settle  the  case. 

Eleven-thirty  came,  and  with  the  stroke  of  the  bell  Circe,  looking 
her  most  beautiful,  entered  the  office,  with  the  attendant  Jameson 
and  the  faithful  Wegg  waddling  stiffly  after  her. 

The  Pig  met  Circe  with  smiling  courtesy.  She  looked  at  him 
with  grave  interest.  True  that  in  profile  the  fat  cheeks  and  pink 
complexion  and  curious  nose  suggested  the  nickname,  but  so  kindly 
was  his  smile  that  Circe  found  herself  making  a  mental  note  that  it 
is  unfair  to  judge  people  by  profiles.  Wegg,  having  sniffed  at  the 
lower  shelves  of  the  Law  Reports,  sat  down  opposite  the  Pig  and 
gazed  approval  at  him. 

The  Pig  balanced  his  elbows  on  the  arms  of  his  chair,  and  allowing 
the  tips  of  his  fingers  to  coincide,  gazed  over  them  at  Circe  with 
beaming  satisfaction. 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  805 

'  You  will  understand  from  Mr.  Jameson  that  we  are  ready  to 
settle  this  case.' 

Circe  bowed  and  looked  at  the  carpet. 

'  As  I  am  responsible  for  finding  a  very  large  sum  of  money,  I 
suggested  to  Mr.  Jameson  that  I  should  be  more  satisfied  in  doing  so 
if  you  would  kindly  grant  me  an  interview.' 

'  That  is  what  I  explained  to  Miss  England,'  said  Mr.  Jameson 
from  his  chair  in  the  window. 

'  I  shall  not  detain  you  for  more  than  a  few  minutes,'  continued 
the  Pig  in  his  sleekest  manner,  '  and  if  you  prefer  not  to  answer  any 
questions  I  put  to  you  of  course  you  are  more  than  within  your 
rights.' 

'  I  will  very  willingly  tell  you  anything,  sir,  that  you  wish  to 
know.' 

Circe  felt  ashamed  of  Alec's  great  idea.  The  deception  of  so 
mild  and  gullible  an  old  gentleman  was  hardly  sport.  Moreover, 
she  had  a  Circe  instinct  that  had  she  met  the  Pig  earlier  he  wo  aid, 
like  the  rest  of  mankind,  have  done  her  bidding. 

'  This  is  a  sad  incident  in  your  life,  my  dear  lady,'  said  the  Pig 
in  a  tone  of  parental  melancholy. 

Circe  picked  up  her  cue  and,  remembering  that  it  was  a  sad 
incident,  raised  her  handkerchief  daintily  beneath  her  veil  and 
sighed. 

The  Pig  desired  to  applaud  this  pretty  piece  of  business,  but  he 
too  remembered  that  he  was  before  the  footlights,  and  asked  in  a 
tone  of  respectful  sympathy,  '  How  long  have  you  been  engaged  to 
Lord  Bermondsey  ? ' 

'  About  six  months,'  replied  Circe. 

'  Dear  me.  Six  months.  And  during  that  time  did  he  ever 
suggest  that  the  marriage  should  take  place  ? ' 

'  Very  often.' 

'  No  doubt  money  matters  and  his  Lordship's  position  and  my 
trusteeship  were  the  obstacles  suggested.' 

'  Yes,  indeed,  sir,'  said  Circe,  somewhat  too  eagerly. 

'  And  your  parents  raised  no  objections  ? ' 

'  My  father  is  dead,  but  my  mother  was  of  course  charmed  with 
Alec,  who  was  most  kind  to  her.' 

'  Still  Alec,'  thought  the  Pig,  carefully  stopping  out  a  twinkle 
in  his  left  eye.  '  Still  Alec.'  But  all  he  said  was,  '  Go  on,  my  dear 
young  lady.  Tell  me  all  about  it.  It  will  make  my  task  much 
ler.' 


806  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG. 

And  Circe  with  so  benevolent  a  listener  told  the  Pig  all  about  her 
early  struggles  on  the  stage,  and  how  she  had  made  a  peaceful  home 
for  her  mother  and  herself,  and  how  she  had  first  met  Alec,  and  what 
they  had  been  to  each  other,  and  he  sat  listening  and  smiling  over 
the  tips  of  his  fingers,  until  she  suddenly  remembered  that  she  was 
playing  a  part,  and  broke  off  with  a  theatrical  sigh,  saying,  *  Alas !  it 
is  all  over.' 

'  Quite  so,  quite  so  !  '  said  the  sympathetic  Pig.  '  But  why  did 
Lord  Bermondsey  break  it  off,  and  when  ?  ' 

Circe  hesitated.  It  was  now  that  she  felt  that  it  was  one  thing 
to  play  a  part  that  an  author  has  thought  out  and  written,  and  quite 
another  to  improvise  an  unrehearsed  scene.  The  harmless,  neces- 
sary dramatic  author  for  whom  hitherto  she  had  felt  and  freely 
expressed  such  divine  contempt  was  suddenly  revealed  to  her  as 
more  necessary  than  harmless.  The  part  she  could  act,  but  she  had 
no  words.  She  fell  back  on  a  tame  subterfuge.  '  I  had  rather  say 
nothing  about  that,'  and  she  made  business  with  the  handkerchief. 

'  Pretty,  but  not  effective,'  was  the  Pig's  unmoved  criticism. 
'  I  can  see,'  he  said  aloud,  '  that  Lord  Bermondsey  has  behaved 
badly  to  you ' — she  started — '  very  badly,'  he  added,  with 
exaggerated  emphasis. 

'  I  am  not  here  to  blame  Alec — Lord  Bermondsey.' 

'  And  I  am  not  here,  madam,'  continued  the  Pig,  raising  his  voice, 
'  to  defend  him.  I  admit  freely  that  he  has  treated  you  and  your 
mother  shamefully,  contemptibly.  I  have  a  very  low  opinion  of  his 
Lordship.' 

Circe  looked  uncomfortably  at  the  carpet,  and  Wegg  gave  a 
short  bark  as'if  to  say,  '  I  agree,  and  for  the  same  reasons.' 

The  office-boy  came  in  and  silently  put  a  piece  of  paper  with 
a  name  upon  it  before  the  chief.  He  let  it  fall  carelessly  on  the 
table  so  that  Circe  could  not  but  see  Alec's  name.  She  was  deeply 
agitated.  It  all  seemed  so  unfair  to  the  poor  old  gentleman.  But 
she  determined  to  see  it  through. 

'  There  is  no  need,'  he  continued,  '  for  any  further  delay. 
Although  you  have  not  told  me  in  so  many  words,  madam,  that 
your  engagement  is  broken  off,  I  gather  that  I  am  to  take  it  that 
that  is  so.' 

Circe  bowed  assent,  wondering  in  her  own  mind  if  lawyers  were 
all  such  easy  prey  as  this  one. 

The  Pig  rose  from  the  table,  and,  pulling  out  a  wide  green 
pocket-book  from  an  inner  pocket,  handed  it  across  the  table  to 


CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG.  807 

Circe.  '  There,  madam,  is  five  thousand  pounds,  the  price  of  my 
client's  villainy.' 

To  Circe  this  sounded  absolutely  and  terribly  real,  but  to  Mr. 
Jameson  it  sounded  as  if  Harvey  Mutch  had  really  gone  quite  off 
his  head.  He  rose  from  his  chair. 

'  I  will  count  the  notes,'  he  said,  '  if  you  desire  to  pay  my  client 
in  this  unusual  fashion,  and  give  you  a  receipt.' 

'  By  all  means,  Jameson,'  said  Harvey  Mutch,  crossing  to  the 
fireplace  to  ring  a  bell. 

Jameson  took  the  suspicious-looking  porte-monnaie  and  opened 
it  in  haste.  He  picked  out  note  after  note  and  threw  them  on  the 
table. 

'  What  on  earth  is  the  meaning  of  this,  Mr.  Mutch  ?  Why  do 
you  hand  my  client  this  trash  ?  These  are  not  even  forged  notes, 
they  are  theatrical  tissue  paper.  Are  you  mad  ? ' 

And  he  might  have  been.  For  he  stood  at  the  fireplace  grinning 
joyfully,  his  head  in  the  air,  thoroughly  enjoying  the  scene  of  their 
amazement.  And  as  he  took  the  centre  of  their  little  stage,  enter 
Lord  Bermondsey,  L.C.,  and  '  stops  at  door  as  if  in  surprise  ' — as 
they  say  in  stage  directions. 

'  My  dear  Jameson,'  said  Harvey  Mutch  in  a  kindly  tone,  '  you 
are  a  very  clever  young  man  and  an  excellent  solicitor,  but  this  case 
was  a  little  outside  the  ordinary  lines,  and  you  came  here  to-day, 
not  to  settle  a  piece  of  litigation,  but  to  take  a  very  small  part  in  a 
very  small  comedy.  These  notes  came  from  Covent  Garden.  They 
have  relieved  many  a  distressed  hero,  no  doubt.  And  as  there  was 
no  breach  of  promise,  except  in  a  theatrical  sense,  the  way  to  settle 
it  was  with  theatrical  notes.  What  happened  was  this.  These 
young  people  wanted  to  get  married.  They  thought  I  should  refuse 
the  money  necessary  for  married  happiness,  and  they  hit  on  the 
expedient  of  a  bogus  breach  of  promise  action  to  be  settled  by  a 
payment  of  five  thousand  pounds,  which  I  should  otherwise  have 
refused  to  advance.  That's  right,  isn't  it  ?  ' 

Alec  and  Circe  looked  at  each  other  to  see  which  of  them  had 
told. 

'  No,  no,'  continued  the  Pig.  '  No  one  told,  or  rather  everyone 
told.  It  was  all  on  the  surface.  Why,  I  wager  that  old  bull-dog 
knew  all  about  it.' 

Wegg  smiled  from  ear  to  ear,  and  nodded  his  head  until  his  collar 
rattled  again.  Of  course  he  knew.  Was  he  not  of  their  party  when 
they  drove  home  from  Wimbledon  and  the  plot  was  hatched  ? 


808  CIRCE   AND   THE   PIG. 

1  But  all's  well  that  ends  well,'  said  the  Pig  smiling.  '  My  Lord, 
I  congratulate  you  on  your  choice.  Miss  England  has  already  for- 
given me  my  little  part  in  her  comedy.  Your  Lordship  will  find  in 
your  pass-book  five  thousand  pounds  have  been  placed  to  your 
credit.  They  both  mentioned  that  figure,  eh,  Jameson  ?  My  dear,' 
he  continued,  going  towards  Circe,  '  may  you  be  very  happy.  I 
daresay  you  have  heard  my  nickname  ' — Circe  blushed — '  oh  yes, 
I  know  it.  My  office  boy  has  a  careless  tongue  and  a  voice  that 
carries.  But  you  too  have  a  nickname  not  unknown.  I  want  you 
to  ask  this  young  man  of  yours  one  thing.  Granted  I  am  all  he 
believes,  could  not  he  trust  your  winning  ways  to  turn  me  from  my 
brutish  ways  ?  Or  was  he  jealous  of  the  old  man,  eh  ?  Come, 
Jameson,  let  us  pull  down  the  curtain.  The  dog  will  chaperone 
you  two  for  a  moment,  I  doubt  not,  whilst  we  go  and  settle  a  little 
matter  of  costs.' 

'  Why,  really,  as  to  that,  you  know '  began  Jameson. 

4  Nonsense,'  said  Harvey  Mutch,  taking  him  by  the  arm  and 
carrying  him  out  of  the  room.  '  Let  the  young  folk  pay  for  their 
folly.  Costs  you  shall  have.  Taxed  costs.  Taxed  by  Master 
Cupid,  eh  ? ' 

And  as  the  door  closed  Circe  threw  her  arms  round  Alec's  neck, 
saying,  '  How  could  you,  Alec  ?     The  Pig  is  an  old  darling.' 
And  Wegg  howled  a  joyful  epithalamium  of  his  own. 

EDWARD  A.  PARRY. 


809 


LIBERIA   AND    THE  POWERS. 

THE  active  interest  recently  evoked  in  the  United  States  in  favour 
of  the  American  negroes  and  their  descendants  who,  under  the 
designation  of  '  Liberians,'  exercise  in  theory  political  jurisdiction 
over  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  West  African  coast-line  and 
forty-three  thousand  square  miles  of  West  African  territory,  offers 
an  excellent  opportunity  of  adjusting  on  common-sense  lines  a 
problem  which  the  mutual  suspicions  of  the  European  Powers 
and  a  natural  but  somewhat  one-sided  sympathy  with  the  in- 
struments of  a  chimerical  idea  have  served  to  keep  open  to  the 
detriment  of  the  native  races. 

The  word  '  Liberia '  implies,  in  popular  imagination,  a  homo- 
geneous State,  populated  by  the  Liberians,  these  Liberians  being 
American  negroes  ;  and  outside  special  circles  that  is  the  impression 
which  prevails  in  the  mind  of  the  average  man  when  he  sees  Liberia 
mentioned  in  the  newspapers.  But  this  is  altogether  foreign  to  the 
facts.  Liberia  is  not  a  homogeneous  State  in  any  sense  of  the 
word.  It  is  not  a  State  at  all.  It  is  a  mere  name,  a  name  con- 
ferred upon  a  portion  of  West  Africa  inhabited  by  some  two  million 
aboriginal  natives  of  the  most  varied  type,  from  the  Mohammedan 
Mandingo  aux  fines  attaches  to  the  muscular  Pagan  Kru,  which 
various  Powers  have  recognised  (more  or  less)  to  be  within  the 
sphere  of  influence  of  some  twelve  thousand  American  negroes 
and  their  descendants. 

The  original  stock  comprising  these  American  negroes  was 
dumped  down  upon  the  West  Coast  some  ninety  years  ago,  and  was 
increased  from  time  to  time  by  other  shipments.  The  ideas  govern- 
ing the  step  were  various.  Philanthropists  in  America  and  in 
England  were  persuaded  that  the  American  black  man  was  capable, 
notwithstanding  the  denationalising  tendencies  inseparable  from 
several  centuries  of  severance  from  his  natural  surroundings,  of 
accommodating  himself  to  the  conditions  of  his  country  of  origin 
as  though  nothing  had  happened  in  the  interval.  Upon  this 
primary  error  was  grafted  another,  equally  fundamental  and  so 
persevering  as  still  to  obtain — viz.,  that  African  political,  social 
and  economic  customs  can  be  remodelled  upon  a  basis  of 
North  American  political,  social  and  economic  institutions.  A 


810  LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS. 

considerable  body  of  opinion  in  the  States,  both  among  Whites  and 
Blacks,  welcomed  the  experiment,  the  former  because  they  wished 
to  get  rid  of  the  latter,  the  latter  because  they  imagined  they 
could  improve  their  status  by  emigration.  The  philanthropists 
thought  they  were  providing  the  negro  with  a  chance  of  proving 
his  capacity  for  self-government,  and  to  this  day  the  failure  of  the 
experiment  is,  absurdly  enough,  set  down  as  conclusively  establishing 
how  deficient  in  statecraft  is  the  negro  race.  For  failed  it  has, 
as  it  was  bound  to  do. 

It  suits  the  interested  Powers — England,  France  and  Germany 
— to  keep  up  the  simulachre  of  a  Liberian  Republic  to  which  they 
have  granted  recognition,  and  to  treat  with  President  Arthur 
Barclay  as  though  that  able  and,  I  believe,  thoroughly  upright  man 
(in  which  qualifications  he  stands  head  and  shoulders  above  his 
compatriots)  were,  in  reality,  the  head  of  an  African  State.  Official 
England  wishes,  as  usual,  to  prevent  Germany  from  increasing  her 
possessions  in  Africa  or  elsewhere ;  would  greatly  dislike  that 
Power  to  found  a  coaling  depot  at  Monrovia,1  and  is,  quite  naturally, 
anxious  that  the  magnificent  and  only  supply  of  voluntarily  ex- 
portable labour  in  West  Africa  provided  by  the  Kru  tribes  of  the 
coast-line  should  not  become  the  monopoly  of  any  of  her  commercial 
rivals.  France,  whose  possessions  surround  Liberia  on  all  sides 
save  the  sea-board  and  north-west  corner,  and  who  in  recent  years 
has  constantly  encroached  upon  the  Republic's  boundaries,  would 
willingly  annex  the  whole  territory  if  she  were  allowed ;  and  so, 
doubtless,  would  Germany  under  similar  conditions  of  toleration. 
But  all  three  Powers,  watching  with  suspicion  the  movements  of  the 
others,  and  pursuing  with  varying  degrees  of  success  their  intrigues 
at  Monrovia,  now  with  the  Executive  and  now  with  the  Legislature, 
agree  in  loudly  proclaiming  their  attachment  to  the  '  independence 
of  the  Republic.'  While  France's  ambitions  are  mainly  political 
and  '  Imperial,'  both  England  and  Germany  have  important  com- 
mercial concerns  at  stake  in  the  country,  and  between  them  a  per- 
petual obscure  warfare  is  relentlessly  waged.  They  also  agree  in 
one  thing  alone,  i.e.  in  using  for  their  own  ends — perfectly  legiti- 
mate ends  I  hasten  to  add — the  professional  Liberian  politician, 
in  playing  off  the  Executive  against  the  Legislature  and  vice  versa, 
and,  like  their  Governments,  outbidding  one  another  in  tender 
regard  for  the  '  independence  of  the  Republic,'  to  the  refrain  of 
'  Codlin's  your  friend,  not  Short.' 

1  The  capital  of  Liberia. 


LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS.  811 

In  the  midst  of  this  turmoil  of  conflicting  interests,  a  handful  of 
American  negroes,  inflated  with  the  exaggerated  notion  of  their 
own  importance  which  it  has  been  the  policy  of  the  Powers  to 
foster  for  their  own  purposes  ;  deeply  suspicious  of  Europeans  ; 
utterly  incapable  of  imposing  their  authority  upon  the  aborigina 
population  who  do  not  acknowledge  them  ;  possessing  neither  ad- 
ministrators nor  soldiers  ;  corrupt  and  incompetent  (for  which 
others  are  more  blameworthy  than  themselves),  play  their  foolish 
little  farce  of  self-government  on  non-African  lines,  with  their 
Cabinet,  Senate,  and  House  of  Representatives,  indulge  in  their 
wretched  little  disputes,  their  elections,  their  religious  bickerings, 
their  theological  disquisitions  ;  existing  at  all,  not  by  merit  of 
their  own  labours  or  by  the  fruits  of  their  own  toil,  but  by  customs 
dues  levied  upon  trade  between  the  Europeans  and  the  aborigines, 
enforced  often  enough  by  the  raids  of  an  undisciplined  militia  or  by 
the  operation  of  a  solitary  gunboat  which  British  philanthropy 
supplies  them  with,  and  renews  at  intervals — when  the  weight  of 
accumulated  barnacles  upon  an  unscraped  bottom,  and  rusty 
engines,  have  combined  to  put  each  successive  gift  out  of  action. 
The  picture  is  at  once  ludicrous  and  pathetic,  involves  the  utmost 
discredit  to  the  Powers  who  have  tolerated  it  so  long,  is  unfair  to 
the  Liberians  themselves,  gravely  unjust  to  the  aboriginal  popula- 
tion, and  a  bar  to  all  possibility  of  progressive  advance  on  their 
part. 

There  are,  therefore,  two  problems  involved :  the  problem  of 
what  to  do  with  the  American  negroes  and  their  descendants, 
mainly  confined  to  parts  of  the  coast ;  and  of  how  to  determine  the 
future  government  of  the  two  million  aborigines  and  the  extensive 
country  they  inhabit.  A  really  active  policy,  based  upon  persist- 
ence in  treating  these  two  distinct  problems  as  a  single  one,  cannot 
fail  to  be  attended  with  results  even  more  pernicious  than  in  the 
past. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  general  situation  as  it  affects  the  Liberians, 
—i.e.  the  American  negroes,  or  rather  mulattoes,  for  most  of  the 
politicians  who  rule  the  roost  are  of  mixed  blood — and  as  they  affect 
the  situation.  In  the  first  place,  consider  the  utter  folly  of  expecting 
that  a  handful  of  descendants  of  freed  slaves,  originally  torn  from 
every  conceivable  part  of  Western  Africa — Ibos  and  Yorubas, 
Joloffs  from  Senegal,  Bacongos  from  the  Lower  Congo,  and  so  forth — 
divorced  from  African  customs  and  climatic  resisting-power  by 
centuries  of  residence  and  servitude  under  White  rule  in  far  distant 


812  LIBERIA   AND   THE    POWERS. 

temperate  or  semi-temperate  zones,  having  not  only  completely 
lost  touch  with  African  ideas  and  become  impregnated  with  alien 
notions,  but,  through  their  transmutations  including  the  infusion 
of  White  blood,  having  virtually  lost  their  racial  identity,  can  by 
any  conceivable  possibility  evolve  in  any  inhabited  part  of  Africa 
an  African  State,  or  be  capable  of  maintaining  law  and  order 
among  indigenous  communities  numbering  two  million  souls.  And 
having  realised  the  magnitude  of  so  preposterous  a  belief,  graft 
upon  it  the  additional  absurdity  of  expecting  that  this  autonomous 
African  State  can  be  (without  resources — this  by  the  way)  framed 
out  of  the  political  and  social  machinery  which  the  White  race  has 
created  for  its  own  needs,  as  though  the  needs  of  Europe  or  of 
North  America  were  on  all  fours  with  those  of  tropical  Africa. 
Patriarchal  rule,  communal  ownership  in  land,  co-operative 
labour ;  to  be  replaced,  forsooth,  by  a  Republic  founded  upon 
White-man  made  laws,  individual  tenure  and  hired  labour — and 
this  revolution  to  be  wrought  by  so  impossible  a  medium  under 
such  impossible  conditions  !  It  is  sad  to  be  compelled  to  say  it, 
but  African  philanthropy  of  the  past  century,  with  so  great 
a  balance  to  its  credit  as  a  destructive  force,  has,  as  a  con- 
structive force,  committed  appalling  miscalculations.  The  case 
of  Liberia  is  one  in  point.  Far  graver,  of  course,  is  the  case  of 
the  Congo. 

An  edifice  reared  upon  such  rotten  foundations  could  not  stand, 
and  but  for  the  knowledge  that  behind  the  frock-coated  mulatto 
lay  the  guns  of  Europe,  the  native  tribes  would  long  ago  have 
swept  the  Liberians  into  the  sea.  The  whole  idea  is  unscientific. 
All  that  the  Liberians  can  be  reasonably  called  upon  to  do  is  to 
govern  and  maintain  themselves.  They  cannot  be  blamed  for 
having  failed  to  govern  a  country  as  large  as  Scotland  and  Belgium, 
in  the  vast  bulk  of  which,  after  sixty  years  of '  independence,'  none 
of  them  have  ever  set  foot.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  protecting  Powers, 
and  above  all  that  of  the  United  States,  which  placed  them,  or 
acquiesced  in  their  being  placed,  in  so  hopeless  a  position,  to  relieve 
them  of  a  task  quite  beyond  their  powers.  If  such  action  is  required 
of  the  Powers  in  regard  to  the  Liberians  themselves,  their  respon- 
sibility is  equally  great  towards  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  this 
part  of  West  Africa.  It  is  of  them  and  their  interests  that  I  would 
speak. 

Sympathy  with  the  American  negroes  is  legitimate  and  natural. 
Like  most  human  beings,  they  have  excellent  traits.  But  is  not 


LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS.  813 

a  measure  of  regard  also  due  to  the  aboriginal  peoples  ?  They 
are  infinitely  more  numerous.  Anthropologically,  at  any  rate, 
they  are  a  good  deal  more  interesting.  The  role  of  some  of  them 
is  an  inestimable  one  in  West  African  economy.  Yet  they  suffer 
both  directly  and  indirectly  from  the  present  state  of  affairs. 
This  cannot  truthfully  be  denied.  Yet  never  a  word  is  heard  on 
their  behalf,  and  they  have  no  means  of  putting  their  views  before 
the  world,  whereas  the  Liberians  have  powerful  apologists  and 
defenders  in  both  hemispheres — not  always  disinterested  perhaps. 
But  of  this  the  general  public  is  naturally  unaware,  and  it  is 
far  easier  to  evoke  a  tenderness  of  sentiment  for  '  poor  little 
struggling  Liberia  '  in  the  popular  mind,  to  which  Liberia  pre- 
sents itself  in  the  manner  I  have  indicated,  than  to  obtain  a 
hearing  for  the  just  rights,  actual  and  potential,  of  the  indigenous 
tribes. 

Take  the  case  of  the  Krus,  with  whom  the  American  blacks  and 
mulattoes  are  perpetually  at  loggerheads.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  the  character  of  the  Kru-boy's  services  to  every 
form  of  business  activity  on  the  West  Coast.  You  will  find  him  at 
work  on  almost  every  trading  station  from  the  Gambia  to  Fernando 
Po,  the  Congo  excepted.  When  it  is  suggested  to  a  Kru-boy  who 
has  clambered  up  the  side  of  a  West  African  steamer  at  anchor 
off  his  town,  and  stands  on  deck  wet  and  glistening  with  the  spray 
of  the  surf,  the  magnificent  muscles  of  chest  and  arm  swelling 
out  beneath  his  velvet  skin,  that  he  should  go  to  the  Congo,  he 
does  not  wait  to  hear  more,  but  promptly  takes  a  header  overboard, 
sharks  or  no  sharks.  But  if  the  proposed  destination  is  anywhere 
but  Congo,  he  is  '  on  time.'  It  is  hard  to  say  what  the  European 
steamers  engaged  in  the  West  African  trade  would  do  without  the 
Kru-boy,  both  above  and  below  decks,  and  many  a  Jack-Tar  on  the 
Cape  Squadron  hails  from  '  We  Country.'  l  But  the  indebtedness  of 
Europeans  to  the  Krus  is  far  more  comprehensive,  and  goes  much 
farther  back. 

Born  traders,  from  the  sixteenth  century  downwards  they  have 
been  among  the  most  active  commercial  clients  of  Europe  on  the 
West  Coast,  and  they  have  treated  Europeans  well,  in  days  when 
the  white  pioneers  of  trade — human,  vegetable  and  mineral ! — 
were  practically  at  the  mercy  of  the  African  native.  Their  reputa- 
tion for  courtesy  and  industry  is  recorded  by  nearly  all  the  old 
authors,  and  when  they  departed  from  that  rule  there  was  usually 
1  As  the  Krus  call  their  home  in  pigeon- English. 


814  LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS. 

good  cause.     Barbot,  writing  of  the  Cape  Mesurado  (Monrovia) 
people  early  in  the  eighteenth  century,1  says  : 

What  I  have  said  of  their  ill-nature  .  .  .  must  not,  however,  be  understood 
to  extend  to  all  foreigners,  but  only  to  those  of  the  same  nation  from  whom  they 
have  been  injured  ;  for  to  others  who  have  had  no  broils  with  them  they  are  civil 
and  kind  enough.  .  .  .  For  it  is  too  well  known  that  many  of  the  European 
nations  trading  amongst  these  people  have  very  unjustly  and  inhumanely,  without 
any  provocation,  stolen  away  from  time  to  time  abundance  of  the  people,  when 
they  came  aboard  their  ships  in  a  harmless  and  confiding  manner,  carried  great 
numbers  away  to  the  plantations,  and  there  sold  them  with  the  other  slaves  they 
had  purchased  for  their  goods. 

It  would  be  well  if  Europeans  of  the  present  generation  who 
discourse  so  glibly  of  the  '  barbarity  '  of  the  African  native  were 
sometimes  to  cast  their  minds  backwards. 

When  the  American  strangers  came  amongst  them,  the  Kru 
tribes  were  naturally  determined  to  retain,  unfettered  and  un- 
impaired, their  ancient  trading  relations  with  the  outer  world,  and 
it  was  only  on  these  conditions  that  they  ultimately  consented  to 
recognise  the  political  jurisdiction  of  the  newcomers.  But  no 
sooner  did  the  Liberians  feel  themselves  internationally  secure 
than,  driven  by  the  paucity  of  their  exchequer  and  a  fancy  to 
better  their  own  position  at  the  expense  of  the  mere  *  bush-nigger,' 
they  began  to  interfere  with  the  Kru  trade  and  to  enforce  their 
will  by  means  of  one  of  the  famous  gunboats  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken.  They  have  been  doing  so  ever  since.  The  Krus 
nearest  the  British  frontier  have  repeatedly  called  upon  the  autho- 
rities of  Sierra  Leone  for  protection,  and  numerous  have  been  the 
remonstrances  made  to  the  Monrovia  Executive.  In  1853  the 
British  Consul  at  that  place  brought  the  grievances  of  the  Krus  to 
the  notice  of  the  Sierra  Leone  Government.  In  1864=  the  Monrovia 
Executive  passed  a  port  of  entry  law  shutting  out  several  of  the 
Kru  tribes  from  access  to  foreigners.  This  action  gave  rise  to 
renewed  representations.  Shortly  afterwards  the  Gallina  tribe 
at  Cape  Mount  was  subjected  to  raids  by  Liberian  militia,  and 
appealed  to  the  British  authorities  for  protection.  In  1870  the 
Governor  of  Sierra  Leone,  Sir  Arthur  Kennedy,  was  sent  to  Mon- 
rovia to  admonish  the  Liberians  of  the  injustice  of  their  proceed- 
ings against  the  Krus.  For  a  number  of  years  we  do  not  seem  to 
have  kept  a  Consul  at  Monrovia ;  but  last  year  Captain  Wallis,  the 
British  Consul-General,  was  compelled  to  address  a  vigorous  remon- 
strance to  the  President  in  connection  with  a  scandalous  Resolution 
passed  by  the  Legislature.  A  short  time  previously  the  Greboes  had 

1  1732. 


LIBERIA  AND   THE   POWERS.  815 

hoisted  the  British  flag  and  threatened  a  descent  upon  Monrovia. 
The  aforesaid  Resolution,  passed  'by  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  of  the  Republic  of  Liberia  in  Legislature  assembled,' 
is  thoroughly  characteristic  :  '  Whereas '  (it  opens)  « the  Grand  Cess 
tribe  has  assumed  a  rebellious  attitude  against  the  Republic.  And 
whereas  pacific  means  employed  by  Government  to  induce  said 
tribe  to  yield  obedience  to  the  Majesty  of  our  laws  have  failed.  .  .  .' 

The  Resolution  goes  on  to  provide  that  the  gunboat  Lark  shall 
proceed  to  Grand  Cess  to  exact  a  fine  of  no  less  than  six  thousand 
dollars,  payable  in  cash,  as  '  punishment  for  the  disloyalty  of  said 
tribe  towards  Government.'  If  the  fine  is  not  paid  within  ten  days, 
the  commander  of  the  gunboat  is  instructed  to  '  chastise  the  tribe 
by  means  of  bombardment  and  demolishing  their  towns  and  cutting 
off  all  communications,  egress  and  ingress  from  the  said  town.' 

The  Lark  is,  thereafter,  ordered  to  Sasstown  and  Garraway 
on  similar  errands  connected  with  '  the  Majesty  of  our  laws ' — 
Garraway  to  be  fined  three  hundred  and  sixty  dollars  '  for  a  refusal 
to  comply  with  the  Customs  laws.'  Section  6  of  the  Resolution 
calls  for  the  enforcement  of  a  '  Navy  tax  law  '  from  the  tribes. 
After  thirty  days'  notice  the  '  Commissioner '  is  to  start  collecting  it, 
'  using  pacific  means ' ;  if  payment  is  refused  the  inevitable  gunboat 
is  to  be  requisitioned — '  in  such  cases  he  (the  Commissioner)  shall 
request  the  aid  of  the  commander  of  the  said  gunboat.' l 

Thus  does  the  American  mulatto  preach  the  gospel  of  love  (to 
which  he  incessantly  appeals)  to  the  unsophisticated  West  African. 
There  would  still  seem  to  be  some  truth  in  the  remarks  made  to 
an  acquaintance  of  mine  twenty-five  years  ago  at  Monrovia  by 
the  commander  of  a  United  States  battleship  then  at  anchor  in 
front  of  that  town.  *  This  Republic,'  he  said,  '  is  a  conspiracy 
against  Africa  and  a  despotic  power  over  the  aborigines.'  For  my 
part  I  confess  it  appears  to  me  perfectly  intolerable  that  the  British 
Government  should  supply  gunboats  to  these  American  blacks 
with  which  to  extort  fines  and  taxes  from  African  tribes  who  owe 
them  no  allegiance,  and  to  destroy  their  towns  if  they  object  to  pay. 

Sir  Harry  Johnston,  whose  business  connections  with  the  Mon- 
rovia Executive  are  known,  and  who,  I  am  persuaded,  is  striving 
amid  many  difficulties  to  do  his  best  both  for  the  country  and  for 
the  shareholders  of  the  Liberian  Development  Company,  refers 
in  his  book  to  the  perennial  conflicts  between  the  Liberians  and 
the  Krus  as  being  due  to  the  attempts  of  the  former  to  '  maintain 

1  The  protest  of  the  British  Consul-General  was,  I  believe,  effectual—  for  the  time 
being. 


816  LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS. 

law  and  order  within  the  Kru  country,  to  prevent  pillage  of  wrecked 
ships  .  .  .  and  to  assert  their  authority.'  A  curious  form  of  law 
and  order  !  Only  last  month  there  were  renewed  disturbances, 
of  which  the  chief  contributory  cause,  apart  from  the  heinous 
crime  committed  by  the  natives  of  trading  with  their  brethren 
on  the  left  (i.e.  the  French)  bank  of  the  Cavally,  was  a  raid  by 
Liberian  militia,  in  the  course  of  which  they  outraged  and  flogged  the 
wives  of  a  native  chief.  I  do  not  defend  the  Kras  for  pillaging 
wrecked  ships,  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  salvage  on  that  surf- 
beaten  shore  is  almost  an  impossibility.  It  is  quite  as  reprehensible 
as  similar  practices  which  used  to  be  carried  on,  not  so  very  long 
ago,  by  the  fishing  population  of  the  Cornish  coast  with  a  good 
deal  more  '  civilisation  '  behind  them  than  the  Kru.  Nor  do  I 
defend  the  action  of  captains  of  British  and  other  steamers  in  plying 
a  trade  in  guns  and  spirits  with  the  Krus,  although  it  is  difficult 
to  censure  the  Krus  under  existing  circumstances  from  buying 
all  the  firearms  they  can  and  where  they  can.  But  the  fact  that 
these  things  happen  along  the  coast,  and  that  in  the  interior  the 
frontiers  of  Liberia's  neighbours  are  in  a  perpetual  state  of  unrest 
and  turmoil,  necessitating,  upon  occasion,  the  use  of  armed  force, 
are  so  many  additional  arguments  against  a  continuance  of  the 
existing  parody  of  government  in  this  portion  of  Western  Africa. 

The  Kru-boy's  grievance  is  undoubted.  For  him  '  the  Majesty 
of  our  laws '  disguises  a  predatory  force  which  he  despises  and  resents. 
His  immemorial  trading  rights  are  hampered  and  restricted  without 
an  alternative  compensation  of  any  kind.  It  is  in  the  highest 
degree  unlikely  that,  enlisting  voluntarily  as  he  does  in  the  service 
of  Europeans  wherever  he  is  assured  of  fair  treatment,  he  would 
object  to  render  tribute  to  a  just  protecting  Power  from  which  he 
could  obtain  some  quid  pro  quo  in  exchange.  He  is  also  expected 
to  pay  sundry  taxes,  including  taxes  upon  his  earnings  when  he 
hires  himself  out  for  labour  in  distant  parts,  and  he  is  heavily  fined 
if  he  declines,  with  the  prospect  of  seeing  his  home  bombarded  or 
raided  if  he  proves  contumacious.  And  what  earthly  advantage 
does  he  derive  if  he  submits  to  be  taxed  ?  Absolutely  none.  He 
might  as  lief  fling  his  dollars  into  the  sea.  None  of  the  money  he 
pays  out  ever  returns  to  him  in  any  shape  or  form.  It  either  goes 
into  the  pockets  of  the  Senators,  Congressmen,  '  Generals  '  and 
'  Captains  '  at  Monrovia,  or  serves  to  purchase  modern  rifles  and 
ammunition  and  canister  to  be  used  against  himself.  The  Kru-boy 
is  not  an  angel,  but  it  may  be  asserted  without  fear  of  contradiction 
that  he  is  a  far  more  useful  member  of  society  than  the  Liberian, 


LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS.  817 

and  invaluable  for  the  commercial  development  of  the  country  upon 
which  the  latter  is  merely  a  parasite.  We  hear  a  good  deal  about 
the  difficulties  of  the  Liberians.  It  is  time  civilisation  considered 
the  grievances  of  the  Krus. 

If  affairs  on  the  coast  are  eminently  unsatisfactory,  in  the 
hinterland,  which  contains  many  fine  tribes,  they  are  chaotic. 
With  open  roads,  proper  policing,  and  confidence  the  trade  of  this 
part  of  Western  Africa,  which  is  very  rich  in  natural  resources, 
would  rapidly  grow  to  large  proportions.  But  there  is  no  policing, 
there  is  no  confidence,  and  the  trade  routes  are  unsafe  for  native 
merchants.  President  Barclay  does  his  best  and  delivers  admirable 
addresses  before  the  Legislature.  Indeed  he  is  not  over-popular 
because  he  inclines  to  reform,  and  reform  in  the  eyes  of  the  Mon- 
rovia politicians  involves  the  suspicion  of  '  selling  the  country  to 
foreigners.'  But  it  is  all  talk,  any  way.  It  is  all  unreal.  The 
President  stands  alone.  He  has  no  men.  The  present  generation 
is  far  more  reactionary  than  the  last.  Moreover,  the  Liberians  proper 
are  dying  out.  They  have  few  children  and  they  suffer  from  the 
climate  almost  as  greatly  as  do  the  Europeans.  The  c  Majesty  of 
our  laws '  not  only  oppresses  the  Coast  tribes  and  is  inoperative 
in  the  interior  except  through  the  agency  of  some  punitive  raid 
not  infrequently  beaten  back  with  loss,  but  it  prevents  (together 
with  the  lack  of  funds)  the  appointment  of  efficient  European 
administrators.  All  the  average  Liberian  official  and  politician 
cares  about  is  to  indulge  in  futile  political  and  religious  discus- 
sions, to  give  vent  to  grandiloquent  oratorical  periods  about  the 
sacredness  of  independence  and  the  redemption  of  the  African 
race  towards  which  he,  apparently,  imagines  himself  to  be  con- 
tributing, maintaining  the  while  his  perquisites  in  the  shape 
of  taxes  upon  the  labour  and  trade  of  the  aboriginal  population 
which  provide  him  with  a  living.  He  is  to  be  pitied  rather  than 
censured,  for  his  overweening  conceit  and  pompous  ineptitude  are 
largely  the  outcome  of  the  fatuity  with  which  he  has  been  treated 
by  the  Powers. 

What,  then,  is  the  solution  ?  If  America,  acting  alone,  or  if 
England,  France  and  Germany  acting  with  her,  can  only  be  per- 
suaded to  treat  the  question  of  the  Liberians  as  one  distinct 
question,  and  the  future  of  the  aboriginal  population  as  another 
distinct  question,  the  outlook  may  become  promising  for  the  in- 
habitants of  this  much  mismanaged  and  neglected  region.  From 
that  point  of  view  the  arrangements  which  the  Powers  may  arrive 

VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  52 


818  LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS. 

at  between  themselves  is  of  secondary  importance,  and  if  pro- 
fessions count  for  anything  the  native  problem  should  be  the 
dominant  issue  in  their  eyes.  The  plan  which  obviously  recom- 
mends itself  must  involve  in  the  first  place  a  frank  recognition,  made 
easier  by  the  increase  in  anthropological  knowledge,  of  the  in- 
contestable truth  :  viz.,  that  the  policy  of  the  last  half-century  has 
broken  down  simply  because  it  is  essentially  unworkable,  the  evolu- 
tion of  an  African  State  out  of  European  institutions  imitated  by 
mulattoes  on  African  soil  being  utterly  fantastic  and  impractic- 
able. That  recognition  would  serve  as  a  basis  for  setting  aside  a 
portion  of  the  country  amply  sufficient  to  provide  on  the  most 
generous  lines  for  the  needs  of,  say,  70,000  Liberians,  having  a 
seaboard  of  twenty-five  miles.  This  area  could  be  called  the 
'  Liberian  Reserve.'  Within  it  the  American  blacks,  and  others 
that  cared  to  join  them  from  the  States,  could  perpetuate,  if  they 
so  desired,  all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  Republican  Government,  and 
rule  themselves  in  their  own  way.  They  should  be  given  security  of 
tenure  under  international  agreement,  subject  only  to  fair  arrange- 
ments with  the  aboriginal  owners  of  the  soil.  Upon  the  United 
States  Government  would  naturally  devolve  the  duty  of  making 
itself  responsible  for  the  protection  of  the  Liberians  and  for  the 
maintenance  of  just  relations  between  them  and  their  aboriginal 
neighbours  inside  the  Reserve.  That  Government  would  guarantee 
to  the  settlement  a  certain  revenue  for  a  period  of  years,  to  be 
expended  in  road  construction,  irrigation,  agricultural  implements — 
all  material  elements,  in  short,  calculated  to  make  the  community 
self-supporting.  It  would  appoint  a  carefully  selected  White 
administrator,  an  official  acquainted  with  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
American  negro,  assisted  by  a  couple  of  trained  experts  in  tropical 
agriculture.  Thus  the  Liberians  would  be  thoroughly  well  provided 
for,  and  if  they  lost  something  of  their  pride  they  would  gain  in 
self-respect.  Generously  and  paternally  assisted,  they  would 
nevertheless  have  it  clearly  brought  home  to  them  that  in  future 
they  must  themselves  labour  for  their  sustenance  and  work  out 
their  own  salvation.  Any  Liberians  wishing  to  establish  them- 
selves as  merchants  or  planters  outside  the  Reserve  would,  of 
course,  be  at  liberty  to  do  so.  The  limits  of  the  Reserve  and 
its  geographical  position  would  be  determined  by  a  Commission 
appointed  by  the  four  Powers. 

The  Reserve  excluded,  the  territory  now  known  as  '  Liberia ' 
would  be  divided  among  the  Powers  and  governed  as  a  Protectorate 
in  the  ordinary  manner,  unless,  indeed,  the  United  States  were 


LIBERIA   AND   THE   POWERS.  819 

themselves  disposed  to  take  over  the  whole.  It  is  improbable  that 
such  a  proposal  would  meet  with  serious  opposition  by  England, 
France  or  Germany,  although  it  might  not  be  exactly  greeted  with 
enthusiasm,  provided  that  freedom  of  commerce  were  guaranteed, 
no  differential  tariffs  set  up,  and  no  monopoly  in  Kru-labour 
created.  Many  people  outside  official  circles  would  cordially 
welcome  the  advent  of  the  United  States  as  an  African  Power.  To 
the  writer  it  would  appeal  as  opening  up  the  most  interesting 
possibilities.  In  the  absence  of  any  such  professed  desire  on  the 
part  of  the  United  States,  the  natural  inheritors  of  the  territory 
would  be  France  and  England,  whose  possessions  run  parallel  with 
it.  France  would  extend  her  Ivory  Coast  and  Western  Sudan 
possessions  to  incorporate  a  portion  of  it  and  England  might  be 
disposed — the  authorities  of  Sierra  Leone  would  favour  the  course 
—to  take  a  further  portion.  Both  Powers,  however,  England  espe- 
cially, would  be  wise  in  making  it  possible  for  Germany  to  par- 
ticipate on  equal  terms  in  the  settlement,  which  would  give  her 
the  chance,  if  it  proved  attractive  in  her  eyes,  to  found  in  this 
section  of  Western  Africa  another  such  small  Protectorate  as 
Togo,  which  she  governs  so  admirably,  and  the  prosperity  of 
whose  inhabitants  she  has  so  materially  increased.  It  would  be 
an  excellent  chance  for  diplomatic  amenities,  thoroughly  justified 
by  Germany's  trade  interests  in  the  country,  which  should  not  be 
allowed  to  pass.  The  natural  boundaries  of  the  aboriginal  tribes 
ought,  of  course,  to  be  taken  as  far  as  possible  into  account  in 
any  arrangement  for  partition  arrived  at. 

E.  D.  MOREL. 

P.S. — Since  the  above  article  was  written,  the  following  cable 
message  has  appeared  in  the  Morning  Post  (May  2)  from  its  in- 
variably well-informed  correspondent  at  Washington,  Mr.  Maurice 
Low : — 

'  An  explanation  of  the  recent  outbreak  in  Liberia  has  been  sent  to  the  State 
Department  by  King  Gyude,  Chief  of  the  Greebos.  [One  of  the  Kru  tribes. — 
E.  D.  M.] 

'  These  people  have  for  many  centuries  lived  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cape 
Palmas,  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  They  revolted,  King  Gyude  alleges,  because 
of  the  oppressive  manner  in  which  they  have  been  treated  by  the  Liberians,  who, 
he  declares,  have  enslaved  the  Greebos,  burned  their  homes,  and  killed  their  youths. 

'  As  the  object  for  which  Liberia  was  colonised  has  not  been  realised,  and  as 
Liberian  domination  does  not  make  for  good  government,  Christianity,  or  civilisa- 
tion, King  Gyude  and  his  chiefs  say  they  are  constrained  to  offer  their  country  to 
some  European  Power,  preferably  England,  whose  methods  of  colonisation  are  less 
onerous.' 

52—2 


820 


WAH-SAH-  YAH-BEN-OQUA.1 

WHEN  Miss  Maitland  made  up  her  mind  to  go  to  her  island  in  the 
middle  of  June,  in  order  to  have  her  cottage  in  readiness  for  the 
influx  of  nephews  and  nieces  expected  by  the  Fourth  of  July,  she 
decided  to  take  with  her  Christina,  the  maidservant  who  had  come 
out  from  Scotland  the  preceding  spring. 

'  She  thinks  we're  all  uncivilised  over  here.  I'll  show  her  the 
real  thing,'  said  the  mistress  to  herself,  having  in  mind  the  log  hut 
upon  the  island  wherein  dwelt  the  family  of  Ojibway  Indians  who 
protected  her  summer  home  from  autumn  marauders.  '  It  is  a  good 
idea,  too,  to  get  Christina  away  from  the  baker,  the  milkman,  and 
all  the  other  men  who  come  about  the  house  in  town.  She's  pretty 
and  she's  homesick,  so  might  easily  be  won.  I  don't  intend  to  have 
her  snapped  up  just  as  soon  as  I  get  her  trained  into  the  ways  of  the 
country.' 

'  Is  all  America  as  flat  as  this  ?  '  Christina  asked  Miss  Maitland 
when  the  two  had  left  the  Grand  Trunk  train  and  were  aboard  the 
steamer  northward  bound  from  Penetanguishene. 

'  Oh  no,  but  there  aren't  any  mountains  about  here,  only  bare 
reefs  and  islands,  thirty  thousand  of  them.' 

'  Indeed ! '  said  Christina,  and  at  once  began  to  count  them. 
She  lost  her  reckoning  completely  as  the  day  wore  on,  for  the 
number  mounted  up  with  bewildering  rapidity.  There  were  all 
sorts  and  sizes  and  shapes  of  islands — smoothly  water- worn,  twisted 
into  grotesque  shapes  by  volcanic  action — some  thickly  wooded, 
others  entirely  bare,  or  carrying  only  grasses  and  shrubs  in  the  cracks. 

'  This  is  the  original  granite,  Christina,'  said  Miss  Maitland, '  the 
first  rock  that  hardened  on  top  of  the  fire  inside  the  earth.  We  are 
at  the  very  oldest  part  of  America.' 

'  It  doesna  look  so  new  as  the  town,'  replied  the  girl  with  a  heart- 
felt sigh.  She  had  been  dreaming  that  this  was  Loch  Katrine  and 
that  behind  the  next  headland  Ben  Lomond  would  surely  come  in 
sight. 

There  was  not  a  sign  of  human  habitation  when  the  steamer 
whistled  four  times. 

1  Copyright,  1910,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  821 

'  That  means  the  captain  is  not  going  into  our  harbour,  but 
expects  a  boat  to  come  out  for  us.  He  might  have  gone  in,'  con- 
tinued Miss  Maitland  testily,  '  considering  he  has  women  to  land, 
but  I  suppose  he's  late,  as  usual.  I  hope  the  Indians  are  on  the 
look-out.' 

Apparently  they  were.  A  row-boat  with  two  men  in  it  rounded 
the  point  of  the  island  just  in  front  and  pulled  far  ahead  of  the 
steamer,  which  slackened  speed  so  as  not  to  sweep  past  them.  One 
of  the  Indians  grasped  the  bow  fender  with  a  boathook  and  held  on, 
while  the  other  received  Miss  Maitland's  hand  baggage  and  then 
Miss  Maitland  herself.  Long  experience  had  made  the  elderly  lady 
an  expert  at  embarking  and  disembarking  between  steamer  and 
row-boat,  but  with  Christina  it  was  different.  She  stood  irresolute 
at  the  gangway,  looking  down  in  abject  terror  at  the  '  sma'  boat,' 
the  like  of  which  she  had  never  ventured  into  in  all  her  four-and- 
twenty  years.  The  stalwart  young  0  jib  way  who  was  holding  up 
an  encouraging  hand  to  her  only  alarmed  her  the  more. 

'  Come,  be  quick,  Christina,'  said  Miss  Maitland  impatiently. 
'  The  captain  won't  wait.' 

'  I  canna,  I'm  so  feared,'  quavered  the  girl. 

'  Where's  our  rope  ladder  ? '  said  the  porter  at  her  back,  but 
the  purser  added  : 

'  There's  really  no  danger,  Miss.  Sit  down  at  the  edge  of  the 
gangway,  if  you  like.  Then  you  can  slip  in  quite  easily.' 

Christina  was  sure  she  would — into  the  water. 

'  Hurry  up  there  ! ' 

The  stentorian  call  from  the  front  of  the  wheelhouse  made  the 
girl  cast  a  hurried  glance  backward  into  the  haven  of  the  lower  deck. 
Why,  oh,  why  had  she  ever  left  the  firm  soil  of  her  ain  countree  ? 
The  smiles  of  stewards  and  deck  hands  fired  her  Scottish  blood.  She 
turned  her  back  upon  them  all  to  look  down  upon  the  fearsome 
North  American  Indian.  He  was  not  laughing  at  her,  that  was 
certain.  His  perfectly  calm  face  so  braced  her  that  she  gave  a  mad 
leap  fairly  into  his  arms.  Joe  was  surprised,  but,  true  to  his  race, 
betrayed  no  emotion.  It  was  not  customary  for  Miss  Maitland's 
nieces  to  disembark  in  that  fashion,  but  neither  was  it  customary 
for  them  to  have  hair  like  burnished  copper,  cheeks  the  colour  of  a 
sunset  sky,  nor  eyes  like  the  dome  above  or  the  water  beneath  upon 
a  sunny  day.  This  lady  did  not  talk  like  the  others  either.  She  had 
a  softer,  lower- toned  voice,  more  nearly  akin  to  his  own.  Joe  wished 
that  his  father,  the  old  man  in  the  bow,  would  not  persist  in  rowing 


822  WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA. 

so  hard.  For  his  own  part  he  would  fain  double  the  distance  to  the 
shore.  Wah-sah-yak-ben-oqua,  that  was  an  appropriate  name  for 
her.  Being  interpreted  it  meant  Daylight.  Perhaps  she  had  come 
like  dawn  to  the  island. 

Christina  was  a  grand  house-cleaner.  Miss  Maitland  had  never 
before  drawn  such  a  prize  in  the  domestic  lottery.  Through  the 
long  June  days,  while  the  tiny  wren  was  chortling  in  his  joy  at  the 
corner  of  the  cottage,  and  the  insistent  egotistical  refrain  '  Phoebe  ! 
Phoebe  !  '  was  ringing  out  near  by,  the  Scotch  lassie  scoured,  swept, 
shook  rugs  and  beat  pillows  with  an  energy  that  amazed  the  solemn 
young  Indian  who  sat  on  the  nearest  boulder  to  watch  her.  But 
he  did  not  rest  content  with  watching.  The  day  after  her  arrival 
he  took  the  beating-stick  out  of  her  hand  to  wield  it  with  a  strength 
born  of  many  winters'  work  in  the  lumber  camps.  That  he  should 
thus  demean  himself  surprised  the  maid  from  Scotland,  where  the 
lords  of  creation  think  it  beneath  their  dignity  to  do  anything 
about  the  house.  Joe's  command  of  English  seemed  limited,  but 
he  came  around  quite  naturally  to  lend  a  hand  in  whatever  she 
was  doing,  from  cleaning  windows  to  mopping  floors.  To  see  a 
swarthy  savage,  who,  judging  by  his  features,  ought  to  be  decked 
out  in  war  paint  and  feathers,  deftly  handling  wire  screens  or 
shouting  through  a  megaphone  was  an  anachronism  which  the 
girl  fully  appreciated.  He  had  his  reward  when  the  first  free 
evening  came. 

'  Take  Christina  out  in  your  canoe,'  said  Miss  Maitland.  '  The 
sooner  she  gets  over  her  fear  of  the  water  the  better.  Show  her 
some  of  the  islands  round  about.' 

To  go  out  in  a  wee  boat,  alone,  with  a  red  Indian,  was  a  terrible 
thought  to  the  lassie.  Joe  noticed  her  faltering  footsteps  as  she 
came  down  the  slanting  rock  towards  him,  but  that  she  should  be 
afraid  of  himself  did  not  enter  his  mind.  None  of  Miss  Maitland's 
other  nieces  ever  had  been.  They  were  accustomed  to  treat  him 
as  if  he  were  scarcely  a  man  at  all,  merely  one  of  the  lower  animals 
whom  they  could  pat  upon  the  back,  metaphorically,  making  use 
of  him  with  scant  ceremony.  He  motioned  Christina  to  put  her 
foot  in  the  centre  of  the  canoe,  her  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  while 
he  held  the  boat  to  the  landing  until  she  was  seated.  Then  he 
paddled  her  off  into  wonderland.  The  setting  sun  claimed  one  half 
of  the  sky,  with  its  violet,  crimson  and  gold,  and  silhouetted  against 
it  were  the  trees  of  intervening  islands,  resting  in  a  red  sea.  The 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  823 

other  half  was  possessed  by  the  cold  pale  moon,  swimming  in  a 
fathomless  sea  of  azure. 

'  What  way  are  all  the  tall  trees  bent  to  the  east  ?  '  she  asked. 

'  West  wind,'  Joe  replied. 

'  What  way  is  there  such  a  wheen  o'  bare  poles  stickin'  up  abune 
the  fresh  green  trees  ?  ' 

'  Bush  fires.' 

But  when  the  girl  proceeded  to  question  him  about  the  curious 
formation  of  the  rocks,  the  Indian  shook  his  head.  Geological  know- 
ledge was  beyond  him,  though  he  knew  where  every  submerged  reef 
lay  that  must  be  avoided,  and  Christina  was  drawn  on  from  being 
afraid  when  she  did  not  see  the  bottom,  to  being  afraid  only  when 
she  did. 

Joe  knew  where  the  bass  were  most  likely  to  bite  at  sundown, 
and  night  after  night  he  landed  the  lass  carefully  upon  a  different 
rock  to  try  her  luck  with  a  bamboo  fishing-pole.  The  lad  sat 
patiently  by,  baiting  her  hooks  and  killing  all  that  she  caught.  If 
fortune  proved  unkind,  she  would  see  a  light  far  out  in  the  bay,  when 
the  late  darkness  fell,  indicating  that  her  faithful  friend  was  spearing 
for  her  fish  which  he  would  bring  over  in  the  morning,  skinned  and 
boned,  ready  to  be  cooked. 

Christina  lived  in  a  dream  those  days,  the  centre  of  her  own 
romance.  All  the  tales  of  red  Indians  that  had  been  told  to  warn 
her  against  seeking  her  fortune  in  America  circled  about  this  tall 
young  brave  with  the  eagle  face,  who  was  so  gentle,  so  timid  even, 
in  his  approaches  to  herself,  though  there  was  an  expression  gaining 
force  in  his  eyes  which  she  could  not  entirely  ignore.  Miss  Maitland 
smiled  to  herself  as  she  watched  what  was  going  on. 

'  Never  before  did  I  get  so  much  work  out  of  those  lazy  Indians.' 

How  could  any  young  girl  with  a  heart  in  her  bosom  keep  on 
thinking  about  a  man's  dark  skin  or  his  broken  English  when  every 
fine  evening  he  took  her  out  into  the  world  of  nature,  where  he 
belonged  ?  Motor-men,  plumbers,  electric-light  men  with  their 
cheap  slang  and  clumsy  gallantries  were  part  of  the  semi-civilisation 
that  had  kept  up  the  heartache  for  old  Scotland.  Here  was  the  free, 
untrammelled  America  of  her  dreams.  To  be  no  hireling,  but  to 
fish  and  hunt  directly  for  his  living — that  seemed  the  proper  way 
for  a  man  to  live.  Joe  did  not  wait  for  other  folk  to  do  things  for 
him.  Everything  that  had  to  be  done  he  could  do  for  himself.  He 
built  and  repaired  his  own  boats.  It  was  he  who  had  moved  over 
from  the  mainland  and  set  up  on  the  island  the  log  cabin  which  his 


824  WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA. 

parents  occupied.  Joe  was  the  only  one  remaining  to  them  out  of 
a  large  family,  and  the  old  man  told  with  pride  how  the  boy  had 
brought  home  his  first  deer  upon  his  shoulder,  when  only  thirteen. 
Family  affection  seemed  to  be  quite  as  strong  among  the  0  jib  ways 
as  among  the  Scotch.  There  was  naught  of  the  '  I'm  as  good  as  you 
are '  attitude  towards  parents  and  others  in  authority  which  had 
*  fair  affronted  '  this  Scottish  peasant  while  in  town. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  week  the  house  was  well  in  order,  the 
company  had  not  yet  come,  Miss  Maitland  took  long  sleeps  in  the 
afternoon ;  what  was  to  hinder  Christina  going  sailing  with  Joe  ? 
Certainly  not  the  inclination  of  either.  The  boat  was  large  enough 
for  her  to  feel  safe  in  it,  but  not  too  large  to  be  rowed  home  should 
the  west  wind  fall  at  sunset.  As  they  sailed  away  out  into  the  open, 
the  two  would  talk  little,  but  each  knew  that  the  other  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  care-free  feeling  brought  about  by  the  waves 
dancing  in  the  sunshine  all  around  them.  As  the  dinghy  leaped 
forward  like  a  live  thing,  Christina's  red  hair  blew  in  curly  rings 
about  her  neck  and  face,  now  thickly  freckled,  for  she  had  long  since 
discarded  a  hat.  The  look  of  adoration  deepened  daily  in  Joe's 
black  eyes.  What  were  the  dark-haired,  dusky-skinned  women  of 
his  own  tribe  in  comparison  with  this  gloriously- tin  ted  stranger  ? 
He  thought  of  her  continually  as  he  laboured  at  his  old-fashioned 
ploughing  and  planting  on  the  mainland.  She  was  ever  talking  to 
him  of  how  these  things  were  done  in  Scotland.  Perhaps  some  day 
he  would  learn.  Already  he  had  drawn  from  their  hiding-place  his 
treasured  hoard  of  books,  for  this  lad  was  secretly  proud  of  his 
scholarship,  though  he  disdained  to  parade  it  among  his  kinsfolk, 
who  valued  only  those  virtues  that  bespoke  the  primitive  man- 
hunting,  fishing,  and  the  like.  He  could  both  read  and  write  in 
English,  but  was  diffident  about  speaking  it,  though  he  had  under- 
stood perfectly  all  that  was  said  to  him  until  this  braw  lass  with  her 
Scottish  dialect  had  been  landed  on  the  island.  For  example,  what 
did  she  mean  by  being  '  sair  forfoughten  '  ?  He  could  find  no  such 
words  in  his  dictionary,  nor  could  he  make  out  the  meaning  of 
'  scunner  '  and  '  swither.' 

As  Miss  Maitland's  cottage  filled  up  with  guests,  her  maid's 
outings  were  curtailed.  There  was  less  for  Joe  to  do,  however, 
since  the  young  men  of  the  house  party  took  upon  themselves  many 
of  the  duties  he  had  been  wont  to  perform,  and  he  had  thus  more 
time  than  ever  to  be  at  Christina's  beck  and  call. 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  825 

'  Joe's  spoiling  you,'  said  her  mistress  one  day.  '  How  will  it 
be  when  you  go  back  to  town  and  have  to  put  up  with  a  policeman 
and  a  letter-carrier  for  beaux  ?  ' 

'  Black  men  dinna  count,'  replied  the  girl  with  a  toss  of  her  head, 
but  she  reddened  through  her  sunburn  when  she  saw  Joe  turn  away 
from  the  door. 

1  Take  care,  Christina,'  said  Miss  Maitland.  '  These  Ojibways  are 
not  like  the  descendants  of  slaves  from  Africa.  They  used  to  own 
all  this  part  of  the  country  ;  we're  the  land  thieves.' 

For  four  long  days  Joe  kept  away  from  the  house,  and  only  then 
did  Christina  realise  how  much  he  had  been  doing  for  her.  The 
weather  had  turned  very  warm,  and  the  amount  of  work  to  be  done 
was  appalling  to  one  not  yet  acclimatised. 

'  Get  the  old  squaw  to  help  you  wash  the  dishes,  Christina,' 
said  Miss  Maitland  one  evening,  when  she  noticed  how  languid  her 
maid  was  looking. 

'  I  wadna  see  her  in  my  road,  Mem,'  was  the  tart  reply.  A  startling 
crash  at  her  back  indicated  that  Joe  had  just  flung  down  on  the 
hearth  the  armful  of  logs  he  had  carried  in.  He  stalked  out  of  the 
door  and  down  the  slope  towards  his  canoe  with  the  air  of  a  brave 
setting  out  on  the  warpath.  That  this  idol  he  had  been  worshipping 
should  despise  himself  was  bitterness  enough  ;  that  she  should  turn 
up  her  already  tip-tilted  nose  at  his  poor  old  mother  was  an  insult 
not  to  be  endured.  He  remembered  well  how  Christina  had  held 
her  skirts  together  and  picked  her  steps  the  few  times  she  had  come 
into  his  father's  shanty.  The  expression  of  her  face  as  she  looked 
around  had  been  enough  to  make  him  feel  that  the  place  was  dirty 
and  untidy.  He  had  been  trying  to  clean  it  up  these  last  few  days, 
but  she  would  probably  never  pass  through  the  door  again,  nor  see 
what  improvement  he  had  made.  He  had  even  tried  to  get  his 
mother  to  don  the  spotless  white  cap,  which  Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua 
said  had  belonged  to  her  own  mother.  It  was  evidently  the  proper 
thing  for  women  of  her  age  to  wear,  but  the  old  squaw  had  used  it 
for  making  cottage  cheese.  This  girl  was  not  of  their  race  nor  of 
their  kind.  He  would  forget  her.  He  would  sail  over  to  Christian 
Island  next  Sunday  and  see  the  Johnson  family.  They  had  a  pretty 
daughter  who  had  smiled  upon  him  last  summer.  This  year  he  had 
never  gone  near  her  :  the  red  locks  had  made  him  forget  the  raven. 

The  gay  party  of  young  people  had  gone  off  on  a  fishing  picnic, 
and  had  taken  Miss  Maitland  with  them.  Christina  was  left  behind 


826  WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA. 

in  peace  to  get  through  a  very  large  ironing,  and  the  day  was  one  of 
August's  warmest.  The  water  was  like  glass,  the  leaves  without 
motion.  Everything  in  nature  seemed  poised,  breathless,  as  if 
waiting  for  the  onward  sweep  of  the  relentless  winter.  With  the 
neck  of  her  dress  turned  in,  and  her  sleeves  rolled  up  to  her  elbows, 
Christina  toiled  away  at  her  task.  Surely  plainer  underwear  might 
have  done  for  these  fine  young  ladies  in  this  out-of-the-way  place. 

'  The  simple  life  they  talk  about !  '  sighed  the  girl.  '  There 
isn't  one  of  them  lives  it — but  Joe.' 

Again  she  sighed.  Joe  had  been  seen  by  moonlight  the  night 
before  paddling  a  dusky  maid  in  his  canoe. 

'  He's  no'  carin'  to  learn  the  meanings  o'  ony  mair  Scots  words.' 

Apparently  he  already  knew  how  to  use  some,  for  just  as  a  tear 
sizzled  on  her  hot  iron,  there  was  his  dark  head  at  the  window. 

'  What  way  you  no  go  fishing  ?  '  he  said. 

'  I  wasna  asked,'  replied  Christina,  whisking  her  back  towards 
him  that  she  might  wipe  her  eyes  on  her  apron. 

'  Have  they  scunner  at  you  ?  ' 

'  Na,  na,  Joe,'  cried  the  girl,  dimpling  and  smiling.  '  It's  no' 
my  place  to  gang  oot  wi'  the  gentry,  being  but  a  servant,  ye  ken.' 

'  Not  me.'  The  young  man  threw  back  his  head  with  the  pride 
of  an  aborigine.  Christina  laughed  outright. 

'  "  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that." 

Joe  did  not  quite  understand.    Was  she  jeering  at  him  again  ? 

'  Black  men  dinna  count  ?  '  he  questioned. 

*  Na,  na,  Joe,  you  mistake  me.'  She  put  her  iron  on  the  range 
and  leaned  her  round  elbow  on  the  window  sill,  as  she  looked  up 
earnestly  through  the  wire  screen  at  the  dark  face  without. 

'  I  dinna  count.  I'm  nae  better  than  a  black  slavey  since  a'  these 
folk  cam'  aboot ;  but  it's  a  verra  fine  thing  for  me  to  hae  sic  a  guid 
place  and  far  mair  wages  than  ever  I  earned  in  Scotland.' 

'  Huh  !     Your  own  home  better.' 

'  Indeed  it  was  not,  Joe.  My  mither  had  nine  of  a  family,  an' 
we  a'  had  to  turn  out  and  wark,  afore  we  kent  what  hame  was.' 

'  I  mean,'  said  Joe,  with  great  deliberation, '  I  will  make  for  you 
here  a  home  of  your  own,  over  on  the  mainland.  There  is  my  farm 
and  you  can  be  my  wife.' 

'  Squaw,  you  mean,'  retorted  the  girl,  with  heightened  colour. 
The  tall  Indian  left  the  window  without  another  word.  Christina 
attacked  her  ironing  viciously. 

'  Gey  like  me  to  be  thinkin5  o'  sic  a  thing,'  she  said  to  herself 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  827 

but  she  continued  to  think  about  it,  and  the  more  she  thought, 
the  more  was  she  amazed  at  the  presumption  of  that  wild  Indian 
dreaming  that  she  could  ever  marry  him,  even  though  he  was  more 
intelligent  and  manly  than  any  white  man  of  her  acquaintance. 

'  Christina  !  Christina  !  The  boat  has  whistled  four  times,  so 
she's  not  coming  in.  Run  down  to  Joe  with  the  milk-can  and  tell 
him  to  row  out  with  it.'  Christina  hesitated.  '  Quick  !  Quick  ! 
You  know  how  cross  the  captain  gets  if  we  haven't  a  boat  out  there 
on  time.' 

The  girl  ran  till  out  of  sight  of  her  mistress,  but  her  pace  grew 
slower  and  slower  as  she  drew  near  the  youth  sawing  logs  into 
lengths  that  would  be  split  and  brought  to  the  back  door  after  dark, 
she  knew,  ready  for  her  stove  in  the  morning. 

'  Joe  !  '  The  young  man  raised  his  head  and  looked  at  her 
for  a  moment ;  then  went  on  sawing.  He  saw  the  large  can  and 
knew  what  was  wanted,  but  was  determined  she  should  ask 
him. 

'  Miss  Maitland  says  will  ye  no'  gang  oot  to  meet  the  boat. 
Nane  o'  the  other  men  are  aboot.' 

'  So  black  man  do.'  Joe  kept  on  sawing,  and  the  girl  seated 
herself  on  the  end  of  the  log  to  steady  it  for  him,  as  she  had  done 
many  times  before.  '  Miss  Maitland  will  blame  me  if  ye  winna 
gang,  Joe.' 

'  I'm  no  nigger.' 

'  She  kens  that  verra  weel,  Joe.  She  was  tellin'  me  ye  were  ane 
o'  the  first  folk  o'  America.' 

The  lad  looked  sharply  at  her.     Was  she  making  game  of  him  ? 

'  Old  man  not  here — can't  go  alone,'  he  replied,  shortly,  as  he 
took  up  another  log. 

*  If  that  is  all,  I  can  gang  wi'  ye.  Ye  mind  how  brawly  ye  hae 
taught  me  to  row.' 

The  Indian  lifted  his  head  and  looked  her  squarely  in  the  face. 
Christina's  blue  eyes  faltered  for  a  moment,  then  met  his  own  with 
a  tearful  sparkle. 

'  My  mother  do  better.' 

'  Ay,  that  she  would,  Joe.  She's  far  smarter  nor  me.  But 
she's  thrang  wi'  her  ironing.  I  was  in  the  shanty  enow  mysell.' 

'  You  not  afraid  ?  ' 

'  I  wad  gang  wi'  ye  onywhere,  Joe,  onywhere  !  ' 

The  young  man  led  the  way  stolidly  to  the  boat.     Sh«  was 


828  WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA. 

beguiling  him,  this  fair  lass,  but  not  easily  would  he  let  himself 
be  drawn  into  the  toils  again. 

Scot  and  Ojibway  rowed  with  all  their  strength,  but  they  were 
late  and  the  captain  had  given  up  expecting  them.  He  did  not 
slacken  speed  soon  enough  and  the  steamer  still  had  considerable 
way  on  when  Christina,  as  Joe  directed,  stood  up  in  the  bow  of  the 
row-boat  and  caught  the  front  fender.  The  mate  at  the  gangway 
took  secure  hold  of  the  craft  with  a  boat-hook.  Joe  let  his  oars 
drag  to  free  his  hands  for  delivering  up  the  empty  milk-can  and 
receiving  the  full  one,  as  well  as  anything  else  to  be  taken  in.  The 
steamer  kept  moving  ahead  too  fast  for  the  safety  of  the  small  boat 
pinned  to  its  side.  In  two  minutes  the  bow  was  drawn  under  water. 
Joe  heard  a  frightened  gasp — that  was  all — but  he  saw  Christina's 
pink  gingham  skirt  spreading  out  around  her  like  a  balloon.  It  was 
soaking  and  sinking  fast.  The  boat  was  swamped,  her  foothold  gone 
— where  was  Joe  ?  Her  hope  of  rescue  died  as  his  head  disappeared 
under  the  water.  But  what  was  this  coming  up  below  her  ?  A 
strong  hand  at  the  back  of  her  neck  raised  her  face  above  the  surface 
and  the  one  word  '  Still ! '  in  her  ear  calmed  her  struggles.  Had 
she  ever  doubted  that  Joe  could  take  care  of  her  ? 

He  was  in  no  hurry  to  reach  the  nearest  island.  The  milk-can 
might  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  bay  and  the  boat  be  split  into 
kindling  by  the  paddle-wheels  for  aught  he  cared.  Leisurely  he 
drew  Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua  out  of  harm's  way. 

'  All  right,  Joe  ?  '  sang  out  the  mate  from  the  gangway. 

'  All  right,'  was  the  response.  The  sensation  among  the  pas- 
sengers was  at  an  end  ;  though  several  of  them  begged  in  vain  that 
the  captain  would  linger  to  let  them  watch  the  young  Indian 
swimming  to  the  nearest  rock  with  the  red-haired  girl. 

Christina  lay  upon  it  as  he  had  left  her  for  some  minutes.  Then 
she  said  to  herself,  '  This  is  no'  like  a  brave  squaw.  He  will  be 
thinkin'  lightly  o'  me.'  Trembling  with  nervousness,  she  tottered 
to  her  feet  and  began  to  wring  the  water  out  of  her  skirts.  Where 
was  Joe  ?  The  black  head  of  him  had  been  in  sight  a  moment  since 
making  towards  the  spot  where  the  boat  had  gone  down.  Surely 
he  had  not  been  daft  enough  to  dive  after  it.  If  so,  he  was  keeping 
below  water  as  long  as  one  of  those  loons  he  used  to  make  her  watch, 
guessing  all  the  while  where  it  would  come  up.  The  girl  shaded 
her  eyes  with  her  hand  and  gazed  along  the  track  of  the  setting 
sun,  but  there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  but  a  ripple  of  golden 
waves. 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  829 

'  He's  owre  guid  a  swimmer  to  be  droont,'  she  thought,  '  but 
whaur  is  he  ?  ' 

It  was  now  early  September.  The  short  twilight  would  speedily 
deepen  into  darkness.  What  if  she  should  be  left  alone  all  night 
on  this  island  ?  Pigs  had  never  been  placed  on  it,  she  was  sure, 
to  eat  up  the  rattlesnakes  ;  they  must  be  swarming  all  about  her. 
At  midnight  they  would  come  out  of  their  holes  and  devour  her 
bodily.  Oh,  what  had  become  of  that  braw  laddie  who  had  saved 
her  life  ?  Had  he  swum  away  off  to  Miss  Maitland's  island  and 
left  her  there  alone  to  repent  of  her  sins  ?  A  just  punishment  truly 
for  having  lightlied  him.  He  must  know  how  wet  and  cold  and 
frightened  she  was.  It  was  not  like  Joe  to  have  left  her  thus 
forlorn.  Perhaps  he  was  even  now  drying  himself  at  the  shanty 
stove  and  laughing  at  the  fright  he  was  giving  her.  Well,  he 
would  find  she  had  a  spirit  equal  to  his  own,  even  if  she  were  not 
so  good  a  swimmer. 

The  water  seemed  quite  shallow  between  the  back  of  her  islet 
and  the  next  one.  If  she  waded  through  it  she  would  probably 
find  a  shallow  channel  between  that  and  the  next  again.  Before 
it  was  dark  she  might  work  her  way  near  enough  the  cottage 
for  her  shouting  to  be  heard.  One  of  the  nephews  would  surely 
come  to  the  rescue.  The  dour  savage,  Joe,  should  learn  that  she 
was  not  in  any  way  dependent  upon  him. 

Contrasted  with  the  chilly  evening  air,  the  water  felt  warm  as 
she  stepped  barefooted  into  it.  The  wading  was  easy  to  the  next 
island,  a  much  larger  one  than  that  she  had  left.  It  proved  to  be 
a  peninsula  and  there  were  natural  stepping-stones  from  the  point 
of  it  to  the  next  island,  and  shallow  water  between  that  and  the 
next  again.  But  Miss  Maitland's  did  not  appear  to  be  drawing  any 
nearer.  The  British  flag  upon  it  had  been  hauled  down  at  sunset, 
and  there  was  no  other  means  of  identification  at  a  distance  in  the 
waning  light.  Christina  shouted  herself  hoarse ;  but  who  was 
there  to  hear  ?  Her  mistress  would  be  seated  snugly  at  the  side 
of  a  blazing  fire  of  logs  in  the  living-room,  reading  a  novel  and 
worrying  not  at  all  about  the  return  of  her  nephews  and  nieces 
from  their  far-away  picnic,  still  less  about  the  excursion  of  Joe  and 
Christina  out  to  the  steamer  and  back. 

The  girl  could  go  no  further.  A  swiftly  running  current  of  un- 
certain depth  barred  her  advance.  She  must  try  to  get  back  to  the 
rock  on  which  Joe  had  left  her.  It  was  there  he  would  look  for  her, 
and  he  was  the  only  one  likely  to  look.  But  where  was  that  island  ? 


830  WAH-SAII-YAH-BEN-OQUA. 

Darkness  had  now  come  to  bewilder  her.  She  waded  back  the  way 
she  had  come,  or  thought  she  did,  but  could  see  no  familiar  rock  nor 
bush.  Then  she  paced  up  and  down  a  stretch  of  bare  reef,  swinging 
her  arms  in  a  vain  attempt  to  warm  herself.  Her  teeth  were  chatter- 
ing and  her  heart  died  within  her  as  she  thought  of  the  snakes. 
It  was  a  cold  and  cruel  country,  this  Canada.  Why  had  she  ever 
left  her  own  ?  No  Scot  that  she  had  ever  heard  tell  of  would  leave 
a  half-droont  lassie  all  night  upon  a  bare  rock. 

'  Joe's  no  the  ane  to  do  that  neither,'  she  moaned.  '  He's 
droont !  He's  droont !  And  his  mither — puir  auld  body — she  will 
be  blaming  me.' 

She  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  and  sobbed,  for  minutes — for 
hours  ?  When  she  lifted  it  the  whole  look  of  the  bay  had  altered. 
The  harvest  moon  in  all  its  glory  had  risen  above  the  tree-tops.  Now 
she  could  see  where  she  was — not  near  Miss  Maitland's  island,  as 
she  had  imagined,  but  quite  close  to  the  mainland.  There  was  no 
mistaking  that  smooth  high  rock  which  the  moonlight  revealed. 
Joe  had  often  brought  her  there  to  fish.  But  exactly  how  to  get 
to  it  or  how  to  get  home  from  it  she  could  not  tell. 

'  Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua  !     Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua  ! ' 

The  sound  came  faintly  over  the  water. 

'  Joe  !  Joe  !  '  she  shouted,  desperately. 

The  canoe  darted  round  the  jutting  rock,  swiftly  as  an  Indian 
arrow,  but  the  Indian  in  it  was  quiet  as  usual  as  he  wrapped  the 
girl  in  a  homespun  blanket  he  had  brought  and  lifted  her  into  the 
boat.  He  paddled  far  out  on  the  moonlit  water  before  he  asked  : 

'  What  way  did  you  not  stay  where  I  put  you  till  I  get  the 
canoe  ?  ' 

'  I  was  feared  ye'd  never  come  back  to  me,  Joe.' 

'  Would  you  be  carin'  ?  '  The  girl  turned  her  face  away  and 
trailed  her  hand  in  the  water.  Its  blackness  was  silvered  over 
now. 

'  What  was  yon  ye  cried  to  me  ?  ' 

'  Your  name — Wah-sah-yah-ben-oqua.' 

'  It's  a  squaw  name,  but  maybe  it  suits  me.' 

The  moon  was  high  in  the  heavens  when  the  pair  reached 
home.  It  was  so  late  that  even  the  unexacting  Miss  Maitland  was 
horrified. 

'  Christina  !     Where  have  you  been  ?     Spearing  fish  ?  ' 

'  No.  mem.     Joe's  been  speirin'  at  me — 


WAH-SAH-YAH-BEN-OQUA.  831 

'  What  ?  ' 

'  He's  been  askin'  me  to  marry  hhnj  ' 

'  Good  heavens  !  The  impertinence  of  him  !  Why,  the  man 
can't  even  talk  English.' 

'  But  he  kens  it  fine.' 

'  Oh,  I  see.     You  did  the  proposing.' 

'  I  did  naething  o'  the  kind,'  said  the  girl,  her  Scotch  dander 
rising.  '  He  showed  me  his  farm  and  whaur  he  means  to  build 
his  bit  hoose.  It  will  be  a  gey  bonny  place  in  a  year  or  twa.  Hech 
sirs  !  1  never  thocht  to  marry  a  landed  propreeitor.' 

'  But  think  of  the  long  cold  winters  up  here,  Christina.' 

'  If  I  dinna  marry  him  it  will  be  a  lang  cauld  winter  for  me  a'  the 
rest  o'  my  life.' 

JEAN  N.  MC!LWRAITH, 


832 


THE  REAL  CYRANO,  '  CHANTECLER:  AND 
'THE  BIRDS: 

No  ONE  would  have  appreciated  Chantecler  more  fully  than  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac  ;  for  the  author  of  the  Histoires  Comiques  des  Etats  et 
Empires  de  la  Lune  et  du  Soleil,  delightful  miscellanies  of  Gassendist 
science,  satire,  and  bizarre  fancies,  was  not  only  all  that  M.  Rostand 
predicates  of  him  in  the  epitaph  : 

Philosopke,  physicien, 
Rimeur,  bretteur,  musicien 

Et  voyageur  aerien, 
Grand  riposteur  du  tac  au  tac, 
Amant  aussi — pas  pour  son  bien  ! — 

Ci-git  Hercule-Savinien 

De  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 
Qui  fut  tout,  et  qui  ne  fut  rien — 

but  he  was  also  a  master  of  that  preciosity  which  sometimes  adorns 
and  so  often  mars  M.  Rostand's  best  work ;  and  fierce  hook-nosed 
duellist  as  he  was  ('  His  nose,'  says  a  contemporary, '  was  an  absolute 
disfigurement  and  caused  the  death  of  more  than  ten  persons.  For 
he  could  not  endure  that  anyone  should  look  at  it,  but  would  instantly 
put  his  hand  to  his  sword'),  he  adored  the  country,  and,  like  Saint 
Francis,  '  Predicateur  des  Hirondelles,  Confesseur  des  Pinsons,' 
was  proud  to  call  the  birds  his  friends.  All  the  murmurs  of  the 
forest  had  a  meaning  for  him,  and  he  interprets  them  as  fantas- 
tically as  M.  Rostand  in  the  fourth  act  of  Chantecler. 

In  the  course  of  his  prodigious  journey  through  the  Sun, 
Cyrano  rested  in  a  forest  and,  stretched  out  in  the  shade,  felt  sleep 
stealing  gently  over  him.  Suddenly  he  heard  voices  :  '  Doctor,' 
said  one  voice,  '  one  of  my  relations,  the  three-headed  elm,  has  just 
sent  me  a  chaffinch  to  say  that  he  is  ill  with  a  fever  and  suffering 
greatly  from  the  moss  which  covers  him  from  head  to  foot.  As 
you  are  my  friend,  I  beg  of  you  to  prescribe  for  him.'  Another  voice 
replied,  prescribing  for  the  sick  elm  plenty  of  liquid  nourishment, 
light  amusement,  and  '  the  music  of  several  excellent  nightingales.' 
Two  Oaks  were  talking,  and  talking  Greek,  as  befitted  the  lineal 
descendants  of  the  Oaks  of  Dodona,  sprung  from  an  acorn,  which 


CYRANO,    'CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.'      833 

a  great  Eagle,  '  ennuyee  de  vivre  dans  un  Monde  ou  elle  souffroit 
tant,'  had  carried  to  the  Sun.  As  for  the  converse  of  the  trees, 
Cyrano  writes  : 

N'avez-vous  point  pris  garde  a  ce  vent  doux  et  subtil,  qui  ne  manque  jamaia 
de  respirer  &  I'or6e  des  bois  ?  C'est  1'haleine  de  leur  parole  ;  et  ce  petit  murmure 
ou  ce  bruit  delicat  dont  ils  rompent  le  sacre  silence  de  leur  solitude,  c'est  proprement 
leur  langage.  Mais,  encore  que  le  bruit  des  forets  semble  toujours  le  meme,  il  est 
toutefois  si  different,  que  chaque  espece  de  vege'tant  garde  le  sien  particulier,  en 
sorte  que  le  Bouleau  ne  parle  pas  comme  1'Erable,  ni  le  Hetre  comme  le  Cerisier. 

Cyrano,  it  would  seem,  wandering  in  the  country  somewhere  about 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  (he  was  born  in  1620  and  died 
at  the  age  of  thirty-five),  dreamed  with  his  '  quaint  self -pleasing 
fancy'  just  such  dreams  as  inspired  M.  Kostand  roaming  at  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  near  Cambo,  through  the 
country  which  he  has  described  in  three  masterly  Virgilian  lines 
where — 

...  on  voit,  s'effeuillant  comme  des  destinies, 

Trembler  au  vent  des  Pyrenees 

Les  amandiers  du  Roussillon. 

'  Les  oiseaux  parlent  grec  depuis  Aristophane,'  says  M.  Rostand's 
Woodpecker,  but  Chantecler  reproduces  the  spirit  rather  than 
the  letter  of  Cyrano's  imaginings.  The  forest  is  alive  with  the 
murmuring  of  countless  living  things  ;  the  brushwood,  the  bracken, 
and  the  very  motes  that  dance  in  the  sunbeam  have  their  part 
in  the  glory  of  the  dawn,  when  Chantecler's  victorious  crow  van- 
quishes the  night ;  while  the  stage  directions  in  the  fourth  act 
tell  us  that  as  the  Nightingale  sings  the  whole  wood  gives  a  long 
sigh  of  ecstasy — '  le  bois  est  comme  enchante,  le  clair  de  lune  plus 
emu.'  Yet,  as  a  rule  in  Chantecler,  inanimate  nature  is  voiceless, 
and  it  is  an  exception  when  the  Pine-tree,  its  branches  swaying  to 
the  rhythm  of  the  Nightingale's  song,  sighs  out  a  conceit  worthy 
of  Cyrano  himself : 

...  II  me  dit  que  ma  resine  encor 

Ira  sur  les  archets  chanter  en  colophane  ! 

tn  the  Blue  Bird  M.  Maeterlinck  approaches  even  more  closely, 
not  only  the  spirit,  but  the  letter  of  Cyrano's  fancy.  He  has  given 
an  individual  soul  to  every  tree,  and  he  might  almost  have  been 
thinking  of  Cyrano's  invalid  Elm  when  he  made  Tylette  the  cat 
say  to  the  Oak  :  '  How  are  you  ?  (A  murmur  in  the  leaves  of 
the  Oak).  Still  got  your  cold  ?  .  .  .  Can't  you  throw  off  your 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  53 


834      CYRANO,    '  CHANTECLER,'   AND   'THE   BIRDS.' 

rheumatism  ?  Believe  me,  that  is  because  of  the  moss  ;  you  put 
too  much  of  it  on  your  feet.' 

But  in  the  Kingdom  of  the  Birds  which  Cyrano  has  placed 
among  the  States  and  Empires  of  the  Sun,  he  and  M.  Rostand 
meet  on  common  ground. 

You  must  know  (says  the  Oak  to  Cyrano)  that  almost  all  the  concerts  of 
the  birds  are  in  praise  of  trees  ;  moreover,  in  return  for  the  loving  care  with  which 
they  celebrate  our  noble  actions,  we  conceal  their  courtship  and  wedded  bliss ;  do  not 
imagine  that  when  you  find  it  so  difficult  to  discover  one  of  their  nests,  it  is  because 
of  the  cunning  with  which  they  have  hidden  it.  It  is  the  tree  which  has  of  its 
own  accord  twined  its  twigs  and  branches  all  around  the  nest  to  guard  the  family 
of  its  guest  from  the  cruelty  of  man. 

The  villains  of  M.  Rostand's  play  are  the  nocturnal  birds  of  prey, 
and  the  shadow  of  the  Sparrow-hawk  throws  terror  over  Chantecler's 
farmyard.  Cyrano's  trees  share  this  antipathy  for  hobbies,  hawks, 
and  falcons,  owls  and  screech-owls  '  qui  sont  nes  a  la  destruction  des 
Oiseaux  leurs  concitoyens  '  (they  include  in  their  excommunication 
magpies  and  jays,  '  qui  ne  parlent  que  pour  quereller '),  and  draw 
back  their  branches  from  about  the  nests  of  such  unnatural  criminals, 
leaving  them  exposed  and  unprotected.  '  The  Vulture  has  not  the 
same  god  as  the  Lark,'  according  to  M.  Rostand,  and  Cyrano  de 
Bergerac,  as  the  friend  of  little  birds,  waged  merciless  war  against 
birds  of  prey.  Legend  has  it  that  he  could  fascinate  them  like 
a  serpent  with  his  eye,  and  that  he  would  often  amuse  Carbon  de 
Castel-Jaloux,  the  captain  of  the  wild  Gascon  company  of  the 
Guards  to  which  Cyrano  belonged,  by  mesmerising  a  hawk  as  it 
swooped  upon  its  prey,  though  the  pious  Baronne  de  Neuvillette, 
the  Roxane  of  M.  Rostand's  play,  had  some  scruples  as  to  this 
power  of  his,  apparently  suspecting  her  pugnacious  cousin  of  dealing 
in  black  magic. 

In  the  Kingdom  of  the  Birds,  Cyrano  was  seized  and  put  upon 
his  trial,  on  the  terrible  charge  of  being  Man,  the  enemy  of  all 
living  things.  He  tried  in  vain  to  pass  himself  off  as  a  monkey, 
and  the  prosecution  demanded  that  he  should  be  condemned  to 
the  utmost  penalty  of  the  law,  the  '  mort  triste,'  of  which  a  friendly 
Magpie  gave  the  following  description,  a  curious  illustration  of 
Cyrano's  susceptibility  to  the  songs  of  birds  : 

Ceux  d'entre  nous  (said  the  Magpie)  qui  ont  la  voix  la  plus  melancolique 
et  la  plus  funebre  sont  detegues  vers  le  coupable,  qu'on  porte  sur  un  funeste  cypres. 
La,  ces  tristes  musiciens  s'amassent  tout  autour,  et  lui  remplissent  1'ame,  par 
1'oreille,  de  chansons  si  lugubres  et  si  tragiques,  que,  1'amertume  de  son  chagrin 
dfoordonnant  1'economie  de  ses  organes  et  lui  pressant  le  coaur,  il  se  consume 
a  vue  d'oeil  et  meurt  suffoque"  de  tristesse. 


CYRANO,    < CHANTECLER,'   AND   'THE   BIRDS.'      835 

The  Magpie  gave  evidence  on  the  prisoner's  behalf.  On  earth 
Cyrano  had  kept  her  in  captivity,  and,  fierce  duellist  as  he  was, 
had  prepared  her  food  with  his  own  hands  ;  in  winter  he  had 
set  her  cage  by  the  fire  and  covered  it  up,  or  even  ordered  the 
gardener  to  warm  her  inside  his  shirt.  He  would  never  allow 
the  servants  to  tease  her.  She  had  learnt  a  number  of  phrases, 
and  once,  when  her  master's  page  was  returning  from  an  errand, 
she  happened  to  exclaim, '  Be  quiet,  you  scoundrel,  you  are  a  liar.' 
As  chance  would  have  it,  her  master,  struck  by  the  aptness  of  the 
remark,  made  inquiries  and  discovered  that  Verdelet,  the  page, 
was  a  rogue.  Verdelet  was  duly  whipped,  and  in  revenge  he  gave 
her  to  the  cat,  who  would  have  eaten  her,  had  not  Cyrano  come 
to  the  rescue  in  the  nick  of  time. 

But  the  Magpie's  intercession  was  in  vain,  and  the  prisoner 
was  condemned  to  be  eaten  by  flies,  a  more  merciful  penalty  in 
the  eyes  of  the  birds  than  the  '  mort  triste.'  At  the  last  moment, 
however,  he  was  reprieved,  and  brought  before  the  Bird-King,  from 
whom  a  Parrot  had  begged  his  life.  As  he  knelt  to  thank  his 
Majesty,  the  Parrot  flew  towards  him  and  brushed  his  face  with 
its  wings.  '  What,'  it  cried,  '  do  you  not  recognise  Caesar,  your 
cousin's  Parrot,  to  whom  you  appealed  so  often  as  a  proof  that 
birds  can  reason  ?  '  '  Is  it  you,  my  poor  Caesar  ? '  exclaimed  Cyrano, 
as  the  bird  fluttered  over  him  and  covered  him  with  kisses — '  you, 
whose  cage-door  I  opened  to  give  you  back  the  liberty  which  the 
tyrannical  ways  of  our  world  had  taken  from  you ! ' 

This  sympathy  with  birds,  so  curious  in  a  ruffling  duellist  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  is  certainly  shared  by  the  poet  who  rescued 
Cyrano's  memory  from  oblivion  ;  for  no  one,  who  had  not  watched 
'  our  brothers  the  birds  '  with  close  and  loving  scrutiny,  could  have 
written  Chantecler.  But  Chantecler  is  not  only  a  poem  of  the  country 
and  of  humble  things  :  the  poet's  main  theme  is  the  same  lofty 
.dealistic  philosophy  which  inspired  his  earlier  work.  '  Plus  noble 
d'etre  vaine,'  says  the  troubadour  of  his  love  in  La  Princesse 
Lointaine,  and  in  the  same  spirit  Cyrano  exclaims,  as  he  is  about 
;o  die  : 

Mais  on  ne  se  bat  pas  dans  1'espoir  du  succes  ! 

Non  !  non  !  c'est  bien  plus  beau  lorsque  c'est  inutile  ! 

ML  Rostand  is  always  haunted  by  the  conviction  of  the  nobility  of 
failure,  the  glory  of  '  the  high  that  proves  too  high,  the  heroic  for 
earth  too  hard.  The  passion  that  leaves  the  ground  to  lose  itself 
n  the  sky.'  His  philosophy  is  the  very  refinement  of  idealism, 

53—2 


836      CYRANO,    '  CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.' 

and  he  feels  that  the  ideal  which  attains  any  extent  of  material 
accomplishment  is  to  that  extent  shorn  of  its  glory  :  it  is  almost 
the  same  spirit  which,  exaggerated  in  religion,  led  to  Quietism, 
the  gentle  heresy  that  set  its  ideal  in  the  love  of  God,  pure  and 
undefiled  by  any  thought  of  reward  or  punishment,  only  to  end 
in  the  annihilation  of  all  conscious  effort  and  the  denial  of  life  itself, 
or,  as  it  has  been  well  expressed,  in  *  1'oraison  du  dormir.' 

M.  Rostand's  idealism,  however,  with  all  its  contempt  for  success, 
offers  no  effortless  paradise  to  his  heroes  ;  on  the  contrary,  each 
inevitable  failure  calls  for  fresh  effort,  and  when  Chantecler  learns 
that  his  song  does  not  create  the  day,  as  he  had  fondly  believed, 
and  that  the  sun  rises  even  when  he  has  been  faithless  to  his  vigil, 
he  has  learnt  the  lesson  that 

Celui  qui  voit  son  reve  mort 
Doit  mourir  tout  de  suite  ou  se  dresser  plus  fort. 

Life  is  suddenly  deprived  of  its  meaning  and  high  purpose,  but 
he  cries  : 

Mon  destin  est  plus  sur  que  le  jour  que  je  vois  ! 

His  faith  seeks  and  finds  new  reasons  on  which  to  rebuild  the 
shattered  palace  of  illusion  : 

C'est  que  je  suis  le  Coq  d'un  soleil  plus  lointain  ! 
Mes  cris  font  a  la  Nuit  qu'ils  percent  sous  ses  voiles 
Ces  blessures  de  jour  qu'on  prend  pour  des  etoiles  ! 
Moi,  je  ne  verrai  pas  luire  sur  les  clochers 
Le  ciel  d6finitif  fait  d'astres  rapproches  ; 
Mais  si  je  chante,  exact,  sonore,  et  si,  sonore, 
Exact,  bien  apres  moi,  pendant  longtemps  encore, 
Chaque  ferme  a  son  Coq  qui  chante  dans  sa  cour 
Je  crois  qu'il  n'y  aura  plus  de  nuit ! 

LA  FAISANE  :  Quand  ? 

OHANTECLER  :  Un  Jour  ! 

In  the  same  spirit,  earlier  in  the  play,  Chantecler,  challenged  by  the 
steel-spurred  fighting  Cock,  the  champion  of  the  evil  night-birds, 
must  needs  add  to  the  ignominy  of  the  defeat  which  seems  certain, 
since  he  has  never  killed  a  rival,  only  '  Quelquefois  secouru,  defendu, 
protege,'  by  '  doing  something  brave  '  before  he  dies,  and,  courting 
the  scorn  that  the  confession  of  his  faith  will  cause,  cries  out  to 
the  jeering  poultry  ; 

.  .  .  Je  tiens  a  mourir  sous  les  rires !  .  .  . 
C'est  moi  qui,  de  mon  chant,  vous  rallume  les  cieux ! 

This  lofty  idealism  bewitches  all  the  humble  familiar  things  of 
M.  Rostand's  play ;  like  the  Sun,  without  which  '  les  choses  ne 


CYRANO,    ' CHANTECLER,'  AND   'THE   BIRDS.'     837 

seraient  que  ce  qu'elles  sont,'  it  throws  a  glamour  over  the  birds  and 
beasts  of  the  farmyard  and  forest,  and  lends  a  strange  enchantment 
to  all  the  common- place  objects,  the  old  wooden  shoe  bursting  with 
straw,  the  wooden  rake  with  a  wisp  or  two  of  grass  still  entangled 
in  its  teeth,  the  old  fork  set  aside  like  a  naughty  child  in  the  corner, 
which  are  the  sole  riches  of  Chantecler's  domain.  M.  Rostand 
finds  in  the  farm  a  lesson  in  that  local  patriotism  so  dear  to  Mr. 
G.  K.  Chesterton.  Mr.  Chesterton  accuses  the  globe-trotter  of  living 
in  a  smaller  world  than  the  peasant,  since,  a  wanderer  in  many 
lands,  he  is  blind  to  all  those  deep  realities  of  life  that  can  only  be 
felt  instinctively  by  one  with  the  long  familiar  habit  of  his  native 
soil.  The  Ant  in  Chantecler's  yard,  who  lives  on  an  old  worm-eaten 
skittle-ball  and 

Qui  fait,  avec  1'orgeuil  des  parcoureurs  de  mondes, 
Son  petit  tour  de  boule  en  quatre-vingts  secondes, 

has  learnt  all  and  more  than  all  that  cosmopolitanism  has  to  teach. 

Quand  on  sait  regarder  et  souffrir,  on  sait  tout. 
Dans  une  mort  d'insecte  on  voit  tous  les  desastres. 

When  vainglorious  man  has  departed,  in  the  poet's  dream  life 
goes  on  as  busily  as  ever  '  behind  the  farm- wall  where  the  cat  lies 
dozing ' ;  the  fly  goes  buzzing  about  his  business,  the  hens  go  gaily 
to  their  work,  and  even  the  snail '  tache  a  lui  tout  seul  d'argenter 
un  fagot.' 

Malebranche  dirait  qu'il  n'y  a  plus  une  ame  : 
Nous  pensons  humblement  qu'il  reste  encor  des  coaurs. 
Les  hommes  avec  eux  n'emportent  pas  le  drame  : 
On  peut  rire  et  souffrir  pendant  qu'ils  sont  ailleurs. 

For  English  readers,  this  idealisation  of  the  humble  beings 
that  live  and  suffer  in  the  shadow  of  man  will  be  Chantecler's 
greatest  charm ;  but,  apart  from  this,  it  has  a  special  interest  as  a 
daring,  if  not  entirely  successful,  experiment  which  marks  a  new 
stage  in  the  development  of  M.  Rostand's  work.  Previously 
M.  Rostand's  idealism  had  set  its  scene  in  the  dim  romantic  past, 
and  its  message,  beautiful  as  it  was,  seemed  to  have  but  little 
relation  to  the  life  of  the  prosaic  present ;  for  it  is — perhaps  it 
always  has  been — the  curse  of  the  present  that  it  is  blind  to  the 
poetry  and  romance  of  its  environment.  M.  Rostand  has  himself 
explained  his  motive  in  writing  Chantecler  :  he  wished,  he  said, 
to  write  a  modern  play ;  and  since  modern  dress  and  modern  manners 


838      CYRANO,    '  CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.' 

lend  themselves  ill  to  the  exigencies  of  verse  and  the  poet's  yearning 
for  beauty,  he  hit  on  the  idea  of  disguising  his  dramatis  persona 
as  birds  and  animals.  It  would  seem  that  the  poet  must  let  down 
a  veil  of  unreality  between  the  audience  and  his  play,  and  M.  Rostand 
believed  that  the  fairyland  of  the  farmyard  and  forest  would  be 
nearer  to  his  audience  than  the  world  of  conventional  romance, 
and  that  the  magnificence  of  his  verse  would  be  less  incongruous 
with  the  fur  and  feathers  of  beasts  and  birds  than  with  the  sordid 
ugliness  which  fashion  to-day  imposes  on  mankind. 

From  beginning  to  end  M.  Rostand's  play  is  (to  use  an  unpleasant 
but  inevitable  phrase)  up  to  date ;  the  tragedy  of  Chantecler's 
life,  with  its  transparent  allegory,  is  played  in  an  age  of  motor-cars 
and  telephones.  When  Qhantecler  sends  out  his  hens  to  the  fields 
across  the  road  on  their  daily  task  of  ridding  the  flowers  of  insect 
enemies,  the  horn  of  a  motor-car  is  heard  in  the  road  outside,  and 
when  it  has  passed  with  a  rush  and  roar  the  Houdan  Hen  remarks 
with  comic  disgust : 

Comnie  c'est  amusant ! 
Tout  ce  qu'on  va  nianger  va  sentir  le  petiole  ! 

No  discovery  of  science  has  any  terror  for  the  poet,  and  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac,  who,  by  some  prophetic  freak  of  the  imagination, 
has  given  us  in  his  Histoire  comique  des  Etats  et  Empires  de  la  Lune 
a  detailed  description  of  the  phonograph,1  would  have  revelled  in 
the  scene  where  Chantecler,  anxious  for  news  of  the  farmyard, 
that  he  has  deserted  for  the  forest  of  the  Hen  Pheasant,  carries 
on  an  animated  conversation  with  the  Blackbird,  pressing  the 
bell  of  a  convolvulus  into  service  as  a  telephone :  its  roots, 
he  explains,  are  connected  underground  with  those  of  another 
convolvulus  entwined  about  the  Blackbird's  cage ;  while  a  friendly 
Bee  who  sleeps  in  the  flower  '  rings  up '  with  a  buzz  when  com- 
munication is  established. 

Chantecler  courts  comparison  with  The  Birds ;    the  pedantic 

1  Cyrano  gives  the  following  description  of  the  box-like  books  used  in  the  Moon : 
'  A  1'ouverture  de  la  boite,  je  trouvai  un  je  ne  sais  quoi  de  metail  presque 
eernblable  a  nos  horloges,  plein  de  je  ne  sais  quelques  petits  ressorts  et  de  machines 
imperceptibles.  .  .  .  C'est  un  livre  ou,  pour  apprendre,  les  yeux  sont  inutiles  : 
on  n'a  besoin  que  des  oreilles.  Quand  quelqu'un  done  souhaite  lire,  il  bande,  avec 
grande  quantite  de  toutes  sortes  de  petits  nerfs,  cette  machine  ;  puis  il  tourne 
1'aiguille  BUT  le  chapitre  qu'il  desire  ecouter,  et  au  m6me  temps  il  en  sort,  cornme 
de  la  bouche  d'un  homme,  ou  d'un  instrument  de  musique,  tous  les  sons 
distincts  et  differents  qui  servent,  entre  les  grands  Lunaires,  a  1'expression  du 
langage.' 


CYRANO,    'CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.'      839 

Woodpecker  is  always  talking  of  Aristophanes — even  the  Nightin- 
gale's song  reminds  him  of  the  Greek  comedian — while  in  his 
references  to  contemporary  topics  and  his  satire  on  the  ephemeral 
fashions  of  the  day  M.  Kostand  has  imitated  the  methods  of  the 
Old  Comedy.  How  far  these  topical  allusions  and  the  methods  of 
Aristophanes  are  justifiable  in  a  whimsical  heroic  comedy  is  a 
question  for  the  taste  of  the  individual  reader ;  on  this  point  the 
critics  have  been  very  severe.  Justice,  however,  should  be  done 
to  the  courage  of  a  dramatist  who,  certain  of  popular  favour  had 
he  been  content  to  cast  the  story  of  Chantecler  in  the  mould  he 
had  used  for  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  ventured  to  attempt  a  new  and 
original  genre.  In  any  case  the  study  of  Chantecler  has  a  value 
of  its  own  for  the  appreciation  of  Aristophanes,  and  schoolmasters 
reading  any  of  the  comedies  with  an  upper  form  might  well  do 
worse  than  provide  themselves  with  a  stock  of  parallels  from 
M.  Rostand's  play.  The  Old  Comedy  attacked  new  things  in  politics 
and  ideas,  and  its  principal  weapons  were  the  pun  and  a  peu  pres,  and 
broad  burlesque ;  with  almost  the  same  weapons  M.  Kostand  attacks 
the  spirit  of  the  day  in  which  he  finds  the  declared  enemy  of  the 
idealism  that  is  the  main  inspiration  of  Chantecler. 

Nevertheless  there  is  an  obvious  contrast  between  the  Parisian 
audience  of  1910  and  the  Athenian  audience  of  B.C.  414.  In  France 
politics  have  become  divorced  from  the  life  of  the  people  ;  they  are, 
Frenchmen  are  never  weary  of  saying,  a  more  or  less  sordid  trade 
by  which  a  certain  section  of  the  nation  makes  a  more  or  less  honest 
living,  and  the  country  itself  is  prey  to  an  ill-defined  uneasiness 
that  it  does  not  attempt  to  conceal.  '  II  n'y  a  plus  que  du  pro- 
visoire,'  say  the  Owls,  when  Chantecler's  crow  has  announced 
that  night  is  about  to  give  place  to  day,  and  this  is  a  sentiment 
that  one  may  hear  repeated  again  and  again  in  French  society. 
The  old  faith  and  the  old  ideals  seem  bankrupt,  and  nothing  has 
taken  their  place  ;  even  the  army  itself,  the  nation  in  arms,  and 
with  it  the  idea  of  patriotism,  has  not  escaped  the  jeer  of  the  scoffer, 
and  a  superficial  spirit  of  Hague  and  persiflage  which  holds  nothing 
sacred  from  its  belittling  touch  is  the  mark  of  fashion.  But  it  would 
be  a  superficial  observer  who  concluded  that  the  corroding  irony 
of  the  boulevard  had  corrupted  the  heart  of  the  nation  ;  those  who 
remember  how  a  few  months  back  Paris  threw  off  the  mask  of 
carelessness  and  faced  with  calm  self-confidence  and  courage  the 
prospect  of  a  war  that  many  believed  inevitable  will  endorse 
M.  Rostand's  eulogy  of  the  Parisian  Sparrow  : 


840      CYRANO,    '  CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.' 

Tu  veux  imiter  le  Moineau  ?  (says  Chantecler  to  the  Blackbird), 

mais  sa  blague 

N'est  pas  une  prudence,  un  art  de  rester  vague, 
Un  elegant  moyen  de  n'avoir  pas  d'avis  : 
II  a  toujours  des  yeux  furieux  ou  ravis.  .  .  . 
Ah  !  tu  veux  1'imiter,  ce  fou  qui  fait  des  niches, 
Mais  de  1'Arc  de  Triomphe  habite  les  corniches 
Et  les  trous  de  la  barricade  ?  .  .  .  le  Moineau 
Qui  peut  etre  sublime  en  repondant :  '  Guano  ! ' 
Qui  chante  sous  le  plomb  et  rit  devant  la  broche  ? 
II  faut  savoir  mourir  pour  s'appeler  Gavroche  ! 

In  B.C.  414  the  glory  of  Imperial  Athens  was  at  its  zenith. 
Seven  years  earlier  the  Peace  of  Nicias  had  consolidated  her  position 
as  the  leading  State  in  Greece,  and  the  greatest  armament  ever 
fitted  out  by  an  Hellenic  Power  had  just  started  on  its  way  to 
Sicily.  Ambition  was  at  its  highest ;  the  Sicilian  expedition  was 
to  the  dreams  of  Alcibiades  no  more  than  a  starting-point  towards 
the  conquest  of  a  Mediterranean  empire  stretching  from  Libya 
to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  the  hopes  of  the  Athenian  demos 
rov  %vfjL7ravTos  *l&\\r)viKov  apgscv  dimly  reflected  the  dreams  of 
the  ambitious  schemer,  for  whose  recall,  a  few  months  before 
The  Birds  was  acted,  the  State-galley,  the  Salaminia,  had  set  out 
on  the  fatal  voyage  that  was  to  wreck  once  and  for  all  the  enterprise 
itself  and  the  glory  of  Athens. 

Yet  both  Aristophanes  and  M.  Rostand  find  themselves  at  war 
with  the  spirit  of  fashion  which  is  always  new  and  ever  the  same. 
In  the  farmyard,  Patou,  the  dog,  '  un  vieux  barbet  de  Quarante- 
Huit '  (the  sturdy  Mapa&wz/o^a^s'  of  Aristophanes),  declares, 
rolling  his  r's  in  fury  : 

Oui,  chaque  jour — voila  pourquoi  je  roule  YRrrr —    ' 
J'entends  baisser  les  cceurs  et  le  vocabulaire. 

The  chaffing  Blackbird  with  the  laugh  and  sneer  that  belittle  all 
things  noble,  and  the  idiotic  Peacock  with  his  gorgeous  tail  and 
meaningless  affectation  of  preciosity,  set  the  fashion,  and  sincerity 
and  simplicity  are  at  a  discount.  The  Gray  Hen  must  needs  fall 
in  love  with  the  Cuckoo  of  the  cuckoo-clock,  because  he  is  Swiss, 
and  because 

II  sort  toujours  a  la  meme  heure,  comme  Kant ! 

'  Fichez  le  Kant '  (fichez  le  camp,  clear  out),  says  the  incorrigible 
Blackbird  with  a  bad  pun  which  Aristophanes  would  certainly 
have  made  his  own  had  the  Greek  language  and  the  name  of  Socrates 
lent  themselves  to  its  perpetration. 


CYRANO,    'CHANTECLER,    AND    'THE   BIRDS.'     841 

In  The  Birds  Aristophanes  has  his  jibe  at  the  fickleness  of 
fashion,  and  the  herald  who  comes  to  Cloud-cuckoo-town  announces  : 

irplv  /j.ev  yap  oiiciaai  ere  rr)v8e  r))v  ir6\iv, 
e\a.K<avo(j.dvow  airavTss  &v8p<airot  rdre, 
^K6/j.(av  eireij/ojv  eppinrcav  ^ffooKpdrovv 
ffKvrd\id  T'  f(f>6pow,  vvv  5'  viroarptyavTes  aft 
6pvidofj.avovffi,  wdvra  8'  virb  TTJS 


Both  The  Birds  and  Chantecler  convey  a  message  of  sound  and  homely 
patriotism  and  conservatism  ;  neither  Aristophanes  nor  M.  Rostand 
has  any  stomach  for  the  cult  of  the  outlandish,  though  the  Gallic 
cock,  the  hero  of  the  later  play,  is  the  Median  bird  of  Aristophanes, 
the  fjiovcr6fj.avT(,$  CUT-OTTOS  opvis  bpi&drr]s,  '  the  summit-ascending, 
muse-prophetical,  outlandish  bird,'  which,  as  the  Ssivoraros 
"Apews  veorros,  '  the  war-god's  own  Armipotent  cockerel,'  shares 
with  the  Peacock  and  Flamingo  the  honours  of  outlandishness. 
The  Greek  comedian  has  no  good  word  for  the  horde  of  foreign 
sycophants  and  sophists  who  swarmed  to  Athens  and  filled  their 
bellies  with  their  tongues  ;  Travovpyov  syy^wToyaa'Topcov  yevos  .  .  . 
ftdpfiapoi  S'  slalv  ysvos,  Topyiai,  rs  KOI  <E>/Xt7T7rot.2  SoM.  Rostand's 
satire  is  directed  against  the  fashion 

.  .  .  dont  le  systeine  est  de  rendre  cslebre 
Tout  animal  etrange  et  surtout  Stranger. 

On  her  *  At  Home  '  day  the  Guinea-fowl  —  a  hostess  after  the  model 
of  that  grande  dame  who  not  so  long  ago  sent  to  illustrious  poets 
long  since  defunct,  care  of  their  publishers,  invitations  to  her  '  poetic 
teas  '  —  receives  a  long  defile  of  exotic  unnatural  cocks,  each  one  a 
perverse  triumph  of  the  breeder's  art,  let  loose  from  their  aviary 
by  the  craft  of  the  night-birds  for  the  greater  confusion  of  Chantecler, 
and  finds  in  each  new  freak  whom  she  humbly  calls  '  cher  maitre  ' 
a  new  claim  on  her  foolish  admiration.  The  Burmese  Cock  has 
in  his  eyes  '  the  Hindu  soul,'  while  '  the  Slavonic  soul  '  finds  its 

1  '  Why,  till  ye  built  this  city  in  the  air, 

All  men  had  gone  Laconian-mad  ;  they  went 
Long-haired,  half-starved,  unwashed,  Socratified, 
With  scytales  in  their  hands  ;  but  O  the  change  ! 
They  are  all  bird-  mad  now,  and  imitate 
The  birds,  and  joy  to  do  whate'er  birds  do.' 

2  '  A  nation  with  its  tongue  its  belly  fills.  .  .  . 

For  a  barbarous  tribe  it  passes 
Philips  all  and  Gorgiases.' 


842      CYRANO,    'CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.' 

incarnation  in  the  bearded  Cock  of  Varna;  the  Bantam  is  so 
eighteenth- century ;  while  the  Brahma  and  Cochin  Cocks,  natives  of 
'  the  corrupt  East,'  have  all  the  perverse  grace  and  morbid  charm 
of  vice.  Suddenly  the  Sparrow-hawk  appears,  and  as  its  dreaded 
shadow  passes  over  them  all  the  Guinea-fowl's  guests  cower  beneath 
the  wings  of  Chantecler,  the  plain  Gallic  cock,  for  whose  blood  they 
had  a  minute  before  been  crying.  Patou,  the  dog,  from  his  wheel- 
barrow, points  the  moral : 

On  ne  compte  pas,  quand  sa  grande  ombre  passe, 
Sur  les  coqs  etrangers  pour  chasser  la  Rapace. 

Though  the  procession  of  amazing  cocks  is  suggestive  from  the 
spectacular  point  of  view  of  the  ii<roSos  of  the  chorus  of  The  Birds, 
headed  by  the  Flamingo,  the  Median  bird,  the  Hoopoe,  and  the 
Glutton-bird,  Athens  suffered  less  than  modern  Paris  from  that 
curious  cosmopolitanism  which  regards  every  vice  or  virtue  as 
admirable  provided  that  it  be  exotic.  In  Athens  the  mere  fact  of 
being  foreign  and  outlandish  was  not  a  passport  to  popular  favour, 
and  Aristophanes  for  the  most  part  inveighs  against  the  foreigners 
who,  like  Execestides  the  Carian  or  Spintharus  the  Phrygian, 
tried  to  pass  themselves  off  as  true-born  Athenians  with  the  same 
impudence  with  which  the  Anglo-Indian  cock  declares 

Le  seul  vrai  chant  fran^ais,  c'est :   Coquedodledow  ! 

As  for  literary  references,  they  abound  both  in  Chantecler  and 
The  Birds.  Naturally  both  Aristophanes  and  M.  Eostand  cite 
Aesop:  ouS'  AIO-WTTOV  Trsirdrij/cas,  'unaccustomed  on  Aesop  to 
pore/  says  Peisthetaeros  to  the  Chorus,  while  in  the  Prologue  to 
Chantecler  M.  Coquelin  announces  : 

C'est  la  bosse  d'JEsope 
Qui  remplace  ce  soir  la  boite  du  souffleur. 

The  theatre  plays  almost  as  important  a  part  in  modern  Paris  as  in 
ancient  Athens,  and  we  may  compare  Aristophanes'  irreverent 
parodies  of  the  dramas  of  his  day  with  the  Blackbird's  audacious 
description  of  a  Chaffinch  singing  in  a  pear-tree  as  '  Le  Chantre 
de  Monsieur  Poirier,'  with  a  punning  allusion  to  the  witty  comedy 
of  Augier  and  Sandeau,  Le  Gendre  de  Monsieur  Poirier.  The 
nightingale  has  inspired  both  Aristophanes  and  M.  Rostand  with 
some  of  their  finest  lyrics ;  and  though  we  may  doubt  whether  the 
flute  solo  which  in  The  Birds  represented  the  nightingale's  song 


CYRANO,    'CHANTECLER,'  AND   'THE  BIRDS.'      843 

was  as  effective  as  Madame  Mellot's  wonderful  voice  when  in  the 
fourth  act  of  Chantecler  she  recites  the  villanelle  of  the  invisible 
nightingale,  the  Athenian  poet  has  given  vigorous  expression  to 
the  feelings  of  M.  Kostand's  audience  : 


3)  ZeO  !3a<ri\Gv,  rov  (pdey/jLaros  roupvidiov' 
ofov  Kar€/j.f\trca(re  T 


From  the  Nightingale's  song  : 


a/j-Ppofficav  fieAeW  air€j8J<r/ceTO  Kapirbv  oet 
(pepcav  y\vKelav 


Aristophanes  borrowed  one  of  the  noblest  compliments  that  have 
ever  been  paid  by  one  great  poet  to  another.  It  can  hardly  be  a 
coincidence  that  M.  Kostand  has  found  a  pathetic  connexion 
between  his  Nightingale  and  that  ill-fated  poet,  the  victim  of  the 
Revolution,  who,  himself  half-Greek,  was  no  unworthy  disciple  of 
those  Greek  poets  whom  he  loved  so  well.  As  the  Nightingale 
falls  a  shapeless  mass  of  feathers,  cut  short  in  the  magic  of  its 
song  by  a  poacher's  gun,  Chantecler  gently  pronounces  this  epitaph 
over  its  corpse  :  '  Meurs  done,  petit  Andre  Chenier  !  ' 

Of  political  references  M.  Rostand  is  sparing  ;  one  or  two, 
however,  we  may  find  that  suggest  a  parallel  with  such  a  passage 
in  The  Birds  as  that  at  the  end  of  the  play  in  which  Peisthetaeros 
is  represented  as  busy  cooking  those  oligarchic  birds,  who 
siravidTa^svoi  rois  Sr)fj,OTiKoia-iv  bpvsois  sSol-av  dSt/csiv.3 

Mort  a  cet  aristo  qui  fait  le  democ-soc  1 

cries  an  Owl  against  Chantecler.  Had  this  remark  occurred  in 
Aristophanes  no  doubt  the  commentators  would  have  suspected  a 
personal  reference,  but  in  contemporary  France  unhappily  the  name 
of  those  politicians  who,  aristocrats  or  egoists  at  heart,  masquerade 
as  democrats  and  socialists  is  legion.  When  the  Blackbird  says 
with  a  punning  reference  to  the  Cock's  crest  that  the  Hen  Pheasant 
'  veut  s'annexer  la  crete,'  M.  Rostand  had  no  hope  of  rousing  an 

1  *  0  Zeus  and  King,  the  little  birdie's  voice  ! 

0  how  its  sweetness  honied  all  the  copse.' 

2  «  Whence  Phrynichus  of  old, 

Sipping  the  fruit  of  our  ambrosial  lay, 
Bore,  like  a  bee,  the  honied  store  away, 
His  own  sweet  songs  to  mould.' 

3  had  been  tried  and  sentenced  for  rising  up  against  the  popular  party  among 
the  birds. 


844     CYRANO,    '  CHANTECLER,'   AND    'THE   BIRDS.' 

emotional  thrill  of  fear  or  ambition  in  a  Parisian  audience.  Very 
different  must  have  been  the  effect  on  the  audience  of  The  Birds 
of  the  simple  words  '  Melian  famine,'  with  their  allusion  to  the 
terrible  butchery  of  Melos  still  fresh  in  Athenian  minds,  or  of  the 
references  to  Nicias  and  the  fatal  voyage  of  the  Salaminia  at  a 
moment  when  the  Sicilian  expedition  was  nearing  its  goal. 

For  Greek  and  French  poet  alike  the  Cock's  crow  is  the  call  to 
work.  When  Chantecler's  '  cocorico  '  has  called  up  the  day,  the 
Angelus  is  heard,  and  the  clank  of  the  forge  ;  the  ploughman  sings 
as  he  leads  his  lowing  oxen  beneath  the  yoke,  and  the  children  pour 
out  merrily  to  school,  while  the  reapers  sharpen  their  sickles  on  the 
whetstone  :  '  tout  travaille.'  So  Aristophanes  in  comic  vein  : 

birorav  v6/j.oy  opdpiov  aitr?), 
iv  irdvrfs  fir'  fpyov, 


The  curious  reader  will  note  many  more  parallels  between  the 
two  plays,  notably  in  their  parodies  of  proverbs  and  catch- 
phrases,  though  he  will  not  find  it  easy  to  discover  in  Aristophanes 
so  graceful  an  inversion  as  that  with  which  M.  Rostand  has  trans- 
formed the  well-known  proverb  '  II  ne  faut  pas  frapper  une  femme, 
meme  avec  une  fleur  '  into 

.  .  .  il  est  infame 
D'6craser  une  fleur  me'me  avec  une  femme. 

The  bird-lover  is  naturally  a  satirist  of  mankind  ;  when  the 
poultry  urge  on  Chantecler  and  the  Game-cock  with  cries  of 
1  Egorge  !  .  .  .  Assomme  !  .  .  .  Tue  !  '  Patou,  the  dog,  criea  from 
his  wheelbarrow  in  fury  : 

Avez-vous  fini  de  pousser  des  cris  d'homme  ? 

and  throughout  the  play  mankind  is  '  la  race  mechante.'  So  the 
birds  in  Cyrano  de  Bergerac's  Histoire  des  Oiseaux  give  their  verdict 
on  man,  '  une  bete  chauve,  un  oiseau  plume,  une  chimere  amassee 
de  toutes  sortes  de  natures  et  qui  fait  peur  a  toutes  .  .  .  1'homme 
enfin  que  la  Nature,  pour  faire  de  tout,  a  cree  comme  les  monstres, 
mais  en  qui  pourtant  elle  a  infus  1'ambition  de  commander  a 

1  *  ...  when  he  sings  in  the  morning  his  song, 
At  once  from  their  sleep  all  mortals  upleap,  the  cobblers,  the  tanners,  the 

bakers, 
The  potters,  the  bathmen,  the  smitha  and  the  shield-and-th«-musical-in«trument- 

makers.' 


CYRANO,  '  CHANTECLER,'  AND  'THE  BIRDS.'  845 

tous  les  animaux  et  de  les  exterminer.'  For  Aristophanes  man 
is  an  opvis,  a(rrd^fjir}TOf,  TTSTO/JLSVOS,  aTSKfiapros,  ov&sv  ovBsTror' 
ev  ravra)  fisvcov,1  and  there  could  be  no  better  ending  for  this 
study  than  the  first  lines  of  the  famous  Parabasis  of  The 
Birds  : 

&ye  Si]  ipvffiV  &v$pfs  a/j.avp6j3ioi,  <pv\\(av  yevea  irpo(r6/JLOioi, 
o\tyoSpai'fes,  ir\d(r/ji.ara  WTjAoG,  fficioeiSea  <pv\'  d/xei/rjj'd, 

i,  ra\aol  Pporo'i,  avepes  fiKf\6veipoi, 
vovv  Tails  aOavdrots  vinlv,  Toils  alfv  eovffiv, 
TQIS  alOfplois,  Tolffiv  ayfjptps,  Tols  &(pQiTa  fj.Ti8o/j.fj>oiffiv.* 

H.  WARNER  ALLEN. 

1  '  The  man's  a  bird,  a  flighty  feckless  bird, 
Inconsequential,  always  on  the  move.' 

2 '  Ye  men  who  are  dimly  existing  below,  who  perish  and  fade  as  the  leaf, 

Pale,  woe-begone,  shadow-like,  spiritless  folk,  life  feeble  and  wingless  and  brief, 
Frail  castings  in  clay,  who  are  gone  in  a  day,  like  a  dream  full  of  sorrow  and 

sighing, 
Come  listen  with  care  to  the  Birds  of  the  air,  the  ageless,  the  deathless,  who, 

flying 
In  the  joy  and  the  freshness  of  Ether,  are  wont  to  muse  upon  wisdom  undying.- 

The  English  versions  of  '  The  Birds  '  are  throughout  taken  from  the  translation  of 
Mr.  B.  B.  Rogers. 


846 


'  THE  LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM: 

THE  railway  line  between  Worcester  and  Hereford  runs  along  the 
foot  of  the  Malvern  hills  ;  then,  as  their  bold  chain  drops  behind  it, 
the  train  makes  its  way  between  successions  of  small  fields,  heavily 
hedged,  of  orchards  and  hop  gardens,  the  former  much  in  the 
majority ;  a  green,  cramped,  fertile  land  full  of  suggestive  corners, 
snug  and  a  trifle  sly.  It  has  an  intimate  unheroic  charm  and  a 
wealth  of  detail  for  appreciative  eyes. 

Joshua  Gunn  appreciated  it,  though  he  would  have  been  at  a 
loss  to  give  reasons  for  his  feeling,  being  a  man  of  few  words.  His 
circumstances  were  not  conducive  to  talk,  for  he  was  fireman  on 
the  engine  of  a  Great  Western  train — a  local  train  which  ran  between 
the  two  county  towns.  He,  the  engine-driver,  and  the  guard  saw 
more  of  that  immediate  stretch  of  country  than  any  three  men 
alive  ;  but  while  Joshua  looked  out  on  it  with  pleasure,  it  scarcely 
existed  for  the  other  two,  for  the  guard  was  a  politician  and  read 
the  Western  Mail  in  his  van,  and  the  driver  was  indifferent  to 
everything  but  his  engine. 

Gunn  was  a  quiet  dark  young  fellow  of  eight-and- twenty,  with  a 
reputation  in  the  livelier  part  of  his  little  world  of  being  dull,  for 
hardly  anyone  knew  what  his  interests  were  or  what  he  thought 
about.  He  did  his  work  well  and  interfered  with  nobody,  and  he 
lived,  in  company  with  a  signalman,  the  only  person  with  whom 
he  was  intimate,  on  the  outskirts  of  Hereford  town. 

When  the  train  had  almost  done  its  journey  from  Worcester  it 
reached  a  spot  at  which  the  permanent  way  ran  along  an  embank- 
ment, and  here  Joshua's  loyal  interest  in  the  surroundings  of  his 
appointed  course  would  culminate.  No  matter  what  were  his 
duties  on  the  engine,  he  would  contrive  to  be  free  when  the  embank- 
ment came  in  sight  and  the  green  elevation  swung  itself  into  line 
as  they  rounded  the  curve  preceding  it.  The  young  man  would 
lean  out,  with  the  wind  of  their  rush  blowing  on  his  dark  face,  and 
gaze  down  upon  the  picture  which  had  captured  his  fancy. 

Just  at  this  spot,  close  under  the  embankment,  one  of  the  fields 
had  merged  itself  with  surprising  abruptness  into  a  small  thickly 
planted  orchard,  and  not  twenty  paces  in  from  the  beginning  of  the 


'THE   LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM.'  847 

trees,  was  a  tiny  black-and-white-timbered  cottage  of  two  storeys, 
standing  apart  with  the  compact  detachment  of  a  doll's  house. 
The  apple-trees  pressed  up  to  within  a  few  feet  of  its  walls,  their 
gnarled  stems  crowding  thick  about  it  like  an  escort  round  a  State 
prisoner ;  and  in  the  dusk  of  their  myriad  leaves  and  branches  its 
whitewash,  crossed  with  black  timbers,  seemed  to  be  glimmering 
through  a  green  twilight.  The  windows  were  small,  and  looked 
even  smaller  and  more  secretive  from  the  height  at  which  Joshua 
saw  them ;  and  at  either  side  of  the  worn  stone  threshold  there  stood, 
in  summer,  one  of  those  tall  orange  lilies  called  by  the  neighbouring 
country  folk  '  The  Lights  of  Jerusalem.'  To  Joshua  they  were  like 
two  stiff  golden  angels  guarding  the  door  of  this  diminutive  paradise 
of  his  imagination.  He  admired  flowers  and  he  knew  many  of  their 
names  ;  for  the  signalman  with  whom  he  lived  had  a  plot  of  garden 
at  the  foot  of  his  box  which  the  fireman  often  envied  him. 

Through  every  change  of  season  Joshua  Gunn  observed  the 
little  dwelling — under  the  leafless  boughs  of  winter,  in  the  ethereal 
greenery  of  spring,  in  the  full-blown  opulence  of  summer,  in  the 
time  when  the  reddened  apples  burned  round  it  like  fiery  globes  ; 
but  the  time  when  it  pleased  him  most  was  at  June's  end,  when  the 
Lights  of  Jerusalem  were  kindled  by  its  threshold. 

For  a  long  time  it  chanced  that  he  saw  no  sign  of  life  about  the 
place  except  the  smoke  stealing  upward  and  a  clothes-line  stretched 
between  two  apple-trees  ;  but  one  day  as  he  leaned  over  the  engine's 
side  a  girl  was  in  the  garden.  She  wore  a  large  apron  over  her 
dress  and  her  fresh  face  was  turned  up  as  she  shaded  her  eyes  to  look 
at  the  passing  train.  Her  light  hair  shone  in  the  sun.  It  happened 
that  he  saw  her  three  times  in  one  week — twice  in  the  garden  strip 
under  the  windows  and  once  at  the  back  of  the  house  beside  the 
row  of  beehives  ;  and  on  the  last  occasion  some  impulse  made  him 
take  off  his  cap  and  hold  it  above  his  head  as  the  train  ran  by. 
The  girl  hesitated,  and  then  made  a  timid  sign  of  greeting  with  her 
hand ;  Joshua  was  near  enough  to  see  her  face  and  the  shy  smile 
upon  it. 

That  little  ceremony  had  gone  on  for  eight  months.  Some- 
times the  girl  would  be  in  the  garden,  sometimes  at  the  door, 
sometimes  she  was  not  to  be  seen  ;  but  in  any  case  the  fireman 
would  lean  out  and  hold  up  his  cap,  for  he  could  not  know  whether 
she  might  not  be  watching  him  go  by  from  behind  the  diamond 
panes. 

One  day,  when  Joshua's  engine  had  reached  Hereford,  it  was 


848  'THE   LIGHTS   OF   JERUSALEM.' 

sent  back  on  the  up-line  in  the  interval  between  its  two  journeys 
to  take  a  few  trucks  with  a  gang  of  workmen  to  the  embankment. 
Some  rails  were  to  be  unloaded,  for  there  were  repairs  to  be  done 
at  the  spot  above  the  orchard  ;  and  as  the  brakes  were  put  on  and 
the  train  slowed  down  the  young  fireman  promised  himself  an 
idle  half -hour  in  which  he  might  see  the  timbered  cottage  at  closer 
quarters.  When  the  unloading  was  finished  the  engine  and  trucks 
were  to  go  on  to  a  siding  a  little  farther  forward  while  the  rails  were 
being  stacked,  and  there  steam  would  be  shut  off  until  it  was  time 
to  return  for  the  men. 

The  driver  was  a  fat  good-natured  individual,  averse  to  exercise, 
and  Joshua  knew  that  during  his  wait  he  would  sit  on  the  foot- 
plate and  smoke,  and  that  it  would  be  a  simple  matter  for  himself 
to  get  leave  to  stroll  back  to  the  green  banks.  He  would  be  able 
to  get  quite  close  to  the  orchard,  perhaps  to  within  speaking  dis- 
tance of  his  unknown  acquaintance.  His  mind  was  full  of  the  idea, 
and  he  considered  over  and  over  again  how  he  should  accost  her 
and  what  he  should  say  supposing  that  he  hadr  the  courage  to 
address  her  at  all.  Perhaps  she  might  not  come  out  of  the  house  ; 
perhaps  she  was  absent.  He  had  not  seen  her  as  he  passed  in  the 
morning.  He  imagined  a  dozen  obstacles  to  the  meeting  for 
which  he  hoped. 

His  heart  beat  a  little  as  he  neared  the  place,  for  he  was  a  shy 
man.  He  had  easily  got  the  permission  he  wanted ;  but  when  he 
saw  the  smoke  rise  from  the  apple-boughs  he  had  half  a  mind  to 
turn  back,  and  as  he  looked  at  the  coal-dust  on  his  hands  he  wished 
very  heartily  that  stoking  were  a  cleaner  occupation.  He  reflected 
with  dismay  that  the  girl  whose  friendly  greeting  had  been  the 
point  of  interest  in  his  daily  journeys  for  so  long  had  never  been 
near  enough  to  him  to  know  what  an  unattractive-looking  fellow 
he  was  ;  and  this  estimate  of  himself  disheartened  him  a  good  deal, 
because  he  did  not  guess  how  far  it  was  from  being  a  just  one. 

When  he  reached  the  embankment  he  stopped,  his  anticipations 
scattered  to  the  winds.  The  one  chance  on  which  he  had  not 
counted  had  risen  up  to  undo  him. 

The  garden  was  full  of  people  and  the  uniform  hue  of  their 
garments  gave  him  a  sharp  thrust  of  horror.  They  were  black 
from  head  to  toe,  and  they  surrounded  a  dark  object  resting  on 
rough  trestles  placed  just  outside  the  doorstep.  It  was  evidently 
waiting  for  something,  the  sombre  assembly  that  had  descended 
like  a  swarm  of  devastating  insects  on  this  secret  pleasure-ground 


•THE  LIGHTS  OF  JERUSALEM.1  849 

of  his  own  to  blot  out  its  beauty  with  their  presence.  The  only 
spots  of  colour  were  the  bright  Lights  of  Jerusalem,  set  like  living 
torches  beside  the  unpretentious  pageant  of  death. 

The  young  man  stood  on  the  bank  looking  blankly  down,  his 
hands  dropped  at  his  sides.  He  dared  not  go  near  to  intrude 
upon  the  handful  of  mourners,  though  from  over  the  hedge  below 
the  line  he  could  have  asked  the  question  which  tormented  him. 
Details  spring  with  an  irony  all  their  own  to  the  minds  of  those 
in  suspense,  and  he  reflected  that  he  need  not  have  been  concerned 
by  his  blackened  coat  and  coal-stained  hands.  Everything  was 
black  now.  The  clang  made  by  the  rails  as  the  workmen  piled  them 
in  a  heap  sent  a  harsh  note  booming  into  the  air. 

Then  his  trouble  lifted  from  him,  for  the  cottage  door  opened 
and  the  well-known  figure  came  out  between  the  Lights  of  Jeru- 
salem. She  turned  the  key,  putting  it  in  her  pocket,  and  her 
companions  raised  the  coffin  and  carried  it  out  of  the  garden. 

As  she  followed  them  she  looked  up  at  the  line,  and,  perhaps 
from  habit,  Joshua's  hand  went  up  to  his  cap  ;  and  though  he 
dropped  it  half-way,  afraid,  instinctively,  to  force  his  recognition 
upon  her  at  such  a  moment,  he  saw  her  smile. 

When  the  humble  procession  had  passed  out  of  sight  he  went 
back  to  the  engine  in  a  kind  of  dream.  But  it  was  a  dream  with 
a  definite  purpose.  In  three  days  it  would  be  Sunday,  a  free  day 
for  him,  because  the  local  train  did  not  run.  He  would  start 
from  Hereford  and  walk  along  the  line  to  the  cottage,  a  bare  seven 
miles,  and  he  would  at  last  see  and  speak  with  this  girl  face  to  face. 
He  could  not  know  the  exact  nature  of  the  catastrophe  which  had 
happened  to  her,  but  he  understood  that,  in  its  grip,  she  had  still 
held  to  their  unspoken  friendship,  and  that  the  tacit  bond  had 
emerged  from  it,  a  thing  which  present  calamity  had  not  been  able 
to  break.  He  scarcely  knew  what  he  meant  to  do  when  he  should 
meet  her,  but  he  felt  as  if  a  gate  had  opened.  And  through  the  gate 
he  would  go. 

On  Sunday  morning  Joshua  rose  to  find  Hereford  enveloped 
in  the  mist  of  coming  heat,  and  at  half-past  eight  he  dropped  on 
to  the  permanent  way  beyond  the  signal-box  on  the  Worcester 
line  to  begin  his  seven-mile  walk  alongside  the  sleepers.  He  had 
shaved  with  particular  care  and  had  scrubbed  himself  till  not  a 
trace  remained  of  the  coal-dust  of  the  week.  He  wore  his  dark- 
grey  Sunday  suit,  and  even  the  ill-made  clothes  could  not  take 
much  attraction  from  his  grave  brown  face  or  make  his  slight 

VOL.  XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  54 


850  'THE   LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM.' 

figure  quite  uninteresting,  for  the  touch  of  reserve  and  refinement 
which  kept  him  a  little  aloof  from  the  rougher  part  of  his  kind 
showed  through  inferior  tailoring  and  looked  out  of  his  observant 
eyes. 

The  metals  stretched  on  into  the  quivering  greyness  of  the 
hot  day  as  he  tramped  along,  and  the  sun  climbed  higher.  On  either 
side  spread  the  green  landscape  of  western  England,  rich  and 
chequered.  The  ox-eye  daisies  were  out  at  the  sides  of  the  line 
and  the  red  sorrel  and  the  clover  ;  and  above  the  round  heads  of 
the  last,  misty  clouds  of  tiny  butterflies  hung  like  an  innocent 
miasma.  It  was  almost  eleven  o'clock  when  Joshua  reached  his 
goal,  and,  descending  the  embankment,  slipped  through  a  weak 
place  in  the  hedge  and  approached  the  cottage  door. 

The  smoke  still  rose  from  the  chimney,  but  there  was  neither 
sound  nor  stir  within,  and,  having  knocked  unsuccessfully,  the 
young  man  went  into  the  orchard.  The  row  of  beehives  was  in 
its  place,  and  as  he  stood  looking  at  them  and  debating  what  he 
should  do,  the  sound  of  a  bell  came  to  him  through  the  hot  air. 
He  listened,  smiling  at  his  own  stupidity.  Of  course — she  was 
at  church  ! 

He  hastened  through  the  garden,  following  the  sound,  and 
came  out  on  a  narrow  country  road.  In  front  of  him  a  stout 
woman  was  pressing  forward,  book  in  hand,  with  conscience-stricken 
haste,  and  in  the  wake  of  this  unconscious  guide  he  soon  found 
himself  at  the  lych-gate  of  a  small  square-towered  church.  The 
woman  bustled  through  the  churchyard  and  was  lost  in  the  deep 
shadows  of  the  porch.  The  echo  of  her  creaking  boots  filled  it  as 
she  entered. 

He  followed  her  to  the  inner  door,  stepping  like  a  thief,  and 
peered  in.  The  prayers  had  long  begun,  and  his  eye  searched  the 
kneeling  congregation  for  the  figure  he  wanted  and  stopped  at  a 
row  of  cross-seats  facing  the  aisle  on  the  hither  side  of  the  chancel 
arch.  The  girl  was  there  ;  he  could  see  her  attentive  profile  above 
her  book  and  her  bright  hair.  He  knew  her  at  once,  and  her 
unrelieved  black  clothes  confirmed  the  recognition.  He  drew  back 
stealthily  and  went  out  into  the  churchyard,  for  there  was  no 
vacant  seat  near  the  door. 

It  was  a  rather  badly  kept  place,  for  the  canopies  of  the  yew- 
trees  shadowed  groups  of  tombstones,  ancient  and  grotesque, 
which  stuck  at  many  different  angles  from  the  coarse  grass.  As  he 
turned  to  examine  the  church  he  noticed  that  a  slab  of  stone  jutted 


'THE   LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM.  851 

out  from  the  wall,  running  along  it  like  a  bench.    He  sat  down  on 
it  to  wait  as  patiently  as  he  could  till  the  end  of  the  service. 

From  inside  the  building  came  the  drone  of  collective  voices 
saying  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  soon  after  he  heard  the  sound  of  the 
congregation  rising.  Suspense  began  to  weigh  on  him,  so  he  got 
up  and  wandered  about,  reading  epitaphs  with  a  half-mind  that 
scarcely  took  in  their  significance.  Then  the  organ  began,  and 
the  words  of  the  hymn  carried  him  back  to  the  house  in  the 
orchard. 

'  "  Jerusalem  the  golden,"  '  sang  the  voices ;  and  at  these  words 
the  two  tall  orange  lilies  by  the  doorstep  rose  before  Joshua,  who 
stood  still,  staring  at  the  inner  vision. 

He  awoke  from  his  abstraction  to  see  a  black  figure  emerge 
quickly  from  the  porch. 

She  was  coming  towards  him,  her  eyes  blind  with  tears.  No 
doubt  something  in  the  service  had  upset  her  and  she  had  fled, 
unable  to  control  herself.  Joshua  was  standing  in  the  shade  of 
a  tree,  but  with  the  light  of  the  blazing  noon  on  her  wet  eyes  she 
seemed  not  to  see  him. 

He  walked  quickly  forward  and  stood  in  her  path. 

'  It's  me,5  he  said  simply. 

She  stopped,  drawing  a  long,  quivering  breath. 

'  I'm  here,'  said  Joshua.  '  It's  me.  I  saw  you  from  the 
engine.' 

Then  he  took  her  hand  and  led  her  to  the  stone  bench.  She 
went  with  him,  unresisting. 

He  had  not  supposed  that  she  was  so  pretty,  for,  though  her 
eyes  were  swollen  and  her  face  blurred  and  marked  by  weeping, 
these  things  could  not  obliterate  her  good  looks.  But  Joshua 
scarcely  gave  that  a  thought,  nor  did  he  realise  for  a  moment  how 
extraordinary  his  behaviour  might  seem  to  her,  considering  that 
he  was  a  stranger.  The  only  thought  in  his  mind  was  that  she  was 
in  trouble  and  that,  for  some  perfectly  unexplained  but  imperative 
reason,  she  would  cling  to  him.  Her  sobs  slackened  as  he  sat 
silent  with  his  cap  pushed  back  from  his  brow  and  his  hand  closed 
round  hers,  as  if  it  were  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  ; 
behind  their  backs,  on  the  inner  side  of  the  church  wall,  the  sermon 
had  begun  and  the  parson's  solitary  tones  were  in  monotonous 
possession. 

She  looked  up  at  the  young  fireman  with  the  confiding 
simplicity  of  a  child. 

54—2 


852  'THE   LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM.' 

'  It  were  the  hymn,'  she  said  at  last,  '  'twas  about  Jerusalem, 
and  I  thought — I  remembered — the  Lights  o'  Jerusalem  by  the 
doorstep.  I've  seen  them  there  all  my  life,  but  there'll  be  no  more 
o'  they  for  me,  soon.' 

'  You  be  going  away  then  ?  '  asked  Joshua. 

She  nodded. 

'  Father's  dead,'  she  continued.  '  He'd  never  left  his  bed  for 
four  years.  I  minded  him.  He  couldn't  see  nothing  but  from  the 
window  where  his  bed  were.  But  the  interest  he'd  take !  He'd 
call  me  in  from  the  garden  and  ask  how  it  was  all  looking,  and  how 
the  birds  was  building,  and  about  the  currants  and  the  flowers 
and  the  apples.  He  could  tell  the  shape  of  every  tree  though  he 
hadn't  seen  them  for  so  long.  And  he  liked  the  trains  too.  He 
could  just  see  you  where  he  was  lying,  an'  no  more,  when  the  train 
went  by  the  white  post  on  the  bank.  It  made  him  feel  a  kind  of 
cheery-like  to  know  you  were  coming.  "  Twenty-past  eleven, 
Winnie,"  he'd  say  to  me.  "  It's  time  for  the  engine." ' 

She  had  stopped  crying  and  was  smiling  as  she  recalled  these 
things. 

'  Then  he  knew  me,'  said  the  young  man  reflectively.  '  Strange 
that  I  never  thought  of  anyone  else  being  behind  the  windows. 
I  only  thought  about  you  and  them  Lights  of  Jerusalem  when  we 
came  round  the  bend.' 

'  He  never  missed  looking  out — not  till  the  last  day.  He  wouldn't 
have  missed  you  for  anything.' 

Inside  the  church  the  parson's  voice  had  stopped,  and  a  general 
stamping  and  rustling  proclaimed  the  end  of  the  sermon. 

'  I  must  go.  They'll  be  coming  out,  and  I  don't  want  to  meet 
them,'  said  the  girl,  rising  quickly. 

*  I'm  coming  with  you,'  said  Joshua. 

They  walked  back  hurriedly  to  the  cottage,  for  the  dispersed 
congregation  was  almost  treading  on  their  heels ;  and  she  told  him, 
with  a  primness  that  was  in  odd  contrast  with  their  unconventional 
attitude,  that  she  did  not  want  the  neighbours  to  see  her  with  a 
stranger  so  soon  after  the  funeral.  The  road  was  empty,  and  they 
went  along  side  by  side  talking  as  though  they  had  known  each 
other  for  years.  He  learned  she  was  to  leave  her  home  at  the 
end  of  the  week  and  take  service  with  the  wife  of  a  small  innkeeper 
in  Hereford.  It  grieved  him  to  see  how  much  she  dreaded  the 
change.  When  they  came  within  sight  of  the  line  he  looked  at  the 
green  embankment  with  resentful  eyes.  Henceforth  it  would  be  a 


'THE   LIGHTS   OF  JERUSALEM.'  853 

different  place  to  him.     It  would  bring  him  four  disappointments 
daily. 

'  You  must  be  going,  or  they'll  see  you,'  said  she,  as  they  stopped 
by  the  orchard. 

They  stood  for  a  minute  without  speaking. 

'  I'll  look  for  you  going  by  to-morrow,'  said  the  girl ;  '  there'll 
be  only  a  few  days  more  now.' 

'  But  I'll  be  near  you  in  Hereford,'  said  he. 

Her  face  brightened. 

'  My  dear,'  said  Joshua  suddenly,  '  mind  you  this.  I  mayn't 
be  the  sort  o'  feller  that's  likely  to  please  a  girl,  but  I'm  a  man 
that'll  wait — and  I'm  to  be  made  driver  next  year.  You  can't  tell 
what  it'll  be  like  at  the  inn.  Maybe  you'll  be  happy,  maybe  not. 
But  in  any  case,  I'm  waiting.  An'  the  first  day  you  say  "  Come," 
I'll  come  for  you.  It's  funny,  but  it  seems  somehow  as  if  you 
belonged  to  me.  Could  you  like  me,  do  you  think  ?  ' 

'  Oh,  I  do,'  she  answered  simply.  '  But  you  must  be  going. 
I  hear  them  talking  on  the  road.' 

They  clasped  hands,  and  he  left  her.  But  at  the  end  of  the 
garden  he  came  back. 

1  Oh,  Winnie  !  '  cried  the  man  who  would  wait,  '  you  won't  let 
it  be  long  ?  ' 

'  No,'  she  said  shyly. 

'  Promise,'  said  Joshua. 

'  I  promise.' 

Then  he  turned  away,  stepped  through  the  hedge,  and  ran  up 
the  side  of  the  embankment.  At  the  top  he  stood,  holding  up  his 
cap.  She  was  smiling  at  him  between  the  Lights  of  Jerusalem. 

When  his  slim  figure  had  vanished  down  the  line  she  went  into 
the  house  and,  sitting  down,  hid  her  face  in  her  hands. 

But  not  to  cry. 

VIOLET  JACOB, 


854 


THE  INTELLIGENCE  MERCHANT. 

'  WE'VE  settled  the  elder  Van  Niekirk  at  last,  and  a  good  job  too. 
He's  the  most  regular,  downright,  irreconcilable,  will-of- the- wisp 
rebel  in  the  whole  blooming  Colony  and  has  done  no  end  of  mischief ; 
but  he's  got  a  bullet  bang  through  him  this  time,  although  they 
bundled  him  away  somehow  in  a  Cape  cart.  I'll  say  this  for  them, 
they're  topping  good  sportsmen  as  regards  sticking  to  their 
wounded  :  the  bottom  of  the  cart  was  full  of  blood  before  they'd 
gone  half  a  mile — running  down  the  wheels  !  Then  there's  young 
Naude — quite  a  good  lad,  they  say — who's  out  on  commando  simply 
for  the  joke  of  the  thing  ;  he  has  a  brother  in  the  Town  Guard  at 
Beaufort  West  and  he  himself  plays  three-quarters  for  some  place  in 
the  Eastern  Provinces  ;  anyway,  he's  shot  through  the  thigh,  so 
he'll  be  off  footer  for  a  bit.  He  managed  to  stick  to  his  horse,  and 
we  just  missed  getting  him,  although  he  had  a  narrow  squeak. 
Steenkamp  of  Bokfontein  (the  farm  is  just  a  little  off  the  road  near 
that  place  where  we  got  all  the  lucerne  three  or  four  days  ago,  you 
remember,  Colonel)  has  got  it  through  the  arm  ;  but  the  worst  of  it 
is  it  may  be  only  a  flesh  wound.  There's  two  more  of  them  hit,  but 
I  haven't  had  the  names  yet.  We  dusted  them  up  right  well — 
nearly  made  a  real  good  haul.'  Such  was  the  report  of  the  Intelli- 
gence Merchant,  supported  by  frequent  references  to  his  note-book, 
and  delivered  with  a  deliberation  and  with  an  obvious  determination 
to  adhere  scrupulously  to  actual  facts  that  were  calculated  to  carry 
conviction  to  the  most  sceptical  mind. 

What  had  actually  occurred  was  this.  Some  scouts  moving 
forward  through  rather  broken  ground  far  away  to  the  left  front 
and  out  of  sight  of  the  main  body  of  the  column,  had  detected 
figures  moving  among  some  rocks  on  a  low  ridge  in  front  of  them. 
They  had  dismounted  in  a  smart  and  soldierlike  manner,  they  had 
taken  cover  after  the  most  approved  method,  and  they  had  opened 
a  steady,  well-sustained  fire  upon  the  enemy,  which  had  not, 
however,  been  returned.  After  a  brief  period  of  suspense  the  figures 
had  been  observed  to  be  effecting  a  retrograde  movement,  and 
they  had  thereupon  turned  out  to  be  a  troop  of  baboons,  some- 
what ruffled  in  temper,  naturally  enough,  at  the  uncalled-for 
demonstration  of  hostility  of  which  they  had  been  the  victims, 


THE   INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT.  855 

but    which  had  suffered  only  intellectual    and   moral,  and  no 
actual,  damage. 

The  Intelligence  Merchant  revelled  in  the  possession  of  a 
singularly  vivid  imagination,  and,  as  a  complement  to  this,  he  was 
endowed  with  the  faculty  of  investing  even  the  most  improbable 
story  with  at  least  some  appearance  of  truth.  Nor  was  he  the  least 
successful  member  of  that  distinguished  band  whose  bent  for 
romance  contributed  so  greatly  to  fill  up  Lord  Kitchener's  (paper) 
*  bag  '  in  Pretoria.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that  he  was  apt  to 
prove  less  convincing  when  it  came  to  providing  ocular  demonstra- 
tion of  those  hostile  losses  with  regard  to  which  he  was  wont  to 
serve  out  such  gratifying  details.  The  Column- Commander  frankly 
admitted  that  he  would  have  preferred  one  good  corpse  (produced), 
or  even  a  solitary  f  oeman  led  captive  into  his  presence,  to  countless 
bloodstained  phantoms  conjured  up  in  the  fertile  brain  of  his 
intelligence  artist.  Still,  there  were  undeniable  advantages  in 
having  on  the  Staff  one  who,  in  the  interests  of  embellishing  a 
despatch,  could  at  the  shortest  notice  people  with  hosts  of  enemies 
an  arid  vale  in  which  there  was  nothing  living — not  even  a  meercat 
— and  who  always  could  be  depended  upon  to  discover  a  new 
commando  for  the  Intelligence  Department  at  Cape  Town  to  play 
with  on  their  map,  whenever  that  body's  fountains  of  invention 
had  become  temporarily  choked  up. 

The  Intelligence  Merchant's  gifts  of  imagination  covered  an 
extensive  field,  and  under  their  influence  he  made  it  a  practice  to 
pose  as  one  of  those  wanderers  who  flit  restlessly  from  land  to  land 
in  search  of  information  and  excitement.  '  Yes,'  he  would  say, 
'  when  this  business  is  over  I'll  just  take  a  look  in  on  the  old  country 
for  a  week  or  two,  and  then  I'll  slip  off  in  some  old  tramp  to 
St.  Petersburg — I  hate  that  long  railway  journey  right  across 
Europe.  I'll  drop  down  the  Volga  and  then  dodge  away  to  the 
Pamirs,  but  when  I  get  there  I'm  really  not  sure  what  way  I'll  go. 
One  can  work  'down  the  Bramahpootra,  of  course,  and  turn  up  in 
Assam  ;  but  my  idea  is  to  make  for  the  Gobi — I've  never  been  bang 
across  it — and  come  out  somewhere  north  of  Pekin,  or,  if  it's  summer 
time,  take  a  line  a  bit  further  north  and  fetch  up  in  Kamschatka. 
That's  what  I  should  call  a  nice  easy  trip,  and  it  wouldn't  take  too 
long.'  Or  again,  '  Mexico's  being  simply  played  the  devil  with  by 
the  railways — no  peace  and  quiet  up  that  way  these  last  five  years. 
There  used  to  be  no  better  place  to  put  in  a  few  weeks  roaming 
about,  but  I  wouldn't  be  bothered  to  go  now.'  There  were  those 
who  persisted  that  nothing  would  induce  them  to  believe  that  the 


856  THE  INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT. 

Intelligence  Merchant  had  ever  been  anywhere  outside  of  his  native 
Victoria,  except  in  the  theatre  of  war  where  he  was  now  cutting  so 
interesting  a  figure ;  but  the  Column-Commander,  who  rather 
fancied  himself  at  geography,  felt  bound  to  admit  that  the  soi-disant 
traveller's  information  was  singularly  correct  as  a  rule.  The 
question  would  probably  have  remained  in  dispute  till  the  breaking 
out  of  peace  disintegrated  the  column,  had  it  not  been  for  the  oppor- 
tune arrival  of  a  Yeomanry  squadron  to  swell  its  ranks,  and  for  the 
discovery  that  one  of  the  officers  in  this  Yeomanry  squadron  had 
spent  several  months  in  Bolivia.  What  he  had  been  doing  there 
— whether  he  had  been  starting  a  syndicate,  or  composing  an  epic, 
or  avoiding  the  importunity  of  vexatious  creditors — did  not  tran- 
spire ;  but  the  fact  of  his  sojourn  in  that  big  inland  republic  for  a 
season  was  proved  by  evidence  beyond  cavil.  So  a  conspiracy  was 
formed  to  bring  the  Intelligence  Merchant  and  the  Yeoman  together 
in  Bolivia,  and,  the  Yeoman  having  been  duly  apprised  of  what  was 
in  contemplation  and  warned  that  he  would  find  a  fairly  wide-awake 
customer  to  deal  with,  it  was  agreed  to  abide  by  the  result. 

The  Intelligence  Merchant  fell  into  the  trap  laid  for  him  like  the 
veriest  griffin  who  ever  did  recruit's  drill  on  the  barrack  square. 
The  Staff- Officer  made  a  casual  remark  about  a  man  he  knew  whose 
sister  talked  of  going  out  to  Valparaiso  to  start  a  poultry  farm. 
The  Signalling  Officer  wondered  if  there  was  good  wild-fowl  shooting 
-'  Swans,  don't  you  know,  and  that  sort  of  thing  ' — to  be  had  on 
Lake  Titicaca,  having  been  told  the  name  by  the  Yeoman  and 
having  carefully  written  it  down  in  his  note-book  (Army  Book  153) 
for  fear  he  might  forget  it.  Then,  almost  before  it  was  realised  that 
he  was  really  under  weigh,  the  Intelligence  Merchant  had  mounted 
on  to  the  crests  of  the  Cordilleras  and  was  suffering  experiences  of 
the  most  bloodcurdling  kind.  '  Good  beasts,  mules,'  he  said,  '  but 
if  you  keep  them  more  than  ten  days  at  22,000  feet  above  the  sea 
and  upwards,  they  are  apt  to  fall  away  in  condition.  Then  their 
packs  won't  fit  them,  and  the  end  of  it  is  one  has  all  sorts  of  worry. 
I  don't  remember  when  I  had  a  worse  time,  except  once — three  years 
ago  I  think  it  was — crossing  the  Karakorum  just  about  Christmas 
day.'  The  Yeoman  proved  himself  worthy  of  the  confidence  which 
had  been  reposed  in  him.  As  long  as  the  enemy  was  up  on  the  hill- 
tops he  sat  there  quietly  smoking  his  cigarette  and  apparently 
taking  but  little  interest  in  the  conversation.  It  was  not  till  the 
Intelligence  Merchant  had  descended  to  the  pampas  and  was 
heading  for  some  ancient  city  of  which  neither  he  nor  anybody  else 
had  ever  heard,  that  he  suddenly  found  himself  ambushed  and  that 


THE   INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT.  857 

the  audience  were  treated  to  a  most  thrilling  contest.  Like  the 
gallant  Victorian  that  he  was,  the  Intelligence  Merchant  made  a 
tough  and  strenuous  fight  of  it ;  his  efforts  to  shift  the  theatre  of 
war  into  Northern  Peru,  which  an  unerring  instinct  told  him  that 
the  Yeoman  had  not  visited,  showed  indeed  the  hand  of  a  master. 
But  events  proved  too  strong  for  him,  and  after  keeping  his  end 
up  with  unfaltering  courage  and  with  a  fertility  of  resource  that 
extorted  unwilling  admiration  from  the  column  Staff,  he  accepted 
defeat  in  the  spirit  of  the  true  sportsman,  frankly  owning  that 
1  Spinning  a  yarn  about  a  place  where  you  haven't  been,  to  a  man 
who  has  '  was  '  a  mug's  game.' 

He  was  unremitting  in  his  endeavours  to  convey  the  impression 
that  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings  he  had  acquired  the  gift  of 
tongues.  '  One  doesn't  need  to  talk  like  a  professor,  you  know,'  he 
explained  ;  '  my  experience  is  that  if  you  can  go  ahead  in  Spanish 
and  have  a  good,  useful  smattering  of  Turkish  and  Russian  and 
Chinese,  you  can  worry  along  almost  anywhere.  French  and 
German,  did  you  say  ?  What's  the  good  of  them  ?  I'd  have  learnt 
them  sharp  enough  had  I  wanted  'em  ' — the  truth  of  course  being 
that  the  Intelligence  Merchant  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  that  there 
might  be  individuals  in  the  column  prepared  '  to  take  him  on  '  in 
those  languages.  He  confined  himself  indeed  to  actually  serving  up 
samples  of  his  Dutch  and  of  what  he  had  persuaded  himself  was 
Scotch.  Pleading  some  remote  connection  with  the  Land  of  Cakes 
in  excuse  (his  father  had  been  at  the  same  school  with  a  boy  who 
had  spent  one  holiday  at  Peebles,  or  Pitlochry,  or  some  such  out- 
landish place),  he  would  interject  expressions  like  '  Hech  mon  '  or 
'  D'ye  ken,'  into  his  conversation,  in  defiance  of  protest.  Nor 
would  he  listen  to  the  expostulations  of  those  who  strove  to  convince 
him  that  his  acquaintance  with  Dutch  was  not  sufficient  to  justify 
its  employment  in  communications  with  the  people  who  inhabited 
the  theatre  of  war. 

It  proved  a  never-failing  source  of  interest  and  amusement  to 
his  associates  to  witness  an  interview  between  him  and  some  local 
farmer  from  whom  he  had  hoped  to  extract  information,  or  with 
whom  he  proposed  to  establish  cordial  relations.  On  these  occa- 
sions he  made  it  a  practice  to  unlimber  his  battery  of  the  Ta'al 
without  the  slightest  warning,  and  to  open  with  this  an  irregular 
and  spasmodic  fire  upon  the  other  party.  Although  variations 
might  from  time  to  time  occur  in  points  of  detail,  the  result  was 
invariably  disappointing.  Alarm  or  bewilderment  or  hilarity 
might  show  themselves  on  the  countenance  of  the  person  addressed. 


858  THE   INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT. 

but  on  no  single  occasion  was  the  signification  of  the  phrase  or 
phrases  discharged  by  the  Intelligence  Merchant  ever  grasped  by 
his  audience.  After  one  of  these  mortifying  rebuffs,  to  which  no 
amount  of  experience  seemed  to  accustom  the  discomfited  linguist, 
melancholy  for  some  minutes  claimed  him  for  her  own.  '  They 
don't  even  know  their  own  grovelling  lingo,'  he  declared  in  deep 
disgust.  '  The  longer  I  remain  in  this  one-horse  country  the  more 
satisfied  do  I  become  that  in  it  the  ass  predominates.  The  niggers 
have  fifty  times  the  sense  of  these  fat-headed  Dutch.  Here  you, 
Ananias  !  Perd  got  scoff  ?  '  '  Yes,  baas,  horse  got  big  feed  and 

eat  whole lot,'  and  the  '  boy  '  showed  a  set  of  teeth,  gleaming  and 

white,  without  a  suspicion  of  an  aperture  in  them — enough  to  drive 
the  whole  college  of  dental  surgeons  to  commit  felo  de  se. 

He  had  an  unerring  eye  for  the  points  of  a  native,  and  was 
invariably  most  happy  in  his  handling  of  the  coloured  portion  of  his 
staff,  condescending  to  talk  ordinary  English  to  them  when  nobody 
was  about,  and  only  turning  his  Dutch  on  to  them  when  it  did  not 
matter  whether  they  understood  him  or  not.  The  '  boys '  whom 
he  selected  for  important  service  rarely  failed  to  prove  themselves 
masters  of  their  craft.  All  of  them  were  zealous  and  enterprising, 
but  the  pick  of  the  basket  undoubtedly  was  '  John,'  whose  praises 
the  Intelligence  Merchant  never  wearied  in  singing. 

John  was  a  cool  and  daring  scout,  a  fellow  of  infinite  jest,  who  kept 
the  Intelligence  Department  in  uproarious  spirits  with  his  boisterous 
chaff.  He  possessed  the  invaluable  qualification  of  understanding 
English  and  Dutch  and  even  the  Intelligence  Merchant's  Scotch, 
and  he  invariably  acted  as  rough-rider  when  his  fellows  rounded  up 
a  raw  colt  on  the  velt  and  got  it  into  camp.  His  connection  with 
the  column  was,  however,  brought  to  an  abrupt  conclusion  by  an 
incident  which  had  very  nearly  terminated  in  grim  tragedy. 

He  and  another  member  of  the  Intelligence  Department, 
'  Seaman,'  had  been  out  all  one  day  when  the  column  was  resting  in 
a  pleasant  place  ;  but  towards  the  evening  Seaman  rode  back  into 
camp  alone.  There  was  a  crimson  streak  across  his  horse's  quarter, 
there  was  a  mark  on  the  cantle  of  his  saddle  where  a  bullet  had 
ploughed  its  way  through  the  woodwork,  and  there  was  that  sickly 
green  tinge  on  his  dusky  countenance  which  the  native's  com- 
plexion is  apt  to  assume  when  he  has  been  badly  scared.  It  turned 
out  that  the  couple  had  fallen  into  an  ambuscade.  There  had  been 
a  hoarse  roar  of  '  Hands  up  ! '  Seaman  had  made  a  dash  for  it  with 
the  bullets  whizzing  about  his  ears,  and  had  got  away,  but  John  had 
gone  down  at  once,  horse  and  all.  His  mount  might  have  been  hit, 


THE   INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT.  859 

or  he  might  have  been  hit,  or  both  of  them  might  have  been  hit ; 
but  one  thing  that  was  certain  was  that  if  he  was  alive  he  was  in 
the  enemy's  hands  ;  and  when  the  staff  had  gathered  the  full 
purport  of  the  disjointed  story  and  turned  away,  they  feared  for 
the  cheery,  fearless,  resourceful  recruit  from  the  Transkei  who  had 
thrown  his  lot  in  with  the  column  and  who  had  served  it  so  well, 
as  they  thought  of  the  drastic  treatment  sometimes  meted  out  to 
such  as  he  was  by  the  Boers. 

The  column  trekked  the  next  day,  and  it  had  off-saddled  towards 
noon  and  had  settled  down  for  two  hours  of  repose,  when  John  rode 
quietly  in,  mounted  on  a  different  steed  from  that  on  which  he  had 
gone  out,  and  with  a  brace  of  rifles  slung  across  his  back.  He 
dismounted  and  walked  gravely  up  to  where  the  Staff  were  collected, 
leading  his  horse.  Then  he  raised  his  hand  in  the  old  ceremonious 
native  fashion  which  the  spread  of  civilisation  is  fast  driving  out. 
Instinctively  the  Staff  all  raised  their  hands  in  salutation,  for  that 
appeared  to  be  the  proper  thing  to  do  at  the  outset  of  what  was 
evidently  going  to  be  an  indaba.  '  Got  back  all  right,  John  ?  ' 
remarked  the  Intelligence  Merchant,  as  if  nothing  unusual  had 
occurred.  '  Seen  Dutchmaan  ?  '  John  shuffled  his  feet  about  and 
then  began  his  report  in  a  droning  monotone ;  but,  in  repeating  the 
story  as  he  told  it  himself,  it  becomes  necessary  to  bowdlerise 
certain  of  its  more  pregnant  passages,  because  the  aborigine  of  South 
Africa  has  that  same  aptitude  for  interlarding  his  conversation  with 
highly  improper  expressions  at  inappropriate  moments  that  a 
parrot  so  often  displays  which  has  been  reared  up  in  low  company. 

4  Seaman  and  me  riding  back  yes-day  dree  clock,'  he  said  ; 
6  Dutchmaan  in  bush,  shout  "  Hand  up  !  "  den  shoot ;  kill  perd,  den 
catch  me — so,'  and  John  gripped  vigorously  at  various  portions  of 
his  person  and  livened  up  in  his  manner.  '  Seaman  he  gallop  way  ; 
Dutchmaan  shoot,  not  hit ;  den  dey  kick,'  and  he  kicked ; '  dey  beat ' 
and  he  pummelled  himself  vigorously  about  the  head  ;  '  den  dey  get 
rope  and  dey  go  so,'  and  he  went  through  an  expressive  pantomime 
of  tying  up  his  hands  and  legs.  '  Den  dey  talk,  and  one  say,  "  We 
shoot,"  andnoder  say,  "  We  sjambok  "  ;  but  old  Dutchmaan  he  say, 
"  No,  we  take  to  farm  and  ask  baas  commandant."  Den  dey  cut 
rope  round  leg  and  put  rope  round  so,'  and  he  pointed  to  his  neck, 
'  and  dey  get  up  on  perd,  and  I  go  foot  to  farm,  and  dey  give 
sjambok  if  I  go  not  fast.  Big  lot  Dutchmaan  at  farm,  bout  so 
much,'  and  he  held  up  his  hands  with  fingers  extended  four  times, 
4  and  dey  put  me  on  stoep  and  put  rope  so  I  not  move,  and  den  dey 
ask,  "  Wot  kolm  you  come  from  ? "  and  lots  tings  like  dat.  Den  dey 


860  THE   INTELLIGENCE    MERCHANT. 

talk  and  I  no  hear,  and  den  dey  get  perd  and  go  way ;  but  six 
stop '  (he  held  up  his  right  hand  with  the  thumb  and  fingers 
extended,  and  then  the  left  with  the  fingers  closed) ;  '  old 
Dutchmaan  he  say,  "  In  de  morning,  five  clock,  we  shoot."  '  '  They 
said  they  would  shoot  you  at  five  o'clock  next  morning  ?  '  asked 
the  Intelligence  Merchant,  and  John  nodded  solemnly  in  reply. 

'  De  Dutchmaan,'  continued  John,  '  dey  have  square-face  [ 
four  bottle,'  and  he  ticked  off  four  on  his  fingers  with  a  grin. 
'  Dey  say,  "  We  drink  now,"  but  old  Dutchmaan  he  say,  "  No,  we 
dig  first  "  ;  den  dey  get  wot-you-call,'  and  he  made  as  though  he 
was  digging.  '  Spade,'  suggested  somebody.  '  Is,  spade,'  said 
John,  '  and  dey  go  dig  under  tree.'  '  But  I  don't  understand/ 
whispered  the  Column- Commander  to  the  Intelligence  Merchant. 
'  What  were  they  digging  for  ?  '  John  overheard.  '  Dey  dig  hole 
to  put  me  in,  baas,'  he  explained.  '  They  were  digging  his  grave, 
sir,'  murmured  the  Staff-Officer.  c  Go  on,  John,'  said  the  Intelligence 
Merchant. 

John  unslung  his  rifles  off  his  back  and  laid  them  on  the  ground. 
He  had  the  child  of  nature's  instinct  for  dramatic  effect,  and  was 
clearing  for  action  so  that  he  might  be  unencumbered  in  the  gestures 
with  which  he  proposed  to  himself  to  give  point  to  the  more  exciting 
episodes  which  he  was  about  to  recount.  '  Dey  dig  big  hole,'  he 
went  on, '  and  den  dey  come  back  to  stoep  ;  dey  make  fire  and  dey 
cook  scoff,  and  den  dey  eat,  dey  drink — one  bottle  !  '  and  he 
looked  triumphantly  round  the  group  which  had  quietly  gathered, 
for  a  number  of  the  men  had  noticed  that  there  was  something  a-foot 
and  were  collecting.  '  Sit  down,  lads,  will  you,  and  make  a  ring,' 
said  the  Column- Commander — and  there  was  John,  standing  up 
alone  with  the  horse  in  the  middle  of  the  silent  circle.  '  Dey  drink 
two  bottle,'  he  cried  and  slapped  his  thigh.  '  Dey  drink  dree 
bottle,'  and  he  plucked  his  hat  from  off  his  head  and  flung  it  on  the 
ground  amid  a  murmur  of  applause.  '  De  Dutchmaan  dey  want 
drink  four  bottle,  but  old  Dutchmaan  he  say,  "  No,  keep  bottle," 
and  he  stand  up  and  he  go  so,'  and  John  imitated  a  drunken  man 
staggering  about,  '  and  dey  all  go  so,'  and  he  staggered  still  more 
violently.  '  Den  de  old  Dutchmaan  say  to  one,  he  stand,  so,  he 
be  wot-you-call  ?  '  '  Sentry,'  called  out  a  sergeant.  John  ac- 
knowledged the  suggestion  with  a  courtly  bow  to  the  sergeant. 
*  He  be  sentry,  and  oder  five  lie  down  and  dey  go  ao,'  and  he 
snored  like  five  men  snoring  in  different  keys.  '  De  sentry  he  stand 
at  wall — he  drunk,'  and  John  leant  limply  up  against  the  horse  to 

Gin. 


THE    INTELLIGENCE   MERCHANT.  861 

illustrate  the  sentinel's  attitude  ;  *  den  de  sentry  he  sit,'  and 
John  sat  down  all  crumpled  up  ;  '  den  he  go  so,'  and  John  was 
lying  face  downwards  on  the  ground. 

He  jumped  to  his  feet  again.  'I  got  knife,'  he  cried,  and 
he  was  getting  excited ;  by  dint  of  pantomime  he  showed  that  he 
had  had  a  knife  somewhere  about  the  small  of  the  back,  and  how  he 
had  wriggled  it  round  till  he  had  got  hold  of  it.  '  I  cut  rope  here,' 
he  shouted,  and  he  held  out  his  wrists.  1 1  cut  rope  here,'  he 
roared,  slapping  his  ankles.  '  T  free !  '  and  he  snatched  up  one 
of  the  rifles  and  whirled  it  over  his  head.  Then  he  sat  solemnly 
down  and  looked  round  the  circle  and  went  on  impressively.  *  I 
tink,  I  shoot  Dutchmaan.  Dam  Dutchmaan  he  shoot  me,  I  shoot 
dam  Dutchmaan.  Den  I  tink,  no — dat  make  noise,  I  put  knife  in 
dam  Dutchmaan.  Den  I  tink  knife  no  good  '  (he  held  up  what 
appeared  to  be  an  ancient  tableknife  for  the  audience  to  satisfy 
themselves  that  it  would  have  served  but  indifferently  for  a 
dagger).  '  I  say,  no  ;  I  take  dam  Dutchmaan  tings.'  John  sprang 
up  and  plunged  his  hands  into  a  capacious  pocket,  snatched  out  a 
watch  and  held  it  out  for  all  to  see.  He  plunged  his  hand  in  again 
and  snatched  out  another  watch.  He  plunged  his  hand  in  a  third 
time  and  snatched  out  a  third  watch,  and  he  laid  the  three  watches 
on  the  ground.  '  I  take  perd,'  he  cried,  '  good  perd,'  and  he 
slewed  the  horse  round  broadside  on  to  the  Staff  for  them  to  admire, 
by  means  of  a  judiciously  placed  kick  in  the  ribs.  Then  he  paused  a 
moment.  '  1  take  dese  two  gun,'  he  cried,  and  pointed  to  the 
rifles  at  his  feet.  He  paused  again,  cast  a  comprehensive  glance 
around  the  listening  circle,  and  then,  suddenly  thrusting  his  hand 
into  one  of  the  saddle-bags,  pulled  out  a  bottle  of  square-face  and 
held  it  aloft,  '  I  take  dam  Dutchmaan  drink  !  '  he  shouted,  and 
the  bulk  of  the  column,  which  had  by  this  time  gathered  round, 
broke  into  a  rousing  cheer. 

But  that  evening,  when  the  column  had  reached  its  halting-place 
and  had  settled  down,  John  came  up  to  the  Intelligence  Merchant 
and  asked  to  be  paid  up  and  to  be  allowed  to  go  ;  he  moreover  stuck 
to  it  even  when  offered  a  substantial  rise  of  salary.  He  had  looked 
on  to  see  his  grave  dug,  and  had  had  enough  of  war.  With  the  con- 
siderable sum  due  to  him,  added  to  the  value  of  the  watches,  he 
proposed  to  buy  three  wives — it  probably  would  not  run  to  more 
than  that.  '  He  would  have  been  no  good  if  we  had  kept  him,' 
said  the  Intelligence  Merchant ;  '  they're  useless  once  they  lose  their 
nerve.' 

CHAS.  E.  CALLWELL. 


862 


ON  AN  IRISH  LOUGH. 

A  STRETCH  of  grey-green  country,  valley  and  mountain  and  lake- 
water,  spread  twenty  miles  south  to  the  sunlight  on  Galway  Bay. 
Between  the  bay  and  the  hill  we  had  climbed  lay  Lough  Corrib, 
dotted  with  islands  ;  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  between  patchwork 
strips  of  corn  and  potatoes,  ran  an  arm  of  Lough  Mask,  and  far  to 
the  north  Lough  Mask  itself  faded  into  indefinite  depths  and  spaces  ; 
you  could  not  separate  the  blue  air  from  the  line  of  shore.  The 
nearer  islands  rose  high  and  solid  from  the  level  lake — Red  Island 
rusty  with  bracken,  Saint's  Island  crowned  with  trees ;  the  distant 
smaller  islands  were  set  on  the  surface  like  ships,  with  their  doubles 
as  clear  under  them  as  if  they  were  painted  glass.  Lough  Carra, 
whose  waters  are  green  from  miles  away,  lay  beyond  Mask,  and  on 
the  slope  of  a  hill  hardly  seen,  the  sun,  striking  full  on  the  white 
wall  of  some  small  cottage,  lit  it  like  a  candle  in  full  day.  It  was 
my  first  view  of  any  broad  stretch  of  Irish  landscape,  and  looking 
at  it  from  this  hill  above  the  little  fishing  lodge  to  which  we  had 
come  from  London  a  day  or  two  before,  I  wondered  what  other 
landscape  I  could  compare  with  it. 

To  pass  from  the  monotonous  grass  and  bogland  of  West  Meath 
and  Roscommon  to  the  wild  lake  country  of  Mayo  and  Galway  is 
the  suddenest  change.  The  breakfast  train  which  takes  the  mails 
from  the  Dublin  boat  runs  by  green  fields  and  through  wastes  of 
flat  and  desolate  moorland ;  and  then,  beyond  Claremorris,  where 
you  leave  the  main  railway  for  the  little  branch  line,  the  horizon 
breaks  into  hills,  the  hills  grow  into  mountains  :  you  leave  the 
railway  carriage  for  the  jaunting  car,  the  car  jolts  out  along  the 
road,  you  turn  a  corner,  and  you  are  in  Ireland — in  Ireland  as  she 
shows  herself  most  clearly,  at  least,  to  an  Englishman.  Grey  rocks, 
grey  boulders,  grey  walls  of  stones  ;  green  patches  of  grass  under 
the  stones,  grass  grown  in  soil  which  those  very  stones  hid  but  a 
year  or  two  ago,  grass  which  belongs,  if  anything  in  the  world  should 
belong,  to  the  hands  which  piled  the  stones  almost  from  shingle 
into  walls.  A  few  square  yards  of  potatoes,  strong  and  healthy, 
and  sprayed,  as  you  can  see  from  the  glaucous  coat  upon  the  leaves, 
with  some  solution  of  copper  against  disease ;  the  colour  of  the 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  863 

spraying  on  every  patch  as  the  car  passes  it  sums  up  something 
of  Irish  history  since  the  famine.  Here,  from  the  eastern  shore  of 
Lough  Mask,  you  may  look  across  at  wild  and  rugged  chains  of  hills, 
bare  rock  and  heather  above,  and  all,  on  their  lower  slopes,  dotted 
and  squared  and  patched  with  these  little  green  lawns  and  these 
strips  of  potatoes.  Whitewashed  thatched  cottages  sit  comfort- 
ably by  the  potato-strips  ;  there  is  somewhere  an  air  of  prosperity, 
for  all  the  lack  of  money,  about  the  crops  and  the  well- thatched  roofs. 
Here,  by  the  roadside,  is  a  white  cottage,  with  its  windows  gay  with 
scarlet  geraniums  grown  in  a  wooden  box  ;  down  the  road,  from  the 
chimney  above  the  geraniums,  comes  the  faint  reek  of  burning  peat, 
that  most  unforgettable  smell  of  moorland  and  of  lonely  villages. 
Here,  walking  shyly  behind  double  panniers  which  stretch  nearly 
the  width  of  the  road,  a  child  drives  a  donkey  piled  high  with  peat, 
cut  and  dried  from  the  rick.  Further  down  the  road  a  Connemara 
pony  carries  a  man  astride  and  a  woman  sideways  behind  him  ; 
a  little  further,  and  two  strong  barefooted  girls  stride  noiselessly 
on  the  strip  of  grass  beside  the  metalled  highway.  The  shawls  over 
their  heads  are  grey,  and  their  short  skirts  Turkey  red ;  those  are 
the  old  and  natural  fashions.  Above  all,  above  the  Lough  and  the 
hills  and  the  long  road,  are  a  sky  and  an  air  which  belong  to 
Western  Ireland  only ;  a  sky  of  tumbled  masses  of  cumulus  cloud 
and  great  deeps  of  blue  beyond  them  ;  a  sky  with  three  tones 
of  blue  in  it,  dark  blue  above,  azure  next,  and  the  pale  green- 
blue  of  a  starling's  egg  to  the  horizon.  Under  it  the  air  is  strangely 
soft  and  warm  ;  an  air  of  siestas,  of  sleep  in  sun  and  a  fanning 
wind ;  so  indolent  that  no  one  on  whom  it  blows  should  remember 
anything  of  work  or  any  urgent  need  at  all ;  and  there,  with  that 
idle  wind  blowing  the  peat-reek  down  the  road,  stands  the  monument 
of  those  scanty  potato-patches  and  grass-land  redeemed  from  rock 
and  stone. 

The  air  is  of  the  south  ;  and  side  by  side  with  all  the  prodigious 
energy  spent  in  converting  the  most  heartless  stretch  of  stony  hillside 
into  soil  that  can  be  dug  and  sown,  there  is  a  southern  aversion 
from  taking  unnecessary  trouble,  a  southern  acquiescence  in  things 
as  they  are.  There  is  a  Spanish  laziness  in  the  long  Galway  after- 
noons. It  is  not  only  in  the  indolent  warmth  of  the  wind ;  it  is 
about  the  people,  the  cottages,  the  very  cattle.  The  quays  of 
Galway  city  and  the  inlets  of  the  Galway  coast  have  been  linked 
with  Spanish  traffic  for  centuries.  Spanish  blood  still  pulses 
strongly  in  the  life  of  the  Galway  countryside ;  you  may  watch  some 


864  ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH. 

dark-browed,  dark-skinned  peasant  ride  in  his  soft  black  hat  on  his 
Connemara  pony,  and  you  may  wonder  how  many  generations 
separate  him  from  the  sea-captain  of  Cadiz.  Spanish  cattle  even 
now  graze  on  the  poor  pasture  of  the  shores  of  Upper  Mask ;  lean, 
mouse-coloured  beasts  they  are,  and  bad  milkers,  I  was  told. 
They  had  been  brought  from  Spain  some  years  ago,  I  learned  ; 
how  many  years,  no  one  could  say. 

Two  memories  of  that  easy  incurious  acquiescence  in  facts  as 
they  are  belong  to  my  first  acquaintance  with  Lough  Mask.  We 
had  driven  out  one  day  to  Cong  Abbey,  a  ruin  of  the  twelfth  century, 
which  stands  on  the  shore  of  Lough  Corrib.  For  myself,  I  was 
particularly  anxious  to  see  Cong  Abbey,  not  because  of  the  beauty 
of  the  buildings,  but  because  stories  of  Cong  Abbey  belonged  to 
very  early  days,  told  me  by  one  who  had  visited  the  place  perhaps 
thirty  years  ago.  One  was  of  the  bell  rung  by  the  salmon  caught 
in  the  Abbot's  net  set  on  the  river  ;  the  plunge  of  the  fish  in  the 
meshes  rang  the  bell  above  the  bridge,  and  out  came  the  monks  to 
take  in  the  fish  for  supper.  The  other  story  was  dark  and  half- 
forgotten,  of  a  room  with  its  floor  piled  with  skulls ;  I  could  not 
remember  why  the  skulls  were  there.  We  came  to  the  Abbey  and 
the  river,  and  were  shown  how  the  salmon  rang  the  bell ;  we  admired 
the  early  Norman  doorways,  and  I  asked  the  pleasant,  sad-faced 
woman  who  kept  the  keys  of  the  place  if  there  was  anything  else  to 
see.  There  was,  she  said ;  there  was  a  building  with  bones  and 
skeletons  in  it ;  something  was  going  to  be  done  about  it,  she 
believed,  to  give  them  proper  burial.  I  looked  in  at  the  chamber 
she  showed  me,  and  there,  at  the  further  end  of  it,  was  the  pile  of 
skulls  in  the  dark  ;  a  heap  of  bones  half-way  up  the  wall.  Local 
records,  no  doubt,  would  show  why  these  grisly  remains  were  dis- 
turbed from  their  resting-place  in  the  Abbey  burial  grounds ;  but 
what  you  cannot  do  is  to  get  an  exact  date  and  an  exact  reason 
on  the  spot.  The  woman  told  me  what  she  had  heard  from  her 
father  since  she  was  a  child,  and  somehow  she  managed  to  convey 
the  impression  that  it  was  all  as  it  should  be  ;  the  bones  had  recently 
been  dug  up,  and  had  been  put  there  temporarily,  until  they  could 
be  buried  decently  as  they  deserved. 

Perhaps  stranger  was  an  experience  on  our  return  from  Cong. 
Not  far  from  the  Abbey  the  driver  of  our  jaunting  car  pointed  with 
his  whip  to  what  looked  like  a  number  of  ordinary  rocks  by  the 
roadside — a  chance  group  of  stones,  common  enough  in  such  rough 
country.  But  the  odd  thing  was  that  on  many  of  the  stones  there 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  865 

were  stuck  small  wooden  crosses.  Was  it  a  burial-ground  ?  I 
asked.  No,  lie  told  me,  not  a  burial-ground ;  but  every  funeral  on 
its  way  to  Cong  stopped  there  and  put  up  a  cross.  Why  ?  He  did 
not  know  :  nobody  knew.  We  drove  on,  and  I  noticed  a  sort  of 
cairn  by  the  roadside ;  the  rocks  we  had  just  seen  were  natural 
stone,  but  this  was  plainly  a  monument  built  with  hands.  What 
was  it  ?  I  asked.  A  tomb  ?  That  he  did  not  know.  But  there 
was  writing  on  it,  he  believed ;  an  inscription  to  say  what  it  was. 
Some  said  that  the  inscription  was  in  the  Gaelic  ;  and  then  he  had 
heard  others  say  that  it  was  some  foreign  language.  I  got  down  to 
look,  and  found  on  the  faced  stone  a  dozen  lines  or  so  of  plain 
English  capital  letters,  begging  passers-by  to  pray  for  the  souls 
of  John  Joyce  and  his  wife  Mary,  who  died  on  the  same  date — 
August  12,  I  think — in  1708.  What  were  the  memories  of  that 
lonely  cairn  ?  Here,  by  Cong  Abbey,  you  are  on  the  borders  of 
the  Joyce  country,  that  strip  of  land  west  of  Lough  Mask  which  was 
seized  by  the  conquering  Joyce  family  from  Wales  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  has  been  dominated  by  Joyces  ever  since.  But  the 
year  1708  was  set  in  those  merciless  days  when  priests  and  papists 
went  in  fear  of  the  informer  and  the  spy,  and  if  a  man  and  his  wife 
died  in  an  hour  in  the  Joyce  country,  there  would  be  nothing  re- 
markable in  that.  But  how  should  history  be  put  together  in  such 
places  ?  He  who  drove  us  had  passed  the  cairn  scores  of  times, 
and  never  had  stopped  to  look  at  the  carved  names. 

Is  it  disinclination  to  trouble,  or  is  it  indifference  to  things 
not  of  living  importance  ?  The  same  mind  which  saw  nothing 
worth  stopping  the  car  for  in  a  heap  of  stones  would  be  alert  at 
once  if  the  stones  were  to  be  used  to  mend  the  roads.  I  asked  once 
a  question  about  a  new  road  which  nobody  seemed  to  use — a  road 
which  had  been  driven  up  over  the  mountain  in  a  direction  in 
which  nobody  wished  to  go.  It  was  a  foolish  piece  of  work,  I  was 
told  at  once.  It  was  relief  work,  and  neither  the  men  who  metalled 
the  road  nor  the  gangers  who  looked  after  them  were  worth  the 
money  they  were  paid.  He  put  indignant  questions.  Would  the 
men  work  well  when  it  was  Government  work  they  were  doing  ? 
Would  the  gangers  and  the  inspectors,  who  cost  as  much  money  as 
the  road,  mind  whether  the  men  worked  well  ?  He  had  thought  of 
writing  to  say  how  the  money  was  being  wasted,  but  then  they  would 
ask,  perhaps,  who  he  was,  and  he  would  not  wish  to  put  himself 
forward.  Another  argument  which  I  liked  related  to  a  neighbouring 
salmon  fishery.  Somebody  had  somehow  acquired,  or  was  going  to 

VOL.   XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  55 


866  ON   AN    IRISH    LOUGH. 

acquire,  the  right  of  netting  salmon  in  certain  parts~*of  the  lough, 
and  he  saw  at  once  what  that  would  mean  to  the  local  fishermen. 
One  of  them  argued  the  point  with  him  ;  it  was  not  worth  while 
to  interfere,  since  it  was  only  proposed  to  net  two  of  the  bays,  and 
the  rest  of  the  lough  would  be  open  to  everybody  as  usual.  Would 
it  be  so  ?  he  was  answered  quickly.  Why  would  they  wish  to  net 
only  two  bays  ?  Why  would  they  choose  two  bays  ?  Wouldn't 
they  be  just  the  bays  which  the  salmon  would  be  lying  in  ?  Wouldn't 
they  leave  the  rest  of  the  lough  and  not  net  it,  just  because  in  the  other 
bays  there  were  no  salmon  at  all  ?  Those  were  questions  unanswered. 
Beyond  all  doubt,  the  work  done  on  the  land  in  this  part  of 
Ireland  is  prodigious.  Every  yard  of  ground  on  the  lower  slopes 
of  the  hills  that  is  dug  and  sown  has  been  reclaimed  from  bog  or 
from  loose  rock ;  at  what  a  cost  in  physical  labour  only  those  who 
have  looked  at  land  still  unreclaimed  could  guess.  You  may  see 
here  and  there,  perhaps,  some  small  green  oasis  on  the  flank  of 
the  mountain  with  stretches  of  loose  stone  on  each  side  of  it ; 
stretches  of  stone  so  hopelessly  forbidding  that  the  English  eye 
simply  turns  away.  The  thing  could  not  be  done  ;  land  capable 
of  being  cultivated  could  not  be  made  out  of  that.  '  Do  you  mean,' 
you  may  ask,  '  that  that  little  green  field  has  been  made  out  of  a 
stretch  of  stones  like  the  ground  at  the  side  ?  '  '  Indeed  it  has 
been,'  you  will  be  told.  '  The  people  round  here  are  very  poor.' 
'  And  another  tenant  would  not  mind  tackling  the  stones  on  the  land 
next  to  it  ? '  '  Indeed  he  would  be  very  glad.'  But  it  is  not  only 
he,  the  tenant,  who  would  do  the  work.  It  is  his  women  folk. 
Nowhere,  surely,  can  women  work  harder  or  more  willingly  in  the 
fields  than  here.  They  begin  as  mere  children,  walking  behind 
their  fathers,  filhng  baskets  with  potatoes,  loading  up  the  donkey- 
panniers  with  peat.  A  little  later,  as  young  girls,  they  go  into 
service,  or  to  one  of  the  lace- schools  in  the  neighbouring  villages. 
Or,  at  all  events,  you  do  not  see  many  girls  from  fourteen  to  twenty 
working  in  the  fields  :  it  is  only  here  and  there  that  you  find  a  whole 
family,  a  father  with  his  sons  and  daughters  helping  him  to  get 
in  his  potato-crop,  perhaps  ;  and  then  you  may  realise  a  little  the 
position  of  women-folk  in  the  rural  community.  The  girls  count 
the  least ;  it  is  a  strange  sight  to  see  these  strong  and  graceful 
young  creatures  working  barefoot  by  the  side  of  their  booted 
fathers  and  brothers.  But  that  is  the  rule  from  the  beginning ; 
the  girl-children  go  barefoot  to  school,  and  the  boys  in  boots  and 
shoes.  It  is  the  same  at  the  end ;  it  is  the  old  women  who  work 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  867 

hardest  of  all ;  grey-haired  and  white-haired  women,  some  of  them 
sharp-tongued  as  witches,  some  sweet-faced  and  ready  with  easy 
blessings,  toiling  on  their  scanty  root-patches,  painfully  fetching 
water  from  the  lake  or  the  well.  One  such  vision  of  unremitting 
labour  stands  out  from  many.  It  was  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
Joyce  country ;  we  had  driven  out  on  a  lonely  little  road  beyond 
Lough  Nafooey,  and  had  climbed  up  by  the  side  of  a  waterfall  which 
leaps  over  black  rocks  from  pool  to  pool  down  the  valley  ;  there  are 
trout,  they  tell  you,  even  in  the  highest  pools,  though  how  trout  could 
run  up  those  perpendicular  tumbles  of  water  is  not  to  be  guessed. 
On  the  far  side  of  the  waterfall  stood  a  tiny  thatched  cottage  in 
a  tiny  strip  of  potatoes ;  the  cottage  was  not  bigger  than  a  small 
room,  nor  the  potato-strip  wider  than  a  garden  bed,  and  among  the 
potatoes  an  old  woman  was  stooping.  In  an  English  village  you 
would  put  her  at  eighty  offhand  ;  she  dug  in  the  potato-drills  bare- 
footed, and  presently  took  a  basket  into  the  cottage.  She  came 
out  and  crossed  the  road,  walking  down  to  a  patch  of  grass  beyond  ; 
she  called  out  as  she  went,  not  unmusically,  and  a  goat  lifted  its 
head  and  dropped  it  to  graze  again  ;  another  goat  had  wandered 
some  way  off,  and  to  that  one  she  called  threatening  it  as  a  nurse 
threatens  runaway  children.  She  had  a  grey  shawl  over  her  white 
hair,  her  short  skirt  was  red,  and  all  the  while  she  walked  and 
threatened  her  disobedient  goats  she  kept  on  knitting  at  a  grey 
stocking  ;  she  never  bent  her  head  to  the  wool,  but  her  fingers  never 
stopped  ;  the  stocking,  perhaps,  would  be  for  her  son.  Would  she 
pay  rent  for  that  cottage  ?  I  asked  when  we  got  back  to  the  car. 
She  would,  I  was  told,  she  would  pay  ;  she  had  some  sheep,  too,  up 
on  the  mountain.  But  she  would  not  be  as  old  as  she  looked. 
It  was  the  hard  life,  and  she  would  be  about  fifty  or  sixty. 

The  rent  paid  for  some  of  these  small  patches  of  cultivated 
ground  is  astonishing.  I  noticed  a  fine  crop  of  potatoes  being 
taken  up  from  a  strip  of  ground  on  the  shore  of  Lough  Mask  ;  there 
were  perhaps  a  dozen  hands  working  on  it,  men  and  boys  and  girls. 
Five  pounds  an  acre  they  paid,  but  that,  it  was  explained,  was 
good  corn-land.  An  interesting  point  was  that  the  tenants  farming 
that  particular  piece  of  ground  did  not  live  near  it ;  they  came 
from  some  miles  away.  There  were  other  strips  of  farmland  I  was 
shown  which  were  worked  by  men  living  even  ten  or  twelve  miles 
from  their  crops.  Labour  is  cheap,  of  course  ;  indeed,  it  may  cost 
nothing,  if  a  family  can  set  to  and  dig  their  own  ground  and  gather 
their  own  crops.  But  could  anything  be  done  more  in  earnest, 

55—2 


868  ON   AN   IRISH    LOUGH. 

with  simpler  thoughts  for  simple  needs  ?  If  anywhere  men  and 
women  live  on  the  land,  they  live  plainly  here.  Two  years  ago 
I  was  in  a  little  village  in  the  deep  of  Joyce's  country,  and  was 
looking  at  some  ducks  and  chickens  picking  a  rather  scanty  fare 
by  the  side  of  the  road.  They  were  not  for  the  country  people  to 
eat ;  the  people  in  these  parts,  you  might  learn,  would  not  eat 
anything  but  milk  and  potatoes,  and  those  chickens  would  be  to 
sell ;  ninepence  each  perhaps.  In  the  winter,  then  ?  They  would 
sell  nothing  in  the  winter  ;  they  would  go  all  the  winter  without 
seeing  any  money  at  all ;  they  would  just  live  on  potatoes.  That 
was  before  the  days  of  old-age  pensions,  and  if  the  poverty  of  it 
seems  shocking,  let  anyone  in  a  mind  to  bewail  the  lot  of  the  Joyce- 
country  peasantry  stand  and  watch  the  bare-legged  children  come 
tumbling  out  of  the  little  village  school.  He  will  not  see  such 
limbs  in  every  English  village. 

An  English  stranger,  to  be  sure,  would  come  at  the  meaning 
of  such  a  life  very  slowly,  if  he  ever  came  to  understand  it  at  all. 
Few  strangers  go  by  those  roads  and  fields  ;  how  few,  he  who 
walks  alone  out  over  the  bog  may  discover  ;  the  children  will  run 
from  him.  It  is  quite  disconcerting  to  step  over  a  wall  or  come 
round  the  shoulder  of  a  hill,  and  to  see  two  small  children  run 
weeping  to  catch  hold  of  their  sister's  skirt ;  still  worse,  to  surprise 
some  little  creature  so  that  its  only  way  of  retreat  is  cut  off,  and  it 
cannot  get  back  to  safety.  One  single  garment  it  may  wear,  and 
that  perhaps  without  buttons,  for  all  clothing.  Then  it  places 
knuckles  in  both  eyes,  and  he  who  was  walking  runs.  '  Sure,  it 
would  be  very  bashful,'  you  are  told  on  returning  to  the  fishing- 
lodge,  and  very  bashful  the  children  remain.  You  may  see  them 
sometimes,  when  they  catch  sight  of  you  from  a  distance,  quickly 
hiding  before  you  come  near,  behind  a  rock,  under  a  hedge.  They 
might  learn  in  time,  but  it  would  take  long.  My  wife  came  to  an 
acquaintance,  after  a  week  or  two,  with  some  little  children  we 
used  to  pass  every  day  standing  by  their  cottage  door.  At  first 
they  would  shrink  into  the  dark  of  the  room,  and  you  could  see  them 
peeping  over  each  other's  shoulders ;  at  the  end  of  our  time  they 
would  stand  outside  in  a  group,  red-frocked  and  wide-eyed,  with  a 
pig  or  two  in  the  mud  beside  them,  and  a  dog  at  their  feet  growling 
at  the  dog  with  us  ;  they  would  smile,  but  not  speak. 

It  is  easier  not  to  feel  yourself  a  stranger  with  the  old  people. 
The  courteous  old  men  who  never  pass  you  without  remarkii 
that  it  is  a  fine  day,  or  a  soft  evening  ;  the  old  women  driving  their 
donkeys,  or  carrying,  perhaps,  a  grandchild  baby  bundled  up  in  a 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  869 

shawl— they,  possibly,  have  seen  more  of  the  world  than  Con- 
nemara,  and  you  are  greeted  frankly  enough.  But  the  younger 
life  of  the  place  eludes  and  hides.  The  children  grow  up  slowly, 
and  you  are  never  more  of  a  stranger  than  when  they  have  just 
left  childhood  behind  them.  That  may  not  be  peculiar  to  Con- 
nemara ;  the  reason  may  be  much  broader  and  simpler,  just,  in 
fact,  that  you  are  not  so  young  as  they.  But  it  is  a  shyness,  some- 
how, that  is  very  pretty  to  see  ;  it  is  a  graceful  nervousness,  rather 
than  the  shyness  of  lack  of  manners.  We  were  coming  back  to 
the  lodge  one  evening,  and  heard  in  the  distance  unaccustomed 
music.  We  turned  the  corner  of  the  road,  and  there,  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards  away  on  the  bridge  over  the  stream  was  a  piper 
piping  a  jig,  and  a  dance  in  full  swing ;  there  were  a  dozen  or  so 
of  boys  and  young  men,  and  girls  dancing  with  them.  It  looked 
like  a  sort  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  affair,  with  the  boys  and  girls 
coming  down  the  middle  in  turn  ;  it  was  the  merriest  thing  we  had 
seen.  And  then  suddenly  it  all  stopped ;  the  couples  dropped 
their  jigging  to  a  walk,  backed  to  the  parapet  of  the  bridge,  sat 
on  the  parapet  or  stood  silently  aside ;  the  music  kept  on  for  a 
moment  and  that  was  silent  too.  We  came  down  the  road — 
there  was  no  other  way — and  crossed  the  bridge ;  only  the  piper 
spoke  a  word.  As  we  went  over  the  bridge  there  came  running 
round  the  turn  of  the  road  another  little  group  of  girls,  five  or  six, 
laughing ;  they  had  heard  the  piper's  music.  They  caught  sight 
of  us  and  checked  ;  their  eyes  were  all  alarm  ;  then  they  turned  and 
fled  back  down  the  road.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  get  away 
from  the  bridge  as  soon  as  possible ;  but  it  was  a  long  time  after 
we  had  returned  to  the  lodge  that  we  heard  the  piping  across  the 
water  and  looked  out  and  saw  the  boys  and  girls  jigging  away 
again. 

The  Joyce  country  has  had  its  tragedies  ;  cruelties  which  are 
difficult  to  forget ;  crimes  which  have  left  their  trace  on  the  country- 
side to-day.  You  may  climb  a  hill  and  look  out  one  side  to 
Ashford,  beyond  the  smiling  valley  of  the  Upper  Mask  ;  you  may 
look  on  the  other  side  over  Maamtrasna  Bay  to  the  quiet  of  Derry- 
park,  and  the  very  names  insist  on  their  memories  ;  the  knowledge 
of  them  is  seared  into  the  very  life  and  meaning  of  Joyce's  country 
and  Connemara.  Yet  if  I  try  to  set  down  the  characteristics  of 
the  people  whom  I  met  in  that  part  of  Galway  1  think  first  of  three, 
honesty,  hard  work,  and  love  of  sport.  The  three  may  not  always 
go  together,  but  neither  of  the  last  two  is  without  the  first.  Sport 
there  may  be,  for  any  in  Joyce's  country  who  can  find  time  for  it, 


870  ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH. 

on  those  broad  waters ;  hard  work  there  must  be  for  the  laziest,  on 
that  stony  soil.  The  southern  incuriousness  immanent  in  the 
mind  of  the  native  is  urged  to  strenuous  labour  in  face  of  the 
stark  truth  staring  at  him  that  if  a  man  will  not  work,  neither 
shall  he  eat.  My  chief  acquaintances  were  boatmen,  and  boatmen, 
doubtless,  are  happiest  in  the  fishing  months  with  nearly  every 
day  a  day  of  sport,  even  if  it  is  someone  else's  sport  to  watch  and 
assist  at.  No  very  ambitious  man,  perhaps,  would  be  a  boatman 
on  an  Irish  lough,  but  no  very  lazy  man  could  row  a  boat-load  all 
day  long  and  be  sorry  to  come  home  in  the  evening.  Those  who 
rowed  me,  I  found  out,  were  masters  of  other  trades  besides 
managing  a  boat ;  one  was  a  builder,  another  a  mason,  another 
could  do  anything,  from  putting  a  roof  on  a  house  to  imitating  a 
goat  so  that  you  turned  to  look  for  one  ;  all  were  farmers.  As  for 
honesty — using  the  word  in  the  conventional  sense — one  does  not 
praise  the  honesty  of  one's  friends  ;  but  you  will  meet  nowhere 
men  more  genuine  or  more  in  earnest  to  please  you.  I  had  read 
a  good  deal  before  I  went  to  the  west  of  Ireland  of  Irish  poachers  ; 
I  suppose  most  people  have  read  a  little.  All  I  can  say  is  that 
during  the  whole  of  the  time  I  was  there,  shooting  over  a  big  stretch 
of  heather,  bog,  and  woodcock  covert,  I  never  heard  a  hint  of  a 
suggestion  of  any  kind  of  poaching  whatever.  Why  should  there 
be  poaching  ?  Nobody  had  a  gun.  If  anyone  had  a  gun,  he 
could  not  shoot  snipe  or  grouse  on  the  open  moor  without  every- 
body for  miles  knowing  all  about  it ;  nor  are  snipe  and  grouse 
particularly  easy  birds  to  hit.  He  might  snare  hares  ?  But  again, 
why  should  he  ?  Nobody  in  those  parts  would  eat  a  hare.  The 
plain  fact  is  that  the  ground  is  not  poached,  and,  looking  broadly 
at  the  whole  life  of  the  countryside,  and  particularly  at  the  careful 
way  in  which  the  men  themselves  preserve  the  fishing  which  is  free 
to  everybody,  I  do  not  see  why  you  may  not  claim  that  there  is  no 
poaching  simply  because  the  country-people  are  naturally  quiet 
and  law-abiding.  I  was  in  Connemara  just  after  one  of  the  worst 
outbreaks  of  cattle-driving  in  two  neighbouring  counties,  and  I 
asked  one  of  the  boatmen  about  it.  '  I  did  read  of  it,'  he  said. 
'  Yiss,  and  the  Bishop  of  Tuam  he  told  them  that  it  was  foolish 
and  wrong,  and  there  was  to  be  no  more  of  it  at  all.  He  did.' 
There  could  not  have  been  a  simpler  answer. 

The  boatmen  themselves  look  after  the  fishing.  Years  ago 
there  was  every  form  of  poaching  conceivable,  or,  rather,  what  is 
now  regarded  as  poaching  was  legal  fishing.  Nets,  cross  lines 
and  otters,  all  were  used  mercilessly  ;  the  last  an  atrocious  arrange- 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  871 

ment  of  a  weighted  plank  rigged  up  with  coarse  lines  and  flies  and 
towed  behind  a  boat.  To-day  many  of  the  peasants  who  live  on 
the  shores  of  the  lough  are  not  only  boatmen  but  bailiffs,  and  they 
have  the  very  best  of  reasons  for  preventing  poaching ;  they  are 
protecting  their  own  livelihood.  The  more  visitors  who  come  to 
the  fishing  lodges  and  the  inns  near  the  lough,  the  better  the  wages 
of  the  boatmen  wanted  for  rowing.  It  is  not  only  the  boatmen 
who  benefit.  The  better  the  fishing  on  the  lough,  the  more  fisher- 
men likely  to  come  to  the  lodges,  and  the  greater  the  demand  for 
eggs  and  chickens.  The  Connemara  chicken,  by  the  way,  is  not 
as  other  chickens.  He  exists  in  large  numbers  ;  his  mother  makes 
Ler  nest  where  she  pleases,  and  leads  her  young  cockerels  afield 
to  find  their  own  living.  Consequently  the  family  does  not  grow 
big  or  fat,  and  when  the  cockerels  are  killed  they  are  served  up 
six  or  so  in  the  dish  together,  perhaps  one  for  each  person  dining. 
They  are  not  trussed  ;  they  thrust  protesting  legs  ;  there  is  an  air, 
somehow,  as  if  they  had  been  shot  while  bathing. 

I  have  not  fished  on  Lough  Mask  in  the  spring  and  early 
summer,  when  the  biggest  trout  are  caught ;  all  my  experience  has 
been  autumn  fishing,  when  the  best  fish  you  are  likely  to  get  on 
the  fly  will  be,  perhaps,  four  pounds.  In  the  spring  you  may  get 
the  heavy  trout  on  the  troll ;  eight-  and  ten-  and  twelve-pounders 
on  a  small  spoon-bait,  or  a  phantom,  or  a  gold  Devon.  But  the 
autumn  fishing,  with  the  smaller  trout,  is  pleasant  enough.  Bags 
vary,  but  a  basket  of  ten  pounds  is  a  very  fair  day.  More  fish, 
probably,  are  caught  on  the  troll  than  on  the  fly,  but  trolling  is 
to  my  mind  a  deadly  dull  business.  There  is  a  sense  of  ease  and 
repose,  at  first,  in  being  rowed  out  over  the  level,  sparkling  lough ; 
there  is  an  atmosphere  of  generous  space  about  the  little  boat 
travelling  silently,  except  for  the  splash  of  the  oars  and  the  thump 
of  the  rowlocks,  on  those  broad  waters,  and  there  can  be  a  thrill 
which  belongs  alone  to  trolling  when  the  stone  set  on  the  looped 
line  clatters  down  to  the  bottom  boards,  the  reel  screams,  and  the 
tugging  rod-point  jumps  to  the  pull  of  a  pound  trout,  or,  just 
possibly,  a  twenty-pound  pike.  But  I  think  nobody  who  cared 
for  fly-fishing  would  wish  for  much  trolling.  The  repose  turns 
into  monotony  ;  the  inaction  of  it  tires  as  idleness  must  tire. 
Besides,  with  the  troll  the  fisherman  has  matters  too  much  his  own 
way.  He  must  use  strong  tackle,  or  the  jerk  at  the  bait  added 
to  the  pull  of  the  heavy  boat  would  snap  it ;  and  there  is  always  a 
chance,  too,  of  a  really  big  pike,  which  will  take  some  holding. 
But  with  the  strong  tackle  the  pounders  and  two-pounders  have 


872  ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH. 

no  chance.    The  poor  little  trout  is  reeled  up  rather  than  played, 
and  he  deserves  better  than  that. 

Fly-fishing  with  a  light  rod  is  best.  Dapping,  with  a  stiff 
bamboo  rod  and  a  silk  blowline,  has  its  own  charm,  and  needs 
more  than  a  little  skill,  but  its  disadvantages  are  many.  In  a 
light  wind  and  a  warm  sun  it  is  pleasant  to  drift  down  the  side  of 
the  lough,  and  pretty  enough,  too,  to  watch  the  daddy-longlegs 
dance  about  the  ripples  ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  exacting  forms 
of  fishing  in  the  world.  The  daddy  is  the  most  uncontrollable  of 
baits  ;  a  puff  of  wind  lifts  him  from  the  ripples  high  in  the  air 
where  no  fish  are,  a  sudden  calm  drops  him  lifeless,  another  pui 
jerks  him  up  just  as  a  boil  below  him  shows  a  rising  trout ;  the 
boat  drifts  on,  and  you  are  over  the  trout  and  cannot  get  the  bait 
to  the  fish  again.  If  you  are  to  be  a  skilful  dapper,  none  of  these 
things  must  happen  ;  but  the  most  skilful  of  all  cannot  escape  tired 
eyes.  To  stare  for  half  an  hour  at  a  time  at  sunshiny  water,  or 
at  those  white  milky  ripples  which  come  with  certain  cloudy  skies, 
is  not  much  less  difficult  than  to  look  into  the  eye  of  the  sun  itself. 
Fly-fishing  is  easier  ;  at  least  it  does  not  exact  a  vigilance  followed 
by  inflammation.  But  it  is  better,  too,  because  of  the  action,  the 
choice,  the  freedom  of  it ;  the  rhythm  and  play  of  the  rod,  and  the 
light  fall  of  the  line.  You  can  cast  where  you  please,  when  you 
please,  or  not  at  all ;  and  you  know  where  your  fly  is  without  having 
to  look  for  it. 

But  there  is  a  fascination  in  the  rougher  fishing  and  rougher 
waters.  I  suppose  all  these  large  Irish  loughs  have  their  legends 
of  monster  pike  ;  fish  of  weights  beyond  a  plain  man's  measuring, 
fish  to  be  carried  on  an  oar  between  two  boatmen — that  being  the 
classical  way  of  sizing  up  the  enormous.  It  is  true  there  is  no  more 
than  legend  to  go  upon.  When  you  ask  for  authority  at  first  hand, 
for  witnesses  of  weighing,  for  measurements  of  girth  and  length 
taken  as  a  fisherman  would  surely  take  them,  the  monster  fades 
into  vague  distances  and  shadowy  afternoons  ;  he  will  never  lie 
stark  on  the  butcher's  scales  with  the  butcher  to  prove  the  story. 
I  duly  came  to  the  expected  legend  on  Lough  Mask,  and  I  own 
there  is  no  unassailable  reason  for  believing  all  the  details  ;  but 
still,  somehow,  I  do  believe  them.  The  story  belongs  only  to  two 
years  ago,  and  it  was  of  a  visitor  to  Lough  Mask  who  in  the  deep 
water  near  one  of  the  islands  in  the  middle  of  the  lough  hooked  a 
fish  which  he  knew  for  a  monster  at  once.  He  could  do  nothing 
with  it,  and  when  he  tried  to  do  something,  the  trace  went.  Next 
day,  being  rowed  again  past  the  island,  the  same  fisherman  hooked 


ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  873 

the  same  fish,  and  the  same  thing  happened.  He  went  home  and 
took  thought ;  made  the  strongest  trace  he  could  put  together, 
returned  the  next  day  and  trolled  a  half-pound  trout  over  the 
same  water,  and  had  the  monster  on  again.  This  time  he  meant 
to  get  him  into  the  boat,  but  into  the  boat  the  pike  never  came. 
'  He  could  do  nothing  with  him.  He  could  make  no  impression  on 
him  at  all.  It  was  like  hooking  a  sheep,  he  said.  Once  he  got 
him  up  and  saw  his  back,  and  it  was  like  a  donkey,  he  said.  He 
could  do  nothing  with  him  at  all.'  So  the  story  was  repeated. 
He  tried  his  best,  and  suddenly  the  fish  went  clean  under  the 
boat  and  the  rod  snapped  on  the  side.  He  who  failed  thus  knew 
a  big  fish  when  he  hooked  one,  I  was  told,  for  he  had  caught  a 
thirty-eight  pounder  in  Lough  Conn  a  week  or  two  before.  '  But 
how  did  you  hear  all  this  story  ? '  I  asked  the  boatman  who 
was  rowing  me.  '  How  did  you  first  get  to  know  about  this  big 
fish  ?  '  '1  was  in  the  boat,  Sorr,'  he  answered. 

So  I  came  fairly  near  the  monster  alive  in  Lough  Mask.  I  tried 
for  him  myself,  of  course  ;  I  was  rowed  out  over  the  ground  twice, 
but  I  never  hooked  anything  like  a  sheep.  The  only  fair-sized  fish 
I  got  was  on  a  day  when  I  did  not  even  mean  to  fish.  It  was  an 
October  day  of  full  sunshine,  without  a  cloud  in  the  sky  or  a  ripple 
on  the  water,  and  it  was  Sunday.  The  boatmen  went  to  Mass  in 
the  morning,  came  back,  and  were  anxious  to  start  fishing ;  they 
would  be  fishing  always,  and  if  you  go  to  Mass  in  the  morning  you 
fish  in  the  afternoon,  that  being  the  rule.  It  was  better  to  lunch 
out  of  doors  than  in,  and  so  we  took  lunch  out  to  an  island,  and 
afterwards  lay  looking  at  the  water.  The  sunlight  was  over  all 
Lough  Mask  ;  the  mountains  and  the  chasms  of  Maamtrasna  were 
bathed  in  sunlight ;  the  lough  was  a  long  level  of  light  to  the  farthest 
islands,  and  we  lay  among  rocks  and  white  clover  and  heather  with 
bells  as  large  as  bees,  and  had  no  wish  to  go  anywhere  or  do  anything 
at  all.  The  boatmen  thought  differently.  They  stood  uneasily 
where  they  had  been  sitting  ;  then  they  went  and  stood  by  the  boat. 
We  had  to  move,  and  we  went  out  on  the  lough  most  reluctantly, 
trolling  a  two-inch  spoon  ;  and  then,  before  we  had  gone  five 
minutes,  there  was  a  yell  from  Pat,  and  1  was  playing  a  big  fish 
fifty  yards  away.  He  leapt  clean  out  of  the  water  three  times  like 
a  salmon,  once  quite  close  to  the  boat ;  at  last  Tom  had  him  into 
the  boat,  Pat  let  out  a  whoop  to  be  heard  for  miles,  and  Tom 
reverently  placed  his  cap  on  the  pike's  head  before  hitting  it  with 
a  stone,  so  as  not  to  damage  the  skull.  It  was  not  a  monster,  but 
was  nearly  twenty-six  pounds,  and  it  was  only  because  the  boatmen 


874  ON   AN   IRISH   LOUGH. 

were  anxious  to  exhibit  the  fish  to  others  that  they  would  row 
home.  Otherwise  their  desire  was  to  row  till  dark,  with  the  idea 
of  catching  another. 

That  was  the  ruling  principle  with  every  kind  of  sport.  You 
could  not  have  enough  of  it.  You  may  go  out  on  the  lough  and 
find  that  there  is  very  little  use  in  fishing,  or  you  may  want  to  leave 
off  early  for  some  other  reason,  and  then  you  may  tell  your  boatmen 
that  you  wish  to  go  home ;  but  you  will  not  get  home  because  of 
that.  You  will  find  that  your  way  home  is  by  various  drifts,  at 
strange  angles,  round  the  shallows  of  unsuspected  bays.  Some- 
times you  will  be  heading  straight  away  from  home,  and  you  may 
or  may  not  draw  attention  to  this  point.  The  result  will  be  pretty 
nearly  the  same.  It  is  easier  to  get  home  from  shooting,  but 
shooting,  too,  is  an  occupation  not  to  be  lightly  abandoned.  Snipe 
shooting  does  not  stop  when  you  are  tired.  A  snipe  gets  up  and 
you  miss  it,  or  another  snipe  escapes  being  shot  at,  cuts  zigzags 
in  the  sky  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away  and  drops  to  the  bog  again. 
'  Do  you  think  you  know  where  it  came  down  then,  Tim  ?  '  you 
may  ask  without  much  enthusiasm.  '  I  am  sure  I  do,  Sorr,'  Tim 
replies  with  an  even  voice  and  sparkling  eyes,  and  the  way  for  you 
lies  out  from  home  again.  But  I  think  the  bird  which  aroused 
the  deepest  energies  of  all  when  I  was  shooting  by  Lough  Mask 
was  a  pheasant.  It  was  a  bird  with  a  reputation.  It  had  baffled 
all  who  had  shot  at  it  for  years,  and  its  plumage  was  beyond  other 
birds  most  glorious.  We  were  beating  a  wood  for  woodcock,  and 
outside  the  covert  I  was  suddenly  aware  of  a  change  in  the  spirit 
of  the  chase.  The  beaters'  voices  were  hushed ;  there  were 
whisperings,  murmurings,  hurried  words  of  caution.  '  What  is 
it  ?  '  somebody  called.  '  'Tis  the  phisant,'  I  heard.  The  word 
came  that  I  was  to  be  warned  ;  I  was  warned.  Then  the  pheasant, 
hiding  in  a  bush,  was  urged  to  fly.  He  flew  out  with  a  clatter, 
a  yard  above  the  ground,  along  where  the  line  of  beaters  should  be, 
and  he  was  duly  missed  when  he  got  to  the  open.  The  shot  went 
harmlessly  out  over  the  bog,  and  the  pheasant  turned  the  corner. 
Over  the  stone  wall  leapt  Pat  with  a  yell  of  triumph  ;  his  stick  was 
high  above  his  head,  his  face  was  crimson,  and  his  eyes  blazing  ;  he 
searched  the  wood,  the  bog,  the  horizon.  Then  he  went  sadly  back 
into  the  wood  again.  But  his  sadness  was  not  prolonged  ;  it  was 
not  five  minutes  before  he  was  beating  the  bushes  with  fresh  energy. 
'  Shure-hi-cock-cock  !  Shure-hi-cock-cock  ! '  is  what  the  beater's 
cry  sounds  like,  and  he  keeps  it  up  till  it  is  clear  that  no  woodcock 
can  be  in  front  of  him. 


ON  AN   IRISH   LOUGH.  875 

Two  stories  belong  to  the  memories  of  Lough  Mask  ;  two  out  of 
many  forgotten.  One  is  of  the  driver  of  a  train  on  a  branch  line 
near.  I  asked  why  the  train  took  so  long  crawling  up  from  the 
junction.  '  It  does  take  a  long  time,'  I  was  answered.  '  I've 
timed  it.  And  one  day  when  I  was  down  at  the  station  I  says  to 
them,  I  says,  "  Why  doesn't  he  drive  faster  ?  "  And  they  told  me, 
"  Sure,"  they  says,  "  he's  getting  old,  and  he's  getting  fat,"  they 
says,  "  and  he  doesn't  drive  as  fast  as  he  did,"  they  says.  "  But," 
I  says,  "  'tis  child's  play  to  turn  a  lever,"  I  says  ;  "  why  doesn't 
he  drive  faster  ?  "  "  Sure,  he's  getting  old  and  fat,"  they  says, 
"  and  he  doesn't  drive  as  fast  as  he  did."  :  The  other  story  is  of  a 
clogmaker.  They  shape  clogs  from  the  alder-wood  on  the  shores 
of  Mask — clogs  for  workgirls  in  Liverpool — and  a  boatload  of  clogs 
had  been  given  to  a  young  clogger,  inexperienced  with  boats,  to 
take  across  a  corner  of  the  lough  to  be  loaded  up  from  the  road. 
I  heard  what  happened  the  next  day.  '  When  the  boat  got  to  the 
point  it  came  into  the  wind,  and  he  said  it  began  to  kick  widout 
reason.'  This  dismayed  the  clogger,  who  at  once  anticipated 
shipwreck.  Land  was  in  sight,  only  a  few  yards  distant ;  the 
wind  blew,  the  boat  rocked.  He  therefore  leapt  from  the  boat 
into  twelve  feet  of  water,  clothed  as  he  was,  and  swam  to  shore. 
'  He  was  a  good  swimmer.  He  said  he  was  afraid  the  boat  would 
be  upset,'  so  it  was  explained  to  us.  And  we  met  the  clogger  a 
day  or  two  after,  on  the  road  going  home,  when  our  two  boatmen 
were  with  us.  The  clogger  advanced  with  a  deprecating  smile. 
The  two  boatmen  stood  still  and  burst  into  a  peal  of  laughter. 
So  he,  still  with  a  deprecating  smile,  passed  on. 

The  day  for  leaving  these  quiet  western  places  comes  soon 
enough.  Connemara  assures  her  visitors  of  a  good  send-off.  All 
the  boatmen  will  be  up  at  the  fishing  lodge  on  the  morning  to  shake 
hands  and  wish  you  God-speed  and  a  safe  journey  ;  all  who  are  not 
out  fishing  will  wait  at  the  lodge  door  to  see  the  jaunting  cars 
loaded  up,  to  shout  heartily  as  the  ponies  trot  off,  and  to  wave 
caps,  handkerchiefs,  aprons,  anything,  till  the  car  turns  the  corner 
of  the  road.  A  little  farther,  and  a  dip  in  the  high  ground  shows 
the  lodge  again  across  the  bay,  and  high  by  its  roof  waves  a  square 
of  white ;  Tim  has  tied  the  table-cloth  to  a  pole.  A  mile  or  two 
more,  and  the  rocks  and  mountains  change  for  trees  and  fields  ; 
the  meadows  widen  out,  and  the  fishing-lodge,  the  heather  above 
it,  the  curlew  in  the  wind,  the  sunlight  on  the  lough  are  memories 
of  an  Irish  autumn. 

ERIC  PARKER. 


876 


THE   OSBORNES.1 
BY  E.   F.   BENSON. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

UNCLE  ALP  was  seated  with  Dora  on  the  terrace  at  Grote  one 
afternoon  late  in  August.  Dora  herself  was  hatless  and  cloakless, 
for  it  was  a  day  of  windless  and  summer  heat,  but  Uncle  Alf  had  an 
overcoat  on,  and  a  very  shabby  old  grey  shawl  in  addition  cast 
about  his  shoulders.  His  face  wore  an  expression  of  ludicrous 
malevolence. 

'  And  I  had  to  come  out  here,  my  dear,  and  take  refuge  with 
you,'  he  said,  '  for  Maria  will  drive  me  off  my  head  with  talk  of 
that  tumour  of  hers.  Why,  she  speaks  as  if  nobody  had  ever  had  a 
tumour  before.  I  said  to  her,  "  Maria,  if  it  had  been  cancer  now, 
and  you'd  got  over  it  as  you  have,  it  might  have  been  something  to 
make  a  tale  of."  But  tumour,  God  bless  me !  and  benignant,  so 
Sir  Henry  said,  at  that.' 

Dora  gave  a  little  shriek  of  laughter. 

'  Uncle  Alf,  sometimes  I  think  you're  the  unkindest  man  in  the 
whole  world,'  she  said,  '  and  even  when  you're  most  unkind  I  can't 
help  laughing.  I  wonder  if  you  are  unkind  really.  I  don't  expect 
so.' 

Uncle  Alf  took  no  notice  of  this,  and  went  on  with  his  grievances. 

'  As  for  Eddie,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  him,' 
he  said.  '  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he's  going  soft-headed,  for  he  was 
always  threatened  that  way,  to  my  thinking.  He  can  talk  of 
nothing  but  the  brave  and  beautiful  Maria.  Lord  !  my  dear,  it's 
a  wonder  to  me  that  you  can  stand  it.  Doesn't  it  get  on  your 
nerves  ?  Doesn't  it  make  you  feel  sick  and  ill  to  hear  how  they 
go  on  ?  ' 

Dora  laughed  again. 

'  No,  Uncle  Alf,  it  doesn't,  do  you  know.     You  see  I  was  with 
them  through  all  those  dreadful  days  in  the  summer  after  the 
operation,  when  they  still  didn't  know  what  it  was  for  certaii 
1  Copyright,  1910,  by  E.  F.  Benson,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


THE    OSBORNES.  877 

and  had  to  make  an  examination,  and  it  made  a  tremendous 
impression  on  me.  I  always  used  to  think  that  they  all,  includ- 
ing Claude,  were  very  ordinary  people.  Well,  they're  not.  They 
were  very  wonderful.  They  were  cheerful,  even  when  they  were 
waiting  for  a  verdict  that  might  have  been  so  terrible.' 

'  Bah  !  '  said  Uncle  Alf . 

'  Yes,  if  you  wish.  They  used  to  get  on  my  nerves,  that  is 
quite  true,  and  you  gave  me  a  hint  about  it  once  which  was  very 
useful.  You  told  me  to  see  the  humorous  side  of  Dad  and  Mother.' 

'  Lord,  it's  Dad  and  Mother,  is  it  ?  '  said  Alf,  in  a  tone  of  acid 
disgust. 

'  Yes,  Dad  and  Mother.  Just  as  you  are  Uncle  Alf,  but  I'll 
call  you  Mr.  Osborne  if  you  prefer.  Very  well,  then,  I  took  that 
hint,  and  sometimes  now  I  laugh  at  them,  which  I  never  did  before. 
I  often  laugh  at  them  now,  and  let  them  see  me  laughing,  and  Dad 
says  to  Mother,  "  There's  Dora  at  her  jokes  again.  What  have 
you  said  ?  "  They  know  how  I  love  them.  Dear,  don't  make 
such  awful  faces.  They  were  so  splendid,  you  know.' 

*  And  Claude  ? '  asked  his  uncle,  after  a  pause. 

'  I  didn't  do  justice,  or  anything  like  it,  to  Claude  till  then,'  she 
said.  '  He  used  to  get  on  my  nerves,  too,  very  badly  indeed. 
I  don't  mind  telling  you,  since  I've  told  him,  and  we've  laughed 
over  that.  But  all  that  time  in  July,  combined  with  something 
very  fine  that  I  found  out  he  had  done,  made  me  see  that  what 
got  on  my  nerves  did  not  matter  in  the  least.  What  mattered  was 
Claude  himself,  whom  I  didn't  know  before.' 

*  I  love  that  boy,'  said  Uncle  Alf,  with  unusual  tenderness, 
'  and  I'm  glad  you  do,  my  dear,  because  he  deserves  all  the  love 
you  can  give  him.     But  I  am  glad  you  laugh  at  him,  too.     There's 
no  sense  in  not  seeing  the  ridiculous  side  of  people.' 

'  Oh  yes,  I  laugh  at  him  often,'  said  Dora.  '  I  think  he  likes  it. 
You  see,  he's  so  dreadfully  fond  of  me  that  he  likes  all  I  do.' 

Uncle  Alf  gave  a  contemptuous  sniff. 

'  Yes,  he's  off  his  head  about  you,'  he  said.  '  I  thought  he  had 
more  sense.  But  there's  very  little  sense  in  anybody  when  you 
come  to  know  them.' 

'  I  know  :  it's  foolish  of  him,'  said  Dora.  '  I  tell  him  so.  But 
then  I'm  foolish  about  him.  I  expect  if  two  people  are  foolish 
about  each  other,  they  can  stand  a  lot  of  the  other's  folly,  though 
I  expect  it  isn't  grammar.  It  is  rather  nice  to  be  foolish  about  a 
man,  if  he  happens  to  be  your  husband.' 


878  THE   OSBORNES. 

'  It  seems  to  me  you  married  him  first,  and  fell  in  love  with  him 
afterwards,'  said  Uncle  Alf. 

'  That's  exactly  what  I  did  do,'  said  Dora  softly. 

'  And  what's  this  fine  thing  Claude  did  ? '  asked  the  other. 
4  Gave  a  cabman  a  sovereign,  I  suppose,  and  told  him  to  keep  the 
change.  Much  he'd  miss  it.  And  you  thought  that  was  devilish 
noble.  Eh  ?  ' 

'  I  can't  tell  you  what  it  was,'  said  she.  '  Nobody  must  know 
that.' 

Uncle  Alf  was  silent  a  minute  :  he  wanted  to  say  something 
ill-tempered,  but  could  not  think  of  anything. 

'  Well,  I'm  glad  the  boy's  done  something  to  deserve  you,  my 
dear,'  he  said,  '  though  that  sounds  as  if  I  was  getting  soft-headed 
too,  and  perhaps  I  am,  joining  like  this  in  this  chorus  of  praise, 
this — this  domestic  symphony.  But  I  can  stand  you  and  Claude  : 
what  I  can't  stand  is  Eddie  and  Maria.  Lord !  if  they  aren't  coming 
out  here,  when  I  thought  I  had  escaped.  She  in  her  bath-chair, 
and  he  pushing  it.  A  man  of  his  age,  and  as  stout  as  that.  He'll 
be  bursting  himself  one  of  these  days,  and  then  we  shall  have  Maria 
making  us  all  sick  with  telling  us  how  beautifully  he  bore  it,  and 
nobody  behaved  so  bravely  over  a  burst  as  her  Eddie.' 

Dora  giggled  hopelessly. 

1  Oh !  you  are  such  a  darling,'  she  said.  *  I  don't  mind  what  you 
say.' 

The  bath-chair  had  approached,  and  Lady  Osborne  put  down 
her  sunshade  as  they  came  into  the  strip  of  shadow  where  Dora 
and  Uncle  Alf  sat.  He  edged  away  from  her  as  far  as  the  angle  of 
the  house  and  the  flower-beds  would  permit. 

'  Well,  and  if  this  isn't  pleasant,'  she  said.  '  Eddie,  my  dear, 
we'll  stop  here  a  bit  and  have  a  rest,  if  we're  not  interrupting,  and 
indeed  it's  near  tea-time,  and  I  want  my  tea  badly  to-day,  I  do. 
But  my  appetite's  been  so  good  since  my  operation ' 

Alf  broke  in. 

'  Maria,  if  I  hear  any  more  about  you  and  your  operation,  I 
leave  the  house,'  he  said. 

'  Well,  and  I'm  sure  that's  the  last  thing  I  want  you  to  do,' 
said  Lady  Osborne  genially,  '  for  I'm  enjoying  this  little  family 
party  such  as  never  was.  Why,  all  the  time  I  was  getting  better 
in  London  I  was  looking  forward  to  it,  and  dreamed  about  it  too. 
There  now,  Alf,  don't  be  so  tetchy,  stopping  your  ears  in  that 
manner,  as  if  you  had  the  neuralgia  and  was  sitting  in  a  draught. 


THE   OSBORNES.  879 

I  was  only  going  to  say  I'd  been  looking  forward  to  a  week  or  two 
of  quiet  down  here  with  you  all,  and  pleased  I  was  to  know  that  you 
would  join  us,  instead  of  setting  on  Richmond  Hill  with  the  motors 
and  all  buzzing  round  you  and  raising  clouds  of  dust  with  germs 
uncountable.  Mr.  0.,  my  dear,  you're  all  of  a  perspiration  with 
pushing  me,  and  thank  you.  Won't  you  be  wise  to  put  a  wrap  on, 
same  as  your  brother  does,  when  he  sits  out  of  doors,  especially 
with  you  in  that  heat  ? ' 

'  No,  my  dear,  I'm  comfortable  enough.  I  was  only  wondering 
whether  Dora  was  wise  to  sit  here  in  that  thin  dress.  It'll  strike 
chill  before  sunset.' 

Dora  again  burst  out  laughing. 

'  Dad,  we  shall  drive  Uncle  Alf  off  his  head  if  we  all  think  so 
much  about  each  other,'  she  said.  '  He's  been  making  a  formal 
complaint  to  me  about  it.  He  finds  us  all  very  trying  !  ' 

'  And  where's  Claude  and  Jim  ?  '  asked  Alf.  '  I  hope  they're 
taking  great  care  of  each  other.  Claude  cut  his  finger  this  morning, 
and  he  bore  it  wonderfully.  Never  a  cry  nor  a  sob.  But  I  wonder 
at  you,  Maria,  letting  them  ride  horses  all  about  the  country, 
without  a  doctor  or  a  pair  of  surgeons  to  follow  them  in  case  of 
accidents.  They  might  fall  off  and  be  hurt.  A  savage  and 
dangerous  beast  is  a  horse,  and  more  especially  a  mare,  such  as 
Claude  was  riding.' 

Lady  Osborne  entirely  refused  to  notice  the  sarcastic  intent  of 
this. 

'  Well,  to  be  sure,  we've  all  got  to  take  our  risks,'  she  said. 
'  There'd  be  no  sense  in  passing  your  life  wrapped  up  in  cotton- 
wool, and  waiting  for  the  doctor  !  ' 

'  Why,  and  you  used  to  ride  too  when  you  was  a  lad,  Alf,'  said 
her  husband.  '  You're  making  Dora  laugh  at  you.  And  I  don't 
wonder  :  I  could  laugh  myself  !  ' 

Alf  got  up  from  his  chair. 

'  I  think  you'd  both  be  the  better  for  an  operation,  you  and 
Maria,'  he  said.  '  I  should  have  a  bit  of  humour  put  in,  instead 
of  a  bit  of  tumour  taken  out.  Not  but  what  it's  a  far  more  serious 
affair.  I  doubt  if  either  of  you  would  get  over  it.' 

'  Well,  and  it's  you  who  talked  about  my  tumour  this  time,'  said 
Lady  Osborne  triumphantly. 

This  was  too  much  for  Alf :  he  walked  shufflingly  back  to  the 
house,  leaving  his  sister-in-law  in  possession  of  the  field.  But  she 
used  her  victory  nobly,  with  pity  for  the  conquered. 


880  THE   OSBORNES. 

Lady  Osborne  looked  round  in  a  discreet  and  penetrating 
manner  after  he  had  gone  and  was  out  of  hearing. 

4  Dora,  my  dear,  you  mustn't  mind  what  Alf  says,'  she  remarked 
with  much  acuteness.  '  He  gets  a  bit  sour  now  and  then,  and  I'm 
sure  I  don't  wonder  with  his  lumbago,  and  no  one  to  look  after  him. 
If  only  he  had  found  a  nice  girl  to  look  after  him  when  he  was  young  ! 
Poor  old  Alf !  But  you  can  take  it  from  me  as  knows  him,  he  doesn't 
really  mean  all  he  says.  It's  his  joke,  and  I'm  not  one  to  quarrel 
with  a  joke.  We  all  have  our  joke,  and  bless  him,  why  shouldn't  he 
joke  in  his  own  way  just  as  the  rest  of  us  do  ?  And  if  sometimes  he 
seems  a  bit  ill-humoured  over  his  joke — well,  you  let  him  get  his 
bit  of  ill-humour  of!  his  mind,  and  he'll  be  all  the  better  for  it. 
I  never  take  no  notice  and  it  don't  hurt  me.  "  Alf  and  his  joke," 
I  say  over  to  myself,  and  no  harm  done.' 

'  Eum  old  cove  is  Alf,'  said  her  husband ;  '  he  seems  sometimes  to 
want  to  quarrel  with  us  all.  But  it  takes  two  to  make  a  quarrel,  and 
he'll  have  hard  work  to  find  the  second  in  this  house  if  I  know  who 
lives  in  it.  And  he  was  just  as  anxious  as  he  could  be,  Maria,  when 
you  was  at  your  worst  in  the  summer,  telephoning  five  and  six  times 
in  the  day,  till  I  said  down  the  tube,  "  Maria's  love,  and  she's  asleep 
till  morning."  And  what  it'll  be  when  Dora  here ' 

'  Mr.  0.,  you  go  too  far,'  said  his  wife  in  a  shrill  aside.  '  But 
as  you  were  saying  about  Alf,  if  there's  crust  outside  there's  crumb 
within.  It's  a  soft  heart  like  your  own,  Mr.  0.,  though  he  don't 
know  it.' 

'  Dad,  when  last  were  you  angry  with  anybody  ?  '  asked  Dora. 
'  Can  you  remember  ?  ' 

Lord  Osborne  considered  this  :  it  was  a  question  that  required 
research. 

'  Well,  my  dear,  if  you  leave  out  things  like  my  being  angry  with 
the  Mother  for  giving  us  all  such  a  fright  last  July — there's  one  for 
you,  Maria — I  couldn't  rightly  say.  I  had  a  dishonest  foreman 
I  remember  at  the  works,  whom  I  had  to  dismiss,  summary,  too, 
one  Monday  morning,  but  I  think  I  was  more  sorry  for  his  wife  and 
children  than  I  was  angry  with  him.  Nine  children  there  was, 
and  another  expected,  poor  lamb !  and  still-born  when  it  came,  for 
I  inquired.' 

Dora  saw  Lady  Osborne  shoot  out  a  furtive  finger  at  him,  and 
he  understood. 

'  Then  I  was  angry  with  Claude  one  day,'  he  continued,  '  when 
he  was  a  little  lad.  I  think  the  devil  must  have  been  in  the  boy, 


THE   OSBORNES.  881 

for  what  must  he  do  but  rake  out  the  fire  from  his  mother's  drawing- 
room  grate,  and  dump  it  all  on  the  hearth-rug.  And  yet  I  could 
scarce  help  laughing  even  when  I  gave  him  his  spanking.  What 
was  in  the  boy's  head  that  he  should  think  of  a  trick  like  that  ? 
Perhaps  it  was  his  joke,  too,  something  that  looks  mischievous  at 
first,  like  old  Alf's  jokes.  I'll  take  another  cup  of  tea,  Mother,  for 
here's  Claude  coming  with  Jim,  and  such  a  tea-pot  drainer  as 
Claude  I  never  saw.' 

'  Yes,  I  doubt  he'll  injure  his  stomach,'  said  Lady  Osborne, 
'  for  I'm  told  that  tea  tans  the  coats  of  it  like  so  much  leather.  Sir 
Henry  told  me  so  when  we  were  having  a  chat  one  morning,  after 
he'd  dressed  the  place  for  me.' 

'  Well,  the  less  we  know  about  our  insides  the  better,  to  my 
way  of  thinking,'  said  her  husband,  '  until  there's  some  call  to  see 
what's  going  on.  Eat  your  dinner  and  drink  your  wine  and  get 
your  sleep  of  nights,  and  you've  done  what  you  can  to  keep  it 
contented.' 

'  And  I'm  sure  none's  got  a  better  right  to  tell  us  how  to  keep  well 
than  you,  my  dear,'  said  Lady  Osborne  appreciatively,  '  for  bar  a 
bit  of  gout  now  and  then,  as  it  isn't  reasonable  you  should  be  spared, 
there's  not  an  hour's  anxiety  your  health's  given  me  since  first  we 
met,  Mr.  0.,  and  here's  the  boys  ready  for  their  tea,  I'll  be  bound. 
Old  Alf,  and  his  saying  that  he  wondered  at  me  allowing  them  to  go 
horseback ! ' 

All  this,  these  quiet  ordinary  domestic  conversations,  as  well  as 
things  of  far  greater  import,  had  entirely  changed  in  character  for 
Dora.  But  it  was  for  her  only  that  they  had  changed ;  in  themselves 
they  were  exactly  as  they  had  been  before  there  came  those  days 
which,  so  she  put  it  to  herself,  had  opened  her  eyes  and  given  sight 
to  them.  For  she  had  labelled  them  trivial  or  tiresome,  according 
as  her  own  mood  had  varied,  and  though  discussion  on  subjects 
of  high  artistic  or  spiritual  import  was  not  rare  but  unknown 
among  the  Osbornes,  she  had  now  the  sense  to  see  that  the  kindly 
utterances  of  simple  people  possibly  illustrated  though  they  did 
not  allude  to  qualities  that  were  not  at  all  trivial.  For  she  saw 
now  the  personalities  that  lay  behind  these  details  of  their  life, 
the  hearts  out  of  which  the  mouths  spoke.  It  was  that  which  gave 
its  tone  to  what  had  become  music  :  and  if  Lord  Osborne  lingered 
in  his  cellar  to  find  a  bottle  of  wine  that  Sir  Thomas  appreciated, 
it  was  no  longer  Sir  Thomas'  undoubted  greediness  that  concerned 

VOL.    XXVIII. — NO.  168,  N.S.  56 


882  THE   OSBORNES. 

her,  but  his  host's  desire  that  his  guest  should  enjoy  himself.  And 
she  knew  now  that  the  spirit  which  did  not  think  it  trivial  to  see 
that  the  dinner  was  good,  or  that  the  wine  was  plentiful,  was  perfectly 
capable  of  rising  to  higher  levels  than  these.  When  there  was  a 
call  for  courage,  courage  of  a  very  wonderful  sort  had  answered ; 
when  endurance  was  needed,  endurance  was  there ;  when  charity, 
as  in  the  case  of  Jim,  the  charity  that  met  the  difficult  and  disgrace- 
ful situation  was  complete,  and  had  all  the  fineness  and  delicacy 
which  only  perfect  simplicity  can  give.  How  Claude  had  done  it 
she  did  not  know ;  there  seemed  no  question  of  finesse  or  of  diplo- 
matic behaviour.  He  had  merely  behaved  without  difficulty,  like 
Claude,  and  but  a  few  weeks  afterwards  there  was  Jim,  sensitive 
and  highly  strung  as  he  always  was,  staying  with  them  all,  not  like 
a  guest,  but  as  one  of  the  family,  as  Lady  Osborne  loved  to  think. 
And  it  was  not  that  he  was  lacking  in  the  sense  of  shame  that  made 
his  friendship  with  Claude  possible  :  it  was  that  he,  like  Dora,  had 
had  his  eyes  opened.  A  heart  as  kind  as  Claude's  counted  for 
something  after  all :  they  both,  it  must  be  supposed,  had  taken  it 
for  granted  until  it  was  shown  them.  But  the  sight  of  it,  the 
practical  knowledge  of  it,  worked  the  miracle,  worked  it  easily, 
as  if  there  was  no  miracle  about  it. 

Dora  had  gone  to  her  room  shortly  after  tea  to  rest,  on  the 
diplomatic  prompting  of  her  mother-in-law.  With  so  many 
gentlemen  present,  Lady  Osborne  would  never  have  said, '  Dora,  the 
doctor  told  you  to  rest  for  a  couple  of  hours  before  dinner,'  but  she 
had  reminded  her  that  she  had  several  letters  to  write  for  the  post. 
And  Dora,  secretly  and  kindly  smiling,  had  remembered  at  once, 
though  (like  the  almug  trees)  there  were  no  such  letters.  And 
with  her  to  her  room  she  took  up  the  parcel  of  thought  that  has 
been  indicated,  for  she  wanted  to  examine  its  contents  a  little  more 
closely  before  Claude  came  up,  as  he  always  did,  to  read  to  her  for  a 
while  before  she  dressed.  Right  at  the  bottom  of  the  packet,  she 
knew,  there  lay  something  very  precious.  She  would  look  at  that 
by-and-by,  with  him  perhaps. 

But  in  spite  of  the  preponderance  that  qualities  of  the  heart  had 
now  gained  in  her  mind  compared  to  what  must  be  called  qualities 
of  the  surface,  to  which  belonged  such  things  as  beauty  and  breeding, 
she  found  that  the  latter  had  not  at  all  lost  their  value.  But  she 
saw  such  things  differently.  They  had  assumed,  so  it  seemed  to  her, 
not  a  truer  value,  but  the  true  value.  She  loved  Claude's  beauty 
more  than  even  in  those  enchanted  days  of  honeymoon  in  Venice, 


THE   OSBORNES.  883 

not  only  now  because  it  was  beauty,  but  because  it  was  Claude's, 
while  such  superficial  failings  as  were  undoubtedly  his  she  laughed 
at  still,  but  now  without  bitterness  or  irritation.  They  were 
funny  :  to  say  a  '  handsome  lady '  was  still  ludicrous,  but  now, 
since  it  was  Claude  who  said  it,  it  could  not  help  being  lovable. 
Indeed  she  and  Jim  had  invented  what  they  called  '  The  Claude 
Catechism,'  which  began,  '  Are  you  a  handsome  lady  ?  No,  but  J 
am  a  perfect  gentleman.'  And  then  Claude  would  throw  whatever 
was  handiest  at  Jim's  head. 

And  how,  like  Pharaoh,  had  she  at  one  time  hardened  her  heart, 
refusing  to  give  admittance,  so  it  seemed  to  her  now,  to  that  sun- 
shine of  beautiful  qualities  that  was  always  ready  to  stream  in 
upon  her.  He  had  never  failed  her,  he  had  always  been  patient, 
waiting  for  the  door  to  open,  for  the  closed  windows  to  be  unbarred. 
True,  in  the  early  days  he  thought  they  had  been  unbarred,  that  he 
had  full  admittance ;  but  in  the  weeks  that  followed,  when  it  was 
clear  to  him  that  ingress  was  given  him  no  longer,  he  had  waited, 
waited  without  bitter  thought  of  her.  She  had  made  him,  after 
their  reconciliation,  try  to  explain  what  he  had  felt  to  her,  and  he 
had  done  it,  unwillingly  but  not  failing  to  answer  her  questions. 

'  You  see  it  was  like  this,  darling,'  he  had  said.  '  I  saw  some- 
thing was  wrong,  and  I  tried  to  find  out  if  I  had  done  anything, 
or  how  I  could  set  things  right.  But  it  didn't  seem  to  me  that  I 
had  altered  at  all — at  least  I  knew  I  hadn't — towards  you,  from  the 
time  that  you  said  you  loved  me,  and  so  the  best  thing  I  could  do 
was  just  to  keep  on  at  that.  I  thought  of  all  sorts  of  things,  tried 
to  wonder  at  your  reasons  for  not  being  pleased  with  me.  But  that 
was  no  use  :  I'd  always  been  myself  to  you,  and — and  I  thought  you 
might  care  for  me  again  later  on.  Of  course — I  suppose  it  was  in 
a  selfish  way — I  was  glad  when  poor  old  Jim  made  such  a  mistake, 
because  that  gave  me  an  opportunity  you  see  to — well,  treat  him 
decently.  Not  that  I  ever  thought  it  would  get  to  your  ears. 
However,  it  did  :  Jim  was  a  trump  over  that,  going  and  telling  you. 
I  didn't  mean  him  to,  but  when  it  happened  like  that  I  couldn't 
help  being  pleased.  You  had  been  a  bit  hard  on  me,  you  know  : 
thank  God  you  were,  for  it  makes  it  better  now  that  you  are  not. 
Lord,  what  a  jaw  !  ' 

This  was  the  outcome  of  her  talk  with  him,  but  the  '  jaw '  was 
punctuated  by  questions  of  hers.  It  was  another  Claude  cate- 
chism. But  this  one  was  not  funny,  nor  had  Jim  any  part  in  it. 

Yes  :  she  had  separated  this  man  who  loved  her  into  packets  : 


884  THE   OSBORNES. 

there  was  her  mistake.  First  she  had  loved  his  beauty,  and  then 
had  taken  that  for  granted.  Next  she  had  felt  growingly  irritated 
with  all  in  him  that  did  not  correspond  to  the  particular  little  tricks 
of  conversation  and  life  in  which  she  had  been  brought  up.  Then 
she  had  got  accustomed  to  those  sterling  qualities  which  she  had 
taken  for  granted  from  the  first.  And  then  had  come  '  the  little 
more,'  and  how  much  it  was.  He  had  but  shown,  in  practical 
demonstration,  that  he  was  kind  and  brave  and  reliable,  all  that  she 
had  thought  she  had  given  him  credit  for  at  first.  But  the  effect 
was  immense  :  she  fell  in  love,  at  first  real  sight,  with  his  qualities. 

That  fused  the  whole  :  at  last  she  was  in  love  with  the  man, 
not  with  his  face,  not  with  his  character  taken  by  itself,  but  with 
him  as  a  whole.  That  splendid  body  was  his,  his  too  were  the 
greater  splendours  of  character,  and  if  his  also  were  the  things 
dealt  with  in  the  public  Claude  catechism,  they  were  no  longer 
rejected,  they  were  no  longer  even  accepted,  they  were  welcomed 
and  hugged.  The  reason  for  this  was  plain  :  it  was  Claude  who  said 
and  did  all  that  which  was  symbolised  under  the  title  of  '  handsome 
lady,'  and  since  it  was  Claude,  it  was  a  thing  to  be  kissed,  though 
laughter  came  too.  He  was  no  longer  packets  :  they  were  fused 
into  one  dear  whole,  the  thought  of  which  and  the  presence  of  which 
made  her  heart  ache  with  tenderness. 

And  now,  thinking  of  these  things,  she  had  a  thirsty  eye  for 
the  opening  of  the  door,  a  thirsty  ear  for  the  sound  of  his  foot  in 
the  passage  outside.  But  she  knew  he  would  not  come  quite  yet, 
for  at  tea  some  silly  discussion  had  arisen  between  him  and  Jim 
as  to  whether  it  was  possible  to  get  (with  a  run)  from  the  bottom 
of  the  terrace  to  the  lake  in  twelve  strides.  Jim  had  been  vehement 
on  the  impossibility  of  it,  and  though  Claude  cordially  agreed  that 
it  was  a  feat  of  which  Jim  was  pathetically  incapable,  he  backed 
himself  to  do  it  for  the  sum  of  one  shilling.  Even  now  she  could 
hear  him  running  along  the  terrace  below  the  window,  and  Jim's 
voice  counting  the  strides. 

Dora  got  up  and  strolled  on  to  her  balcony.  The  last  attempt 
had  apparently  been  unsuccessful,  for  Claude  was  starting  again, 
and  next  moment  with  great  strides  his  long  legs  were  taking 
him  across  the  grass  that  sloped  down  to  the  lake.  This  time  it 
looked  as  if  he  would  easily  succeed,  for  the  sixth  leap  had  taken 
him  well  beyond  the  half -distance.  The  eleventh  took  him  within 
a  couple  of  yards  of  the  edge,  and  next  moment  Dora  joined  in  the 
shout  of  laughter  that  came  from  Jim.  For  it  had  not  apparently 


THE   OSBORNES.  885 

occurred  to  Claude  what  happened  next,  if  you  leap  at  top  speed  to 
the  margin  of  a  lake.  But  he  knew  now,  as  he  vanished  in  a  fountain 
of  spray.  It  was  the  deep  end  of  the  lake,  too. 

Jim  had  collapsed  altogether  on  the  ground  by  the  time  Claude 
swam  to  shore,  and  Dora  was  equally  helpless  on  the  balcony,  but 
by  the  time  the  involuntary  bather  had  wrung  his  clothes  out,  Jim 
had  recovered  sufficiently  to  find  the  shilling  he  had  lost  to  him. 

*  Oh !  it  was  cheap  at  the  price,'  he  said.    '  I  wish  it  had  been  a 
florin.' 

Claude  walked  up  the  terrace  to  the  house,  leaving  a  trail  of 
water  on  the  paving- stones,  and  in  a  moment  his  dressing-room 
door  opened  with  a  crack,  and  a  head  and  naked  shoulder  came 
round  the  corner. 

*  Darling !  I've  been  making  a  fool  of  myself,'  he  said.     '  I  must 
change  first,  and  then  shall  I  come  in  to  read  to  you  ?  ' 

'  Yes,  do,'  she  said,  still  laughing.  '  I  saw  it.  I  thought  I 
should  have  a  fit.  Can't  you  do  it  again  before  you  change  ?  It 
was  too  heavenly.' 

*  Yes,  if  you  wish,'  said  he.    '  But  I  shall  have  to  put  on  my  wet 
clothes  again.' 

She  laughed  again. 

4  No,  there  would  be  no  "  first  fine  careless  rapture  "  the  second 
time,'  she  said. 

'  What's  that  ?  '  asked  Claude. 

'  Nothing.  Browning.  Change,  and  then  come  and  read  to 
me.' 

It  was  not  long  before  he  joined  her,  and  seated  himself  on 
the  floor  by  the  side  of  the  sofa  where  she  lay,  with  his  back 
against  it.  The  book  he  was  reading  was  '  Esmond,'  and  that 
evening  they  came  to  the  chapter  in  which  Harry  comes  home,  on 
December  29,  and  goes  to  the  service  in  Winchester  Cathedral. 
And  Claude  read  : 

'  "  She  gave  him  her  hand,  her  little  fair  hand  :  there  was  only 
her  marriage  ring  on  it.  The  quarrel  was  all  over.  The  year  of 
grief  and  estrangement  had  passed.  They  had  never  been 


Dora's  hand  lay  on  her  husband's  arm,  and  he  felt  a  soft  pressure 
of  her  fingers. 

'  Oh,  Claude,'  she  said,  '  how  nice  !  He  was  so  faithful  and 
patient,  and  it  all  came  right.' 

He  let  the  book  fall  to  the  ground.     As  soon  as  she  spoke  he 


886  THE   OSBORNES. 

ceased  to  think  of  Esmond,  and  though  Dora's  words  referred  to 
him,  she  was  not  thinking  of  him  either. 

'  "  They  had  never  been  separated,"  '  she  went  on,  still  quoting, 
but  still  not  thinking  of  the  book.  '  They  hadn't  really  been 
separated,  because  their  love  was  present  all  the  time,  but  she  had 
let  it  get  covered  up  with  irritation  and  impatience.  Was  it  like 
that  it  happened  ? ' 

1 1  can't  remember,'  he  said ;  '  indeed  I  cannot.  Everything 
seems  unreal  that  isn't  perfect.' 

4  And  there  is  something  more  coming,'  she  said,  '  coming 
soon,  perhaps  in  a  few  days  now.  So  to-night,  dear,  let  us  talk  a 
little  instead  of  reading  even  that  beautiful  chapter.  I  am  glad 
we  got  to  it  to-day.  I  like  stopping  just  at  those  very  words,  and 
I  want  you  to  tell  me  just  once,  what  really  I  know  so  well,  that  you 
feel  as  if  we  had  never  been  separated,  that  you  forgive  all  my 
stupidity  and  shallowness.  I  want  to  let  it  all  pass  from  my  mind 
for  ever  :  to  know  that  I  needn't  ever  reproach  myself  any  more. 
I  think  I  have  learned  my  lesson  :  I  do  indeed.  Just  tell  me,  if 
you  can,  that  you  think  I  have  ! ' 

He  had  turned  himself  about  as  she  spoke,  and  now  instead  of 
sitting  he  knelt  by  her  side,  she  leaning  on  her  elbow  towards  him. 
In  the  humility  of  the  simple  words,  there  was  something  exquisite 
to  him,  they  flooded  his  heart  with  a  tender  protectiveness. 

'  Oh,  my  darling,  you  say  that  to  me  !  Indeed,  indeed,  I  never 
reproached  you.' 

Dora  was  still  grave. 

'  I  know  that,'  she  said,  '  but  I  reproached  myself.  How 
could  I  help  it  ?  But,  Claude,  the  sting  has  gone  out  of  my  self- 
reproach.  I  can't  help  it :  it  has.  You  have  to  tell  me,  if  you 
truly  can,  that  I  needn't  barb  it  again.' 

He  saw  she  wanted  the  direct  answer. 

4  You  need  not,'  he  said.  '  And  I  think  you  cannot.  You 
can't  make  an  old  bruise  ache  again  when  it  is  well.' 

4  Then  it  has  gone,'  she  said.  '  Pull  me  up,  dear,  with  those 
strong  hands.' 

He  raised  her  to  her  feet,  and  she  clung  to  him  a  moment. 

'  Oh,  Claude!  it  is  getting  near  the  best  time  of  all,'  she  said. 
'  Your  mother  once  told  me  that  to  bear  a  child  was  the  best  thing 
God  ever  thought  of  for  women.  Oh  dear !  and  she  was  so  funny 
at  tea.  Dad  said  something  about  a  foreman  he  had  discharged 
with  nine  children  and  another  coming,  and  she  pulled  him  up. 


THE   OSBORNES.  887 

How  beautifully  laughter  and  the  biggest  things  in  the  world  go 
together  !  They  don't  interfere  with  one  another  in  the  least.' 

'  Lord !  and  to  think  that  once  I  used  to  believe  you  weren't 
respectful  enough  to  Dad  and  her,'  said  he. 

'  And  you  were  quite  right.  I  can  laugh  at  them  now  I  love 
them.  It's  that  which  makes  the  difference.' 

She  strolled  to  the  window. 

'  Let's  come  out  on  the  balcony  for  a  little,'  she  said.  '  What 
an  evening  !  ' 

The  sun  had  set,  but  not  long,  and  in  the  west  a  flash  of  molten 
red  lay  along  the  horizon.  That  melted  into  orange,  which  again 
faded  into  pale  green.  Higher  up  the  sky  was  of  velvet  blue,  and 
little  wisps  of  feathery  cloud  flushed  with  rose  colour  were  flecked 
over  it.  The  stars  were  already  lit,  and  some  noble  planet  near 
to  its  setting  flamed  jewel-like  in  that  green  strip  of  sky.  Akeady 
the  colours  were  half  withdrawn  from  the  garden-beds,  but  a  hint 
of  the  flower  presences  came  to  them  in  the  little  fragrant  breeze 
that  fluttered  moth-like  in  the  stillness.  Beyond  lay  the  lake, 
screened  from  the  glory  of  sunset  by  the  tall  clumps  of  rhododendrons 
on  its  far  side,  and  in  the  shadow  the  water  was  dark  and  steel-like 
in  tone.  Birds  still  chuckled  in  the  bushes,  and  from  far  away 
came  the  pulse  of  some  hurrying  train.  And  in  the  hush  and  quiet 
of  the  hour  they  spoke  together  of  the  dear  event  that  was  coming 
and  would  not  be  long  delayed. 

1  So  I  wanted,'  she  said  at  last, '  to  clear  everything  off  my  mind 
which  could  make  me  look  backwards.  I  want  nothing  to  exist 
for  me  except  you  and  our  love  for  each  other.  Even  Dad  and 
mother  must  get  a  little  dim.  I  can't  explain.' 

'  I  think  I  understand  very  well,'  said  he. 

'  And  you  won't  be  frightened  for  me,  Claude  ?  '  she  asked. 
'  Yet  I  needn't  ask  you.  I  saw  what  you  were  when  Mother  was 
ill.' 

He  did  not  answer. 

'  What  then,  dear  ?  '  asked  Dora. 

'  Well,  it's  you,  you  see,  now,'  he  said.  '  I  can't  help  it.  But 
I'll  do  my  best.' 

A  week  more  passed  quietly  enough.  Lady  Austell  arrived, 
and  that  somehow  was  the  last  straw  for  Uncle  Alf ,  for  she  was  so 
extraordinarily  appropriate,  and  he  persuaded  Jim  to  come  back 
to  Richmond  with  him.  Lady  Austell  had  very  thoughtfully  let 


888  THE    OSBORNES. 

the  house  at  Deal  most  advantageously  for  the  whole  month  "of 
September,  and  intended  to  have  a  nice  long  stay  at  Grote.  Really 
it  was  quite  too  wonderful  that  Dora's  baby  should  be  born  at 
Grote.  It  was  a  clear  case  of  special  Providence. 

Then  came  a  day  when  the  house  was  very  still,  and  the  hot 
hours  passed  with  leaden  foot.  To  Claude  it  seemed  that  the 
morning  would  never  pass  to  noon,  and  when  noon  was  over  each 
hour  the  more  seemed  an  eternity  twice-told.  But  just  before 
sunset  there  was  heard  the  cry  of  a  child. 

Later,  he  was  allowed  to  see  Dora  for  a  moment,  and  in  a  cot 
by  her  bed,  tiny  and  red  and  crumpled,  lay  that  which  had  come 
into  the  world. 

1  Oh  Claude ! '  she  said  softly,  as  he  came  up  to  her  bed, '  all  three 
of  us — you  and  your  son  and  I.' 


»>n 


THE   END. 


The  Cornhill  magazine 


C76 
v.100 


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